04.11.07 An Insider’s Look At Christian Radio Pt.7: How To Get Tested

Christianity Today’s recent articles on Christian radio couldn’t possibly have explained everthing about how radio works.  They didn’t have the space.  And, I suspect, they just didn’t know what I’m about to tell you.

They did a great job dissecting how songs are tested and why.  But what they didn’t reveal was how songs are chosen to be tested from the massive stack of discs program directors receive every week.  They can’t all be tested.  The process is farmed out to consultants who charge a pretty penny.  The more songs tested the prettier that penny gets.  And, contrary to popular belief, Christian radio stations are not cash cows.  So the field has to be whittled down to a few songs that will duke it out in the laboratory for coveted airplay.  How’s that happen?

I don’t know how every song is chosen at every station but here are some tactics used by labels to improve their music’s chances at some stations across the country.  These are actual stunts pulled by labels in the last seven years to get their songs tested and/or on the air:

A number of CHR radio folks are flown out to attend a World Series game with a new artist whose first single is going for adds soon after.  Free food.  Free hotel.  Free baseball.  Paid for by the label.

A number of AC radio folks are flown to Europe to watch the video shoot of a major artist with a single going for adds...with their wives.  They play golf, and tour the city, and sleep in a very nice hotel and eat for free.  Paid for by the label.

A number of Dell computers are given to reporting stations (stations whose playlists affect a songs charting position) around the end of the Summer for a back-to-school give away.

A well-known artist makes calls to program directors on behalf of a new artist label mate or friend (the known artist happens to benefit financially if the new guys does well).  He puts in a good word for the little guy and asks program directors to play the new guy’s song and, wow, the big guy winds up playing a show for a fence-sitting program director’s upcoming concert series for next to nothing.  The station makes money by lowering their cost dramatically and the new guy gets played.  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Now, none of this is illegal.  I’m not even claiming it’s unethical or wrong. It’s just how the game is played.  I think it helps knowing this. It helps my sefl-esteem anyway.  Some radio folks speak about song selection as if it’s a detached inhuman sterile process.  Insert single into player.  Listen to thirty seconds worth.  Chart the response by test subjects.  Repeat.  I’ve been told tat because of this process it doesn’t matter who I am, how much I’m liked, how much I’m not liked, what label I’m on etc.  All that matters is how well I test.  Bull.  What also matters is how much money my label has.

One radio friend of mine claims that while I’m right - this stuff does happen - it doesn’t actually work, it doesn’t get a song tested or played.  But I know how much it costs a label to wine and dine radio folks, to fly them places, buy them hotel rooms, send their stations expensive giveaway items.  And I know how precious every dollar in a marketing budget is to a label.  I therefore conclude that if spending money on such maneuvers didn’t pay off labels wouldn’t waste their time.  It must be working for somebody if else so many labels wouldn’t be engaged in these sorts of practices.  (Does that logic make sense to anyone besides me?)

Again, I’m not saying any of this is bad.  I’m not writing to criticize this reality of the radio world.  I’m just saying this part gets left out of the song selection process when it’s talked about in public.  It’s a secret both labels and radio stations benefit from, well, not lying about but just plain not talking about.  But it’s real.  And it does benefit certain kinds of artists more than others.

I believe that having lots of cash and the willingness to spend it is as important to the success of a label as good distribution, leadership, artist development and marketing genius.  You have to get played on the radio to sell records - especially if you can’t or won’t tour non-stop or cross-over into mainstream circles.  And to get played your label has to pay, and pay, and pay.  They have to buy you onto the radio station’s festival.  (Yea, our labels often pay for us to play on those.) They have to buy dinners, buy vacations, buy plane rides.  They have to buy influence.  They have to buy multiple radio promoters to bug program directors into testing your song.  It truly doesn’t matter how good your song is if your label doesn’t have the cash to shmooze radio stations into spinning it.

That obviously benefits artists on large labels (Sparrow, Word, Provident) and henders artists on independent small labels, many of whom are now out of business (Rocketown, Gotee, Squint, Flickr).

That’s NOT something worth getting upset about, at least I’m not upset about it, but it does explain part of why you hear what you do on your local radio station doesn’t it? The more influential the station in your hometown, the more likely they’re having money thrown at them and - if money throwing affects the pd’s song selection process - the less likely you are to hear a new artist from a small label.

Again, we listeners get more of the old standbys and less of the new.

But does “Becky” care?  That’s next time.