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:
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.
shaunfan said:
Shaun, I’m in sales and marketing and yes what you describe happens in every industry. I think exceptions happen once in awhile especially in secular music with the advent of UTube. For example, OK GO had 10 million views of “Here It Goes Again” last year. And I sent you the No More Kings “Sweep the Leg” video and they’re independent.
As for labels with money getting all the radio airplay that fits in with the compilations with all the same artists every year. X 2007, WoW 2007 and OSeven are all great samplers for people wanting to hear a new artist and the new artists featured every year are all from the 3 labels you named. I didn’t buy any of the CD’s mentioned this year because there were no new artists I didn’t already have. I wish compilation CD’s were truly the best of the year which is why my favorite compilation CD is Grammy Nominees 2007 (other than Dixie Chicks) and I don’t know what happened to the Dove Award Nominees CD’s as ideally at least the 5 new artists nominated would be featured.
How did your Gospel Music Association meeting about how to award independents go, by the way? That’s probably the best route for non-major label artists to get exposure at this point. Or, write the next “My Savior, My God”. That song took 18 months to get discovered and now look at the anticipation of the next Aaron Shust CD.
euphrony said:
It sure sounds like payola to me. The mainstream stations have been hit with fines for modern payola schemes recently, so it’s not just a thing of the 1950’s.
I’ve been going through a review of required legal training regarding bribes at work. It is interesting to be reminded that according to the U.S. government there are legal bribes. However, my companies’ (and many others) set higher standards. Every single example you listed, Shaun, would get me or anyone else at my company fired. No matter how the trip or game tickets or whatever was couched, it would be deemed unethical and I would be out of a job. I suspect that it would not be so easy for these labels and stations to explain away these practices in a court.
All that being said, I’m not that surprised.
Shaun Groves said:
It’s not payola, technically. There’s no agreement to exchange play for cash or gifts.
And how can a person prove that a trip to see a musician shoot a video correlated to that musician getting played? It’s impossible to prove. And I’m not sure it’s worth attempting to.
We all help those who help us. We all do this. It’s not wrong to do so. But it is silly to leave this out when describing the song selection process. All I can figure is that stations truly don’t think they’re being affected by such tactics, that they truly don’t consider these “gifts” as part of their thinking process. And maybe they’re right. Maybe they can tell a label “no” even after that label courts them heavily and gives them giveaways that increase their audience size. Maybe. I know myself though. I know that if you link to me, I link back. If you scratch me, I scratch back. I also help those who’ll never know I did, but, I almost always pay back a gift in kind.
euphrony said:
I’m just commenting from an outsiders view of what is going on. To my eyes, it looks fishy. I would agree that, in a criminal case, it would be hard to prove some kind of collusion. But a civil case, where swaying the opinion of the jury can weigh as heavily as the facts, they could have trouble. I’m not advocating legal action, just commenting.
The reason I would get fired from my company for similar practices, be they legal or illegal, is because it presents the appearance of wrong-doing. If my company, whose stated goal is to make money and could care less about Christ or righteousness, can heed Paul’s words to the Thessalonians to abstain from even the appearance of sin, then should not those presenting Christ to the world? Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote “Scandal is fittingly defined as being something less rightly said or done that occasions spiritual downfall.” In other words, if it can be done better, to seem less scandalous/illegal/sinful, then do so.
You’re right, Shaun, that we still live in a barter society; we all gladly return the favor someone has given to us. And that’s most definately not a bad thing. This is why some scientists argue that there is no such thing as pure altruism - helping someone else often seems to come back around, one way or another, to helping ourselves. From what I understand, (not a ton, but more than none) where the recently fined payole stations went wrong was that they played a label’s songs for a fee to up the spins. I’ve heard that better disclosure of the label’s monetary sponsoring would have kept the action legal.
Ultimately, it comes down to that. Disclosure. Openness. Being forthright about your dealings, the way you conduct your business or your life, may reveal some kind of sin but also the ernestness of your pursuit of righteousness.
Not trying to rant, and I’m not all that angry. Just would like to see things done better, and offering my comments with the perspective of what my company would do.
shaunfan said:
Shaun, so based on this practice, should we try to predict who will win Dove Awards on Wednesday night (4/25)? Most deserving? Most marketed? Biggest label? I’ll give my 2 cents.
Song of the Year
Should Win - “My Savior My God"-indie orginally
Will Win - “Made to Worship” or “Cry Out to Jesus"-bigger labels and names
Songwriter
Should Win - Aaron Shust
Will Win - Mark Hall or Mac Powell, but might make it up to Aaron here although I’m still reeling from your loss in this category.
Male Vocalist
Should Win - Aaron Shust (see a pattern, I think he’s this year’s Shaun)
Will Win - Tomlin or Mark Hall (3 million CD sales can’t be wrong)
I’ll summarize the next 3 categories: Female - predict St. James (deserving)
Group - predict Jars of Clay (deserving)
Artist - predict Tomlin (not deserving). This category is frustrating, where’s Downhere, Leeland and Sanctus Real? All are deserving.
New Artist - tricky one here, Should be Aaron Shust or Leeland, depends on how many other awards they get. Leeland has 3 other song nominations, Shust also has 3 song nominations (2 against Leeland), so they will probably split but bigger label goes to Leeland so we’ll see.
