Indie Promoters Join Airplay Race
Edward Morris
March 02, 2009
Circumstances haven't quite reached the point that record labels have started outsourcing their radio promotion calls to India. Still, they are making wiser use of independent promotion in their efforts to bring new singles to radio.
Despite the proliferation of new media outlets, getting an artist's records played on radio remains the lifeblood of Country Music. The problem is not new: There are a lot more records than there is airtime. It's the promoter's duty to get an artist's music to the head of the line when stations add to their painfully short playlists.
Then, once the single has been added, it's up to the promoter to persuade the station to play it more often in the hope it will attain that golden No. 1 spot. A promoter has to repeat this process each week to programmers at every station on his or her list. Since most radio stations have a program or music director to help decide what to play, the question arises as to why promoters are also needed.
Jerry Duncan, President of Jerry Duncan Promotions, works primarily with independents to get their records played on radio stations in smaller markets. His efforts have helped Lofton Creek Records boost Heartland's "I Loved Her First" to the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart as well as elevate Tracy Lawrence's "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" to No. 1 on Billboard for Lawrence's own Rocky Comfort Records imprint. And based on that kind of experience, Duncan believes he can answer that question.
"Part of the responsibility of being a promoter," he explained, "is that you should have at your fingertips all the information that's available and relevant on that artist [whose record you're working]. We call a hundred or more radio stations a week, so we're hearing in real time from all the stations around the country how the record is doing. If it's playing in several other markets, we're going to hear personal feedback from that, and we can tell that in certain areas the record's getting a lot of phones, that it's the third most requested, say, at a certain station, or that it's testing well in other markets. Individual programmers are not going to sit down and be able to go through each record they're interested in and pull that up. It's our job to have it for them."
Kevin Herring, VP of National Promotion for Lyric Street Records, agrees. "I used to be a music director at a radio station before I became a record promotion person," he said. "You get a ton of product and sometimes you don't sort through all of it at the same time. It's good for us as promoters to be able to relay stories from other markets to these people. Maybe I'm a music director and I don't hear this record - I don't like it. So I, as a promotion person, will say, 'OK, you don't like this record and you haven't liked it for the last month - but let me tell you what's going on in Saginaw or Milwaukee or Columbus.' I'd say, 'This guy has played this record 30 times and this is what's going on. Here's what the sales have done and here's what the artist is doing.' Maybe this will give the guy some ammunition to go back and listen to the record with a different set of ears. There are all kinds of things going on out there that make it hard for any one programmer to know it all."
This is why Herring, even with an in-house promotion department at his disposal, will hire independent promoters. "Our company has very strict guidelines on how we can use independents," he explained. "Even when we do a radio promotion that doesn't involve independents, we do them very above-board. We have radio stations sign agreements that say the promotion is not being offered in exchange for airplay. Even so, if I was having trouble at a certain radio station where an independent had a great relationship, I might solicit help."
Taking advantage of opportunities to serve radio, artists and labels at the same time, CO5 Music runs a freestanding promotion operation, complete with regional representatives who can relieve smaller labels from the burden of maintaining in-house promotion departments. David Newmark, VP of Country Promotion at CO5, established the company's Country division in Nashville three years ago; along with Newmark, CO5 employs four regional representatives.
"We're basically the dedicated promotion department of the record label that hires us," Newmark said. "We provide everything that an in-house promotion department would. We average about four clients at any given time, so we can concentrate on the projects we're working on. We have conference calls with our clients every week, just like a major label does, to talk about targets and projections for the following week, according to feedback from radio. We're hands-on with the artists as they travel around the country, doing radio tours."
CO5 works major and secondary markets for independent labels as well as for major labels that don't have Country promotion departments. It has, for example, represented Atlantic Records, which no longer maintains a Nashville office, to promote Kid Rock to Country stations. It did the same for the Walt Disney Company on behalf of Billy Ray Cyrus' "Ready, Set, Don't Go" until that single rose into the Top 40 and Lyric Street, which is a Disney property, took over the promotion. CO5 also worked Lawrence's "Find Out Who Your Friends Are," which Newmark estimated took about 40 weeks to boost to the top.
