This is probably going to be geared more towards the artist approach versus a songwriter approach. so if you’re strictly a songwriter in this, this would be sort of the process that your song would go through after it has been cut. It’s been marketed to radio from an artist’s perspective, this, this would be how the, the music selection process works at most radio stations. So, terrestrial radio in the us, which just the over the air radio, satellite radio is very, is different.
Online, radio is different, but the, you know, what people would refer to as radio in the U.S. for all, for these purposes, I’ll refer to as terrestrial radio. So there’s no confusion. terrestrial radio primarily relies on music that is being heavily being promoted by a major record label.
So majority of the terrestrial radio stations that are going through and listening to music to potentially put on their radio station is, from an artist signed to a record, signed to a record label, that record label’s, promotion, radio promotion team is actively pushing a single at radio and trying to get that radio played. what ends up happening is, at most places, the, the radio programmer will set, have a set time where he will take music calls as they call ’em, where the record labels call and make their pitch for their song.
And then they take that info and the music, and then they go into a music meeting of some sort made up of, typically, of some of sometimes the air staff, mainly the programming staff. if there is a programming staff these days, oftentimes it’s just the program director. and a lot of everything is else is piped in, or, recorded outta market or done by people that, aren’t in the radio, aren’t actually at the radio station.
and they go through and they, will listen to the music and try to find the song that fits their radio station the best. radio, the, there’s a, a finite number of songs that a radio station really has on their playlist week to week. And that varies from radio station to radio station.) So you may have a,) a radio station with a large playlist that may play 35 or 40 songs, and you may have a radio station, in that same format, in that same market that plays far fewer songs.
And so what ends up happening, more often than not, a song is added into rotation, and then that song go) lives, its lives its cycle, and) with terrestrial radio, more often than not, that cycle is dictated by the record label. their goal is obviously to work that song and have that song make it all the way to number one on the, prospective charts, whether it be media based billboard or what have you.
And then once that happens, then that song is done, and) then it moves into a different category and that a slot opens up on that channel or that radio station’s playlist for something to take its place. if the song doesn’t reach, number one, the record labels will sometimes say, Hey, you know, we’re moving on from this song. And again, that radio programmer would then take that song out and then have a slot opened up.
so, and, and the rotations are built, built around. There’s a lot of math involved. It was not prepared for the math to be in science to be involved in radio. I thought it was mu, oh, it’s music. How do you pick songs playing, how it gonna be? but rotations are based on, how many songs you’re able to play per hour, per day, per week, and the rotation, how often you want those songs to spin and everything else. So the, there’s a finite number of songs at any given point that a radio station will be playing, especially new songs or currents, as we call ’em.
It’s Sirius xm, it’s a little bit different. So that’s sort of how it works at Terrestrial Radio. at Sirius SiriusXM, it’s a little bit different, because we believe that there is still, and it’s proven, it’s proven itself to be true and has been for years, but, that there is still a desire for new music and music discovery, and people want to discover new music and new artists and new songs, at a faster rate.
I often joke and say that, you know, the average person wants the newest clothes, the newest car, the newest house, the newest phone, the newest computer, the newest technology, the newest everything. And, but yet radio would sit there and tell you, but they only want to hear old, familiar music. And, we have just, I just fundamentally disagree with that.
And, and so my job, except from the country music standpoint, has been to try to stay in lockstep with the audience as best as I can. radio and Nashville music business would tell you that, SiriusXM is way ahead on everything. And I would venture to say that we’re not, we’re actually at our, on our best day, sort of in lockstep with the audience and much closer than say, terrestrial radio.
But I don’t think we are, I don’t think we’re, I don’t think we’re ahead. so how do, so how do I do it? So from a discovery standpoint, because we’re trying to find the newest of the new and the things that are, blowing up. we use different resources. I’m not, I don’t wait on a record label to come to me with a new project.
Sometimes it happens, but I don’t wait for that. So I’m looking for the newest of the new and the, the best songs that are out there, no matter who has it. So I use different resources to find the music that we do. the, all the d the spot, like the DSPs, the spot, Spotify’s, Pandora, apple, Amazon, YouTube, SoundCloud, TikTok, especially now, I’m looking at trying to do,) trying to find as, from all the different resources available, the best song that’s out there.
And I use, there’s a, there’s an online program called an online, service called Chart Metric. that’s a great resource ’cause it compiles all of the data into one place and lets me see things that are bubbling under things that are getting attention. And so, and I’ve discovered a lot, I’ve discovered a handful of artists that way.
we’ve at SiriusXM, our audiences at a level to where we’re, when often we’re able to jump out on something that started, we have the potentially to launch careers and have been a part of that for a number of artists in the country format especially, but also in the pop world and, hip hop and r and b and rock and everything else. So it’s, it’s like old school radio for me.
It’s exciting. one of the things that I look for is, consumption. And I think that right now, I would say is probably the most valuable, the most valuable metric data point that you can have on a song, because it means, I always believe people vote with their pocketbooks. And if people are going outta their way to consume your music, your wedding, and then it’s just about scale at that point.
But it’s, you know, get people consuming their music, get people, like I look for people, songs that are downloading, well, songs that are streaming, well, songs that are being shared. songs are the music clips that are used in social media videos and all of it, just the overall consumption of us. So that’s where the story really starts to build. And so, and that’s one of the things that we look for and try to try to jump on early.
And because, but with that, like I was saying before, we’re not creating the story, the fans and the demand for the music is creating the story. We are just adding that fuel to the fire and helping to scale it …..
Getting songs on the air, How to be heard, Building a fanbase followers and listeners, United States Radio, Global Radio positions, How to get chosen for radio playlists, Playlisting songs, Nashville and Country music, Music business and radio host scene, Musician royalties, Air play of songs, PROs, Performing rights organisations for creative rights, Major label artists, BBC Introducing United Kingdom, Radio music charts, How to get listed or chosen for radio rotation, Do radio station teams search artists?, Local radio, Terrestrial radio, Online only radio, All music genres, Genre specific, Featuring artists
