(Bryan Farrish (Radio-Media.com)
2002-03-15
1. DJs PLAY THE RECORDS -
    The biggest pitfall to avoid is asking a DJ at a commercial station "Can I give you my CD for possible rotation?". The DJ is not allowed to say "No", and he/she is probably not going to explain that only the PD can approve regular rotation. The DJ is just going to say "OK".

2. GOOD SONGS SPREAD TO OTHER STATIONS:
    Good songs (or for that matter, good programs) do not mystically spread to other stations. Every single song you hear (or every syndicated program you hear) on commercial regular-rotation radio is on that station because of layers of promotion and marketing. The song you hear was the one that made it... it beat out the other 300 songs that were going for adds that week. What you don't hear are the endless phone calls, faxes, trade ads, personal meetings, consultant recommendations, call-out research, and other things which went into getting the station to add the record. All you heard was the record itself. And station owners make it a requirement that DJs make it sound like they picked the music themselves.

3. YOU HAVE TO BE SIGNED:
   Untrue. Being singed is only a signal to the stations that the basic marketing practices are going to be done right. If you have the budget, you can duplicate the marketing practices of larger labels, provided you know how. The band Creed set a good example of putting their $5 million marketing dollars into the right place.

4. REQUEST CALLS WILL HELP:
    Not really. They won't hurt, but your time is better spent doing other things, like inviting people to your gigs. Stations know which calls are real, and which are bands and their friends. Stations have consultants and seminars which cover only this one topic.