How to Get Played on Commercial Radio

Despite what some will tell you, especially radio pluggers, there is no dark art to getting played on commercial radio. You simply have to be good enough (musically speaking), offer the full package and most importantly deliver your music in the right format to the right people!

So here is what you do…

1 Decide on what genre you are a looking for and do a search on Google ie “active rock radio stations USA list” . One of the first results is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Active_rock_radio_stations_in_the_United_States

Click on the 2nd station listed KATS – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KATS – On the bottom of that page, you will find “External Links”, one of which is for the KATS website. If you go to their website and look on the contact page you will find a bunch of contacts. Ultimately you are trying to reach the “Music Director” or the “Program Director”. If they are not listed, just phone or email the station and ask who the Music Director is and also ask for his email address. I would honestly say over 50% of the people you are looking for will be right their on the stations websites.

How To Market Music HINT – If there is no obvious contact button on any radio stations website, then scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen and usually you will find a tiny “contact” link amongst all the corporate stuff! 

So obviously this is not going to be a five minute job, but this is all about results. So you need to build yourself a nice long list of say the top 50 or 100 stations in your genre.

2. It’s time to get emailing…..and this is how you want to send out your track for “consideration for airplay”

Label / Company Logo Looks way better if your request “appears to be sent from a third party Introduction Track / Artist Name & ISRC number Link to where the MP3 can be streamed Link to where the MP3 can be downloaded (drop box) Link to where the WAV can be streamed Link to where the WAV can be downloaded (drop box) Thanks It never hurts to be courteous. Artwork for the Single   You’ll also notice down the far side of the email we show images, These are just additional hype / selling points of achievements the band have secured.   Next is more general information on the band Links to the video for the single if you have one. Links to previous videos            Again more thanks! Then a final whose who of everything the station “may” need Band, Label, Booking Agent, Link to full Bio         In The Media These are quotes / reviews about the band in general.

Arguably the bottom half is not “that” necessary, but the “musts” are….

• Artist Name
• Track Name
• ISRC Number
• Links to download of track as MP3 and WAV
• Links to stream of track as MP3 and WAV

Does this guarantee you airplay? Of course not, but it will MASSIVELY increase the chances that you will be considered and once again, using this exact method / layout, we have secured airplay on commercial stations all over the world.

Finally, maybe 2 weeks after sending out this email, you should send up a single follow up to see if they did take the track for airplay.

How To Market Music HINT – It’s also worth following DJs and programmers from Radio Stations on Twitter and FB. Over time you can interact with them, RT them, comment on their posts etc. Ultimately things like this can get you on to a persons radar in advance of you sending a track to them, which is of course, a huge plus! 

Good Luck

– The How To Market Music Team