This was supposed to be one of those short snappy posts that was concise and to the point. Instead, and this happens all the time, I continued to research as I was writing and the post grew into another lengthy monster. Hey, I’m the editor so I guess its OK.

Anyway I was looking around for radio resources and stations that play independent music and associated resources and as usual the post kept expanding.

I write using Live Writer (which plugs into my Wordpress install), pulling notes in from Google Notebook at the same time as having a bunch of web pages open with my RSS reader running in the system tray. Input crazy.

I’ve concentrated mainly on terrestrial radio but I’ve also included a bunch of streaming resources. I came to the conclusion that anyone with a little time on their hands could put together a respectable mailing list for a radio ‘campaign’ with a little creativity.

I’ve also focused on the USA (where I live now) and the UK (where I’m from). I’ll probably extend things to Asia, Europe and the ROTW in a later post.

Where To Start?

Some tips from UK recording artist and radio DJ Tom Robinson first who has one of the best articles I’ve seen for a while on getting radio play. How To Send CDs To Radio. Its written from a UK perspective but the basics apply anywhere.

Sending CDs into radio stations can be a lottery and if you’re a DiY artist its important to get your presentation right. Remember there will be a pile of music waiting to be heard and you will be competing against major labels with big promotion budgets and indie labels using the services of record pluggers/promoters.

Anything that looks like it comes from a record company tends to get priority over homemade discs and packaging because the music is more likely to be of a certain standard. But, remember whether or not your record gets played depends on what it sounds like. Not what it looks like. When a record doesn’t sound right for a particular station, no amount of fancy packaging or expensive promotion will get it on the playlist.

And further tips from renown Seattle based college radio station KEXP and DJ John Richards who has a stack of useful tips for artists on what to send-who to send it to-what to do next and national promotion. You can pretty much use John’s outlines as a blueprint for the majority of college radio stations.

Tellingly both Tom and John advise against bombarding stations with random emails with MP3 attachments and links to your MySpace streams.

John says, “ Sending a DJ a link to your Myspace page to listen to your song seems like a great and easy way for them to hear your music and for you to get the word out and I agree it is! But right now in my Myspace Inbox I have at least 400 bands asking me to do that.”

If your release is a digital only release (as is often the case now) Tom advises: “If you go this route  then the only physical copies you’ll then need are the CD-R promos you send out to radio & press. Nonetheless you still might want to invest in a print run of card sleeves with nice artwork and print up CD-Rs to put inside them. These will look classy enough not only for promo purposes – but also to sell at gigs: a vital source of alternative income for a working artist or band.”

There’s an excellent source of radio promotion articles from Bryan Farrish here.

Hunting Down Those Radio Stations USA

I’ve seen people selling radio lists online for a bunch of $$$ but really you’re better off doing the legwork yourself to target the right radio stations/shows for your particular niche instead of paying for some random shopping list of stations.

Starpolish have a great and comprehensive list of USA college radio stations listed by State. Its a huge list too with nearly 250 stations listed for New York state alone. Though there’s not much detail except a link to each stations website so it does mean sifting through a lot of links. It does mean however that at the end of your research you’ll have an ultra-niche targeted mailing list of radio DJs right?

Wikipedia have an expanding college radio listing (by city) which includes the UK, the USA and some stations from the ROTW.

Another pretty mind boggling resource is the Radio Locator run by MIT which lists an astonishing 10,000 plus stations. Searchable by US. city or zip, genre’s (for streaming stations) and by country. If you’re based in the USA this would be an invaluable tool for planning out a radio publicity ‘blitz’ to coincide with a tour town by town for instance.

An excellent shortcut (or companion) is to grab a copy of David Wimble’s essential Indie Bible which is now into its 10th edition and has an extensive list of radio stations (close to 4000). If you’re setting out on a DiY music promo journey and don’t know where to start, here’s the answer.

Hunting Down Those Radio Stations UK

Media UK have a comprehensive A to Z database of all  UK radio stations that lists contact addresses of each station, streams and web links.

Radio Now is another website with comprehensive info on UK radio stations, which is usefully split into regional sections.

UK Alternative Radio. Key Stations

XFM Uploaded is a show from Radio XFM for unsigned bands. Xfm built its reputation on playing a wide range of alternative music, particularly indie, hip-hop, rock and a wide range of dance music, though now focuses primarily upon commercially successful indie.

UK national music mag NME has its own radio show broadcasting online and via satellite.  TV station Channel 4 now boast a radio station and shows include one by Tom Ravenscroft, son of the late great John Peel and one for unsigned bands, 4Unsigned.

BBC Radio have several shows for new music under the ‘Introducing’ banner. Most of the Beebs DJ’s have Twitter profiles too, use Twitter search to find the ones you want to connect with.

Steve Lamacq is one of BBC Radio One’s   key alternative music DJ’s and nowadays these people are easier to approach with MySpace profiles and unsigned bands outlets.

Steve prefers CDs to MP3s and gives his mailing address (for his nationally aired show) though does promise to try and get to your online music. “I’ll still be listening to as much music as possible through your website links. But bear in mind there’s only me involved in this caper, not a huge team of people so it sometimes takes a while for me to catch up.”

There’s a BBC Radio 1 page for the stations Indie/Rock shows and likewise one for the dance show DJs, experimental music shows and the hip-hop/RnB shows. If you’re not from the UK you can listen to the shows via Real Audio online worldwide. The station is nationwide and advert free.

And there’s a listing of UK student radio network stations at Wikipedia, which seems to be the only place with such a listing right now.

Final Word

When sending out promos to radio it’s vital to target only appropriate shows and stations – there’s no point sending jazz gospel to a heavy metal show.

Find radio stations that look OK and go through the station playlists, check the individual tracklistings – listen through to shows that might play music like yours, work out their different tastes and quirks. Make contacts, follow up, ask advice.

Related Reading

BBC-6 Music Introducing (BBC Radio)
Radio Promotion (Starpolish.com)
Radio Online (USA) (Radio-Online.com)
FMQB – Radio Industry News (FMQB.com)
100 Free & Affordable High & Low Tech Music Promotion Tips (Hypebot)
One Music-All You Need To Make It In Music (BBC Radio 1)
How To Send Cds To Radio (Tom Robinson)
One Music How To Guides (BBC Radio 1)
Indie Contact Newsletter (BigMeteor.com)
Chasing Radio Airplay (Starpolish.com)
How To Get Airplay (Vocalist.org.uk)
Song/Album Promotion Articles (Bryan Farrish)
KEXP Seattle: Getting Airplay (KEXP)
UK Student Radio Association Stations (Wikipedia)
Should You Join The MCPS (BBC Radio 1)
How To..Performing Rights Society (BBC Radio 1)