Radio play - waste of time ?

chopper wrote: siLLy puPPy wrote: Just one quick example. A friend of mine who is in a rather famous cult metal band had one track heard on Internet radio. That exposure heard by someone famous resulted in being on a video game which earns the band a few thousand a month in royalties that never would have happened without the exposure.   So it's down to luck, or maybe just nobody likes your music?   I'm still waiting for someone to discover my old band's music on the Internet.

(Hint for slow readers - the squiggly mark at the end of the post title means that this ia a question, ie. other experience may occur and is equally valid, but if you've not tried doing this, your comments are not valid and it's a case of "opinion over knowledge". ) 

Well, let's face it, it's easy say "Oh, I've got a famous friend and this happened to him." 

It's also to easy to assume that sending your music everywhere will produce radio play (probably will) and that getting it played on decent stations is a good idea (fairly self evident one, though) - it is a bit hammer-headed to assume that enough play WILL produce results and that "marketing isn't always right". 

It's also very easy to assume things will work when you've not done them.

As I think I mentioned, I've been in Marketing for 11 years and do this professionally, albeit with software. We use a lot of analytic tools as there's no point sending out marketing e-mails and then not looking at who opens or reads them (simplification there). 

I am (was) a prog rock musician on the "esoteric" end of the scale. I did choose my audience pretty carefully, when I wasn't getting ripped off by student radio stations. As I think I mentioned, the results from being played on radio are pretty poor. Marketing nowadays is designed to measure click throughs and site visits and those didn't increase as a result of radio play - not measurably, anyway. You'd expect some kind of peak, never happened. 

So the question is "did I choose the wrong stations or was the music wrong ? " - well, my albums here rarely score less than four stars, so let's assume the music is OK. Radio stations I chose were mainly established prog rock ones. Different countries. 

So, what's happening ? 

My experience (and it will vary with other people) is that listeners tend to just browse music now. There's no great depth of interest and a large number of bands out there. Most are rubbish, but Joe Public doesn't have enough knowledge to separate the wheat from the chaff. So good bands and musicians get lost in a sea of anodyne rubbish. 

And I think most people are streaming now and not bothering with internet or conventional radio, to be honest. 

If anyone's had any success with radio play, I'd be delighted to hear it. 

As for those who are expressing an opinion without having tried it - and properly measured the results - "opinion versus knowledge". 

Edited by Davesax1965 - August 13 2017 at 03:55

There's also the factor that not all radio stations are equal - online stations playing literally any free music they can find aren't going to be as helpful as say, an over the air radio station in a big city that plays similar music (although, as a prog band that can be difficult - that being said there are prog rock shows around). "Radio" is such a broad term these days that it's not very useful to analyze it unless you're specific about what kind of radio station gave you what kind of results.

^ of course radio play doesn't mean squat if your music sucks or if you're creating something so esoteric that the audience won't get it. But having airplay where many individuals can hear a given piece of music that they wouldn't have heard otherwise cannot be a bad thing. And how can you look at someone else's site visits and sales? Are you talking about your own only? 

How can anyone deny radio play helps artists? Is it absoutely necessary? Not. Can it be a catalyst to great exposure? Definately. Depends on the music of course but i've acquired a lot of interesting music from internet radio (forget traditional AM/FM these days with the exception of college stations and listener supported / non-corporate entities)

Davesax1965 wrote: A free sample played as space filler on a student radio station inbetween rap and chip shop tracks is, actually, a waste of time. My day job is sales and marketing, by the way. ;-)

You keep saying "waste of time", but I'm curious in the number of minutes/hours/days that you're wasting by trying to get your music on those stations.

You can't possibly waste time if you haven't spent it. Or if I decide to play your music on my radio station, am I just wasting my time?

Hi,

But. 

We now live in an age where style is valued above content. There are a few people who will invest time and effort into listening to complicated, ambitious, different music. But the vast majority don't want that, they want musical wallpaper, something simple to understand which is just ... mental chewing gum. 

Audiences have changed since the 60's and 70's. As has the world. So you'll never get a mass audience now. And the whole musical machine operates against you as it's become a numbers game. Really, music is not about music, it's about a few people getting rich by manipulating the system. So only mass market music which can make a few people a lot of money will ever get marketed and hence listened to. 

I've heard so many times on here that people support prog rock by buying CDs and downloads and supporting musicians: they don't. Perhaps one in a hundred fans - sorry, "fans" will download and pay for music off a site like Bandcamp. Most just use it as a free streaming site. 

That's why radio play for prog rock groups is a waste of time. It doesn't generate sales. No money or appreciation coming in, bands fold. It's critically needed for small, specialised bands. Now you have to run a band and spend all your time marketing it, and there are only so many hours in the day.  

Very true. 

I will say I think the sound of a recording is absolutely key to getting attention; a high-quality or, even more importantly, unique studio sound will get more attention than a great song with a medium production.