Nowadays, there are much better ways to promote your music than radio.

I was reading Joe Taylor Jr's SpinMe.Com blog and a post titled "KZLA Format Change: 'We Work For Our Advertisers'" caught my eye. It confirmed what I had thought all along about radio.

Radio doesn't exist for the music anymore.

Well, let me rephrase that. Commercial radio doesn't exist for the music anymore.

Joe Taylor Jr says in this article that there are far better ways to focus your music marketing energies than trying to get onto commercial radio. He details a brief history of the change that took place in radio from trying to break new music to being a listener trap for advertisers.

He also backs this up with some proof in the form of a quote or two from an interview with the manager of KZLA in Los Angeles (hence the title of the SpinMe.Com article").

Reading the post reminded me of a conversation that I was part of in a music conference being held in my hometown of Adelaide in which a prominant radio program director after a seminar on "getting your music onto radio" casually mentioned (supposedly 'off the record') that:

"If we (the radio station) could make money broadcasting a live telecast of grass growing or paint drying, we would do it"

This to me reflects very clearly a commercial radio stations attitude towards its reason to exist

However, in fairness to this particular program director the above quote was in response to a torrent of abusive questions that were being hurled at him by disgruntled musicians who obviously thought that their music was worthy of being played on his radio station.

Considering the abuse he was getting I'm surprised that the above quote was all that he said on the matter.

In Australia we have a government funded youth radio network call Triple J. Because ratings are not an issue the programming of this network is very much more liberal than their commercial counterparts. The amazing thing is that if an act start getting high rotation on Triple J then commercial radio will pick up the act and run with it.

Some commercial radio networks such as Nova have a specific initiative called Homebrew built into its schedule that allows bands to submit radio quality music in the hope that it will be put into their playlist.

The main radio champions of independent music in Australia are the community radio stations. If you are going to promote your music via radio then check out community and non-commercial radio both online and offline.

IMHO, radio airplay should be looked at a music marketing strategy not the music marketing strategy for any indie music artist or band.

You can check out the article "KZLA Format Change: We Work For Our Advertisers" here.

Until next time,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Indie Musician
www.coreystewartonline.com
www.soultradermusic.com

Check out my other blogs while you're at it
Corey Stewart Songwriting Tips
Recording Studio & Live Music Tips

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Keywords: indie music, independent music, music marketing, music business, music industry, music band, music artist, corey stewart