8 Tips To Getting Played On College Radio

Hypebot recently ran a great article by David Roberts and EricTheReDD about how to get your music played on college. David is the founder of the Sunshine Promotion company while Eric is the former general manager of WJSC-FM of Johnson State College, Vermont. While you can read the entire interview of the Hypebot website, I thought I'd distill the main points here.

1. Make sure that the title track has the ability to "wow." If that track sucks, it's tough to take the rest of the album seriously.

2. Send a pressed CD that's professionally packaged. CDR's don't cut it. In fact, send two; one for the music vault and one for a possible giveaway. Remember, the liner notes will be read, so take care in crafting them.

3. Make sure the songs are registered with Gracenote and have the proper ID3 tags attached so the info doesn't have to be input manually when transferred to the digital library. No Gracenote information may be enough to keep your songs from getting played.

4. Make sure you send a short press kit. Short is the operative word, keeping it to only a page about who you are and what's on the disc.

5. Address your package to the music director. He will assign it to the appropriate DJ. Do not send to the program director, as he's in charge of scheduling and is too busy to deal with music. If you have the DJ's name that deals with your genre, it's okay to send it to him to directly.

6. A short personal note can go a long way. Something like, "Hey WJSC, thanks for the airplay" can get you extra attention.

7. Call the request line or the DJ and ask them to play your song. It really works and might even land you an on-air interview.

8. Don't take the shrink wrap off the package. If the CD gets smashed in transit by the post office, the disc stands a better chance of being playable, and there's less cleanup involved for the station.

Remember that these tips come directly from someone on the front lines of college radio. They're pretty simple, and can make the difference between getting played or not.

College Radio On The Brink

For many years, college radio has been the beacon of hope shining brightly across the wasteland that is commercial radio. As radio has become more and more homogenized thanks to group ownership and consultant-led playlists (see my past posts entitled Why Traditional Radio Is No Longer A Factor and Online Radio's Takeover), the only place for indie acts to break has been the local college radio station.

But now college radio sadly faces extinction as more and more colleges either close them down or sell them off. This is due to a number of reasons:

1) Fewer on-campus listeners. Students just don't listen to radio anymore, opting to discover their music online. Ironically, most of a college radio's listenership is off-campus. That being said, the college broadcast courses will remain in place as university radio stations move to the Web.

2) Budgetary shortfalls. Thanks to the recession, college administrators everywhere are faced with the prospect of making cuts, and frequently the first item to get the axe is the radio station, especially if it can be sold off.

Realistically though, college radio had been infiltrated by big business more than a decade ago after record labels discovered that it was the last bastion of open playlists. That being said, at least the consultants (the reason for crappy radio, in my opinion) have been kept out of it, hence the continuing local flavor that each remaining station maintains.

Just like the music business, radio isn't what it once was and probably never will be again. In the end, it probably won't matter much if college radio ceases to exist. It's a new age, so the sooner we let the new wave of communications wash over us, the better.

Check out a great article on college radio from a recent New York Times.

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