The number of independent and artist-specific labels is growing just as airplay is getting harder to secure. Challenging as it seems, that could make this the perfect time for independent promoters who have developed close radio contacts and are ready to establish their place on this changing terrain.
2009 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
Despite the proliferation of new media outlets, getting an artist's records played on radio remains the lifeblood of Country Music. The problem is not new: There are a lot more records than there is airtime. It's the promoter's duty to get an artist's music to the head of the line when stations add to their painfully short playlists.
Then, once the single has been added, it's up to the promoter to persuade the station to play it more often in the hope it will attain that golden No. 1 spot. A promoter has to repeat this process each week to programmers at every station on his or her list. Since most radio stations have a program or music director to help decide what to play, the question arises as to why promoters are also needed.
Jerry Duncan, President of Jerry Duncan Promotions, works primarily with independents to get their records played on radio stations in smaller markets. His efforts have helped Lofton Creek Records boost Heartland's "I Loved Her First" to the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart as well as elevate Tracy Lawrence's "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" to No. 1 on Billboard for Lawrence's own Rocky Comfort Records imprint. And based on that kind of experience, Duncan believes he can answer that question.
"Part of the responsibility of being a promoter," he explained, "is that you should have at your fingertips all the information that's available and relevant on that artist [whose record you're working]. We call a hundred or more radio stations a week, so we're hearing in real time from all the stations around the country how the record is doing. If it's playing in several other markets, we're going to hear personal feedback from that, and we can tell that in certain areas the record's getting a lot of phones, that it's the third most requested, say, at a certain station, or that it's testing well in other markets. Individual programmers are not going to sit down and be able to go through each record they're interested in and pull that up. It's our job to have it for them."
Kevin Herring, VP of National Promotion for Lyric Street Records, agrees. "I used to be a music director at a radio station before I became a record promotion person," he said. "You get a ton of product and sometimes you don't sort through all of it at the same time. It's good for us as promoters to be able to relay stories from other markets to these people. Maybe I'm a music director and I don't hear this record - I don't like it. So I, as a promotion person, will say, 'OK, you don't like this record and you haven't liked it for the last month - but let me tell you what's going on in Saginaw or Milwaukee or Columbus.' I'd say, 'This guy has played this record 30 times and this is what's going on. Here's what the sales have done and here's what the artist is doing.' Maybe this will give the guy some ammunition to go back and listen to the record with a different set of ears. There are all kinds of things going on out there that make it hard for any one programmer to know it all."
This is why Herring, even with an in-house promotion department at his disposal, will hire independent promoters. "Our company has very strict guidelines on how we can use independents," he explained. "Even when we do a radio promotion that doesn't involve independents, we do them very above-board. We have radio stations sign agreements that say the promotion is not being offered in exchange for airplay. Even so, if I was having trouble at a certain radio station where an independent had a great relationship, I might solicit help."
Taking advantage of opportunities to serve radio, artists and labels at the same time, CO5 Music runs a freestanding promotion operation, complete with regional representatives who can relieve smaller labels from the burden of maintaining in-house promotion departments. David Newmark, VP of Country Promotion at CO5, established the company's Country division in Nashville three years ago; along with Newmark, CO5 employs four regional representatives.
"We're basically the dedicated promotion department of the record label that hires us," Newmark said. "We provide everything that an in-house promotion department would. We average about four clients at any given time, so we can concentrate on the projects we're working on. We have conference calls with our clients every week, just like a major label does, to talk about targets and projections for the following week, according to feedback from radio. We're hands-on with the artists as they travel around the country, doing radio tours."
CO5 works major and secondary markets for independent labels as well as for major labels that don't have Country promotion departments. It has, for example, represented Atlantic Records, which no longer maintains a Nashville office, to promote Kid Rock to Country stations. It did the same for the Walt Disney Company on behalf of Billy Ray Cyrus' "Ready, Set, Don't Go" until that single rose into the Top 40 and Lyric Street, which is a Disney property, took over the promotion. CO5 also worked Lawrence's "Find Out Who Your Friends Are," which Newmark estimated took about 40 weeks to boost to the top.
The number of independent and artist-specific labels is growing just as airplay is getting harder to secure. Challenging as it seems, that could make this the perfect time for independent promoters who have developed close radio contacts and are ready to establish their place on this changing terrain.
2009 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
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