The messy suicide of commercial radio series; (part 7) The Process – How songs really get on the radio (continued)

The bottom line is that radio and records have become big business, and as the business gets bigger, the players seem to become more conservative, as will anyone who has a lot to lose. Thus, getting anything added to a playlist, particularly anything new, causes problems at every level of promotion, even the major label level. “The real problem is that, as record labels and radio stations become more averse to risk, they shrink the number of artists they invest in (in terms of both money and time),” said author James Surowiecki. “That may be rational in the short term, but it’s bad for the culture, and interestingly I’m not really convinced it’s good for business, either.”

These conversations are preludes to the Maalox moment of any promotion person’s week, the conference call. Usually held right after Billboard releases the chart numbers for the coming week’s issue, it serves the legitimate purpose of shoring up weak areas and dealing with problem records. The record company’s senior vice president of promotion gets all the heads of the programming departments, all the local promotion people, and even some of the independent promotion people on the phone together. These calls can last upwards of six hours and become abusive, and have led to firings, raises, promotions, ulcers, and perhaps drug addiction and suicide.

“Okay, how are we doing with that Booyah’s record in your area, Beth? I’m not seeing as many spins on that as I’d like.”

“I know, boss. It’s a tough sell out here. I’m getting it added to WHNK, though. The street team is going to be staying up late listening for it, calling and e-mailing. Hank wants phones, and damned if he’s not going to get them.”

“Good. How much is he giving?”

“Couple of spins this week.”

“What will it take to get him up to it?”

“Well, we’ve got the banner when they open for Dave and the Marshes at the Bumphouque Arena. Then there’s the co-op for the shows. How much can I offer?”

“I think we can do seven large for a month of ads in anticipation of the show.”

“That should put us over.”

“Glad to hear it.”

And Beth puts the phone on mute for a moment and lets out a long sigh of relief. She’s dodged the bullet for another week. The VP is happy, too. As stressful as he makes this call on his team, the call he has to make next, to report adds to superiors in the company, makes the pressure he puts on his staff seem mild, because he has to give the folks running the company the big picture, and that picture had better include a lot of airplay.

Both Beth and her boss know the radio truism Richard Neer stated:

One always had to be wary of stations that were too malleable to record company inducement. Heavy airplay may accompany a promotion, based on a large schedule of advertising and free concerts that may have nothing to do with a record’s potential. No smaller-market programmer was immune to such enticements because revenue is so critical.

“Getting on the radio is like mounting a military campaign,” said promotion head Palmese.

“We try to identify who our ‘heroes’ are, the program directors who like the song enough to step out and add it to their rotation.”

Ring! Ring!

“WHNK programming. Hank here.”

“Beth from PoMo. Now, what about those Booyahs?”

“Man, those college students do stay up late. Got a dozen calls from the campus at three in the morning on Tuesday and about four in the morning on Friday. Three were from the same number. You’ve got your three spins and a Thursday drive time smash or trash.”

“Very cool.” She writes a note to herself to warn her street teams to use their damn cell phones. “By the way, I got co-op budget. We’re going to want about $7 000.”

“Great! Can I write you up on that?”

“That’s why I mentioned it.”

“Excellent.”

“Still on Dave and the Marshes?”

“Holding steady at 14 spins a week. We may actually up it or start playing another song from the album as the show gets closer, especially if we get the banner, the announce, and Dave comes up here for an interview and to do some bumpers.”

“Well, I know the last one is no problem. I’ll see about the other two.”

“Cool.”

“Well, that’s all for this week. Talk to you next week.”

“Always a pleasure.”

And why is it always a pleasure? Well, PoMo just bought $7 000 worth of advertising. If Hank’s commission is 20 percent, he just pocketed $1 400.

So why do major labels dominate commercial radio? Because the major labels have deep pockets to employ street teams, buy co-op advertising, and build their acts’ profiles. Is any of this illegal? Well, maybe the iPhones fall into a gray area, but nothing here in this series is really actionable. But that’s not to say that record companies and labels don’t engage in actionable behaviour.