How to Get Music on the Radio

Getting music on the radio can be a long and harrowing process. There are a lot of factors: your genre, your connections, your area and other concerns affect the result. However, you can be the best advocate for your music by knowing a little about how radio works and where to best distribute your tunes.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Record a good demo. You can't market your music without a demo. Demos work best with just three or four of your strongest songs. Get these songs into the best presentable format that you can. You don't want to just hand Djs burned discs. You want a demo that looks professional, something radio staff will want to keep in the station, and something that shows information about your band or group.
2. Get your demo to the right people. Lots of musicians hand discs to Djs and think they'll get on the air. You also need to touch base with the program director or whoever is making the overall playlist choices and/or station policies. Do callbacks if necessary and be relentless in getting the ear of the head honchos.
3. Distribute by genre. When you are contacting stations, make sure your music fits with their genre play, whether it's country, dance, hip-hop, rock or indie.
4. Find "open-air" stations. College radio stations are a prime example. At the outset, you are much more likely to get play on a college station than a mainstream corporate run station. Knowing which stations are more amenable to new demos will help you get better results.
5. Use connections. You might have an "in" with a particular station manager or someone associated with a radio station. This is going to be one of your best tools in getting radio play. As stations get bombarded with material, networking is critical in getting yours heard.