To some, radio may seem like something of a dying art. You might think the age of Spotify and Apple music has somewhat belittled the need for radio. But in fact, Absolute Radio still pulls in a staggering 2,229,000 listeners per week. However you see it, having an additional platform for your music to be played on is never going to be a bad thing.
In a recent episode of Blossoms band’s very own podcast, Blossoms Pubcast, the Stockport indie band revealed the process of having your music heard on live radio.
It all begins with being signed to a label. Of course this is a massive step to take. But don’t switch off just yet. If you aren’t signed, it is possible to employ an external radio plugger.
Record labels have teams of people with assigned roles. It is the job of the radio plugger to approach stations and try to get your music played. Pluggers will be known to stations which dramatically shortens the process of getting a meeting with a radio station.
Radio stations have plugging rooms where presenters’ teams sit and discuss with pluggers which artists will make that station’s playlist.
Tom Ogden, frontman of Blossoms said in the podcast: “A radio plugger can’t work miracles in terms of just walking in and getting your song on the radio.
“When you are signed to a label, say you are signed to the same label as Taylor Swift for example, walking in with the new Taylor Swift song, that song is going to walk onto the radio because of the high profile name.
“But what I think they do for new acts, they might try and use a bit of leverage. ‘We’ll give you the exclusive Taylor Swift play, to play Blossoms.’”
Tom continued: “Radio one is A-list, B-list, C-list. So usually you enter on the C-list… there’s like ten tracks per letter.”
There is a priority based system in place in terms of the number of plays songs from each list get.
Tom revealed Radio X has a different system where they have two playlists on rotation, daytime and evening. “They’ll have ten or eleven songs in the daytime which get heavy rotation. Then the evening list is more like late night, deeper cuts from not as big artists.”
So the pool of songs is not very big, and the odds are not incredibly favourable towards small artists. But the number of listeners proves what a big opportunity getting on the radio is.
Is it still worth pursuing? It is up to you to decide. Hiring a radio plugger is definitely a risk, but the pay-off could potentially be huge. Feedback says maybe.
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