Anyway, I know these are contemporaries of yours Shaun but I’d love to at least know your preferences and I think you actually get to vote as a member, don’t you? Please let me know whatever you are at liberty to say as I really respect your musical opinion.
Thanks,
Kevin
shaunfan said:
Wow, I’m thrilled and a little bit surprised with the results last night! It’s not often the “Should Wins” actually win with predictions, but Aaron Shust managed to win Song, Songwriter and New Artist. Restores my faith in the system.
Unfortunately I was right about Artist-Tomlin and wrong about Group-Casting Crowns even though I felt Jars of Clay should have won Group and Leeland, Sanctus Real and Downhere should have at least been nominated for Group.
These categories are where CD sales came in, along with Female Artist going to Natalie Grant even though her CD has been out over 2 years now, should have been Rebecca St. James, her last CD is her best one yet.
Anyway, at least Jars of Clay won for Rock CD which they deserved. Now that the results are out, Shaun are you able to weigh in with your opinion?
Shaun Groves said:
Shaunfan, the Doves have nothing to do with album sales. They have everything do with which company the artist works for.
If a category has three EMI artists in it and one Provident artist in it (these are music “groups"") then the Provident guy will will. The three EMI artists will split the EMI employee vote.
Every employee votes or is voted on behalf of by someone at the company. When I was an intern I had a vote. The company bought my membership so they could have my vote. And strongly suggested who I should vote for.
True, radio stations and retailers vote as well, but their votes rarely counter the weight of an entire corporation (EMI, WORD, PROVIDENT) voting in one direction.
When I was a new artist nominee there was a meeting at my parent company to decide who would get the company vote. My distribution deal with them was about to run out so they decided to ask employees to vote for the artist who had just signed a new distribution deal with them. Doves sell records and me winning one would not sell records for them but for the next company - the competition - I’d work for. That artist didn’t win though because not everyone at my parent company voted as told. that artist and I split that company’s vote.
EMI had only one artist in that category - ZOE Girl - and got behind them solidly. ZOE Girl won.
That’s how it works. It has very little to do with radio play, cd sales etc. It has everything to do with business.
shaunfan said:
Shaun, thanks for your comments. As I said, I respect your opinion. How did Aaron Shust win 3 awards then, based on this practice? Shouldn’t Leeland (Provident) have won or did Aaron Shust win on merit?
By the way, since ZoeGirl is done recording after 3 CD’s,
can they go back and change the award to you, like Marc Cohn over Milli Vanilli?
Anyway, I’m pretty happy since I compare Aaron Shust to you and it gives me faith that “little guys” can be awarded for their work (and heart).
What do you think about that? Do you agree or is this an anomaly?
Shaun Groves said:
I don’t know who distributes Aaron’s music. So I can’t tell you.
I also don’t know who else in the category was from Provident. I don’t keep up with artists and labels and whatnot these days. I’m not really in that world any more.
shaunfan said:
Shaun, it’s a label out of Atlanta called Brash who only signs independent artists and I don’t know how hard they pushed but they certainly don’t have the clout of Provident. Here is an article from cmcentral about the results and you’ll see he comments about the Dove awards process. http://www.cmcentral.com/news/6589.html
I’m encouraged that maybe this is the start of a better understanding about the industry and I thank you for all of your insight on this topic as I would love to see the industry improve as a result of open communication (and less swearing about you). I hope you feel better soon.
Kevin
Shaun Groves said:
The label doesn’t matter. That’s only a few votes (a couple dozen maybe for a small label). The distribution company is what I’m curious about.
If he’s through Provident Distribution, for instance, then the entire Provident Group (publishing, distribution, labels etc) COULD be asked to vote for him. That’s thousands of votes.
I know folks who were spammed about Shust and his accomplishments and voting for him. Someone’s doing that for him just like it’s done at larger labels. Sounds like a parent company thing. A publicist headed thing, Might not be. But sounds like it.
shaunfan said:
Okay, now I’m cynical again. Aaron is distributed by Word (along with Decemberadio), Leeland is Provident (along with Pocketful of Rocks) and Ayiesha Woods is EMI. So, I guess Word chose to push Aaron Shust over Decemberadio (who won an award for Rock CD) and the other 3 artists didn’t win anything. I own all 5 new artists, and regardless of marketing and distribution, I would have voted for Aaron Shust so at least the best won in my opinion (unlike most years).
EMI clearly pushed Tomlin, as he is mentioned on the EMI homepage.
Provident probably pushed Casting Crowns, Natalie Grant and Jars of Clay, who all won so unfortunately Leeland lost out to more established artists, which sounds painfully familiar I’m guessing.
Again, thanks for the education and by the way, Provident still lists you as one of their artists (last updated 2004). Keep the faith, I love music and am fascinated by this topic and your insight is very valuable.
More importantly my faith in Jesus is why I care so much about this industry as it helped bring me to my relationship with Him. I’ll be giving my testimony at my church soon and talking about how your songs “Welcome Home” and “Here I Am” have encouraged me. Thank you most of all for that.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Shaun Groves said:
I am still one of their artists because they distribute my first three albums and own a slice of the publishing on every one of those songs.
said:
Hey Shaun,
The music business is a jungle. I learned that a long time ago. Especially in the christian market.
The industry as a whole is changing drastically and fast.
I have a friend in the biz (producer, manager) and he said that record companies are really freaking out right now.
Anyway...hope to hear some new music from you soon.
Jimmy