|
Your release
is up against equally strong productions and performers and timing is crucial.
Generally you should send out your product 6 weeks before you want it to get air
play and you should know there are several weeks in the year you won't see any
new singles added to rotation. If you want air play in July and August, you had
better send your single out by the end of May so it has a chance to climb the
charts before all the program directors take their respective summer holidays.
You want your song to climax on the charts before mid July and coast most of the
summer unless you are a major artist (who doesn't need my advice). The good thing
is, if you are up the charts by early summer, there are no new ads, and conversely
they are not pulling any one out of rotation either. If you want a fall release,
send it out mid summer, and unless you have a Christmas single, don't expect any
new ads at radio from late November to the end of January. PD holidays and seasonal
songs diminish the opportunities of chart movement on your songs. Now
here is the other little blip in your plan; come late January early February,
the PDs are inundated with CDs that folks held off sending over the holidays.
Knowing this we always timed a late Feb mail out for a potential spring release
and purposely chose an up beat , energetic, lyrically positive tune because we
in the northern hemisphere need something upbeat and happy after our miserable
winters! We also found good success with ballads being released in the fall. Summer
releases could go either way: mid, up tempo or ballads work, but don't expect
strong response at radio from two ballad releases back to back. In other words
if you release a ballad in summer don't release one in the fall. You also have
to consider who else is releasing and when. For instance if you are a female country
artist and another female country artist releases the same week you might be given
a pass and not make it to the following weeks music meeting. If you know your
competitor is releasing near a certain date, either get it out a few weeks before
or a few weeks after. Also
it is not imperative you release a full CD before you begin releasing songs. You
can simply press and release 2 or 3 singles before you have your final CD in hand.
A number of stations are accepting digital formats which are cost effective and
environmentally responsible. With the advent of download sites, the need for an
actual disc is greatly overrated in my opinion. Personally I hope CDs disappear
completely. Why spend all the money on pressing, artwork, inserts and mail outs
not to mention creating more plastic for landfill, when you could take that money
and spend it on advertising and promotion. (Yeah I'm green) Something
else you must do is follow up. Once you have begun to receive airplay and learn
which stations have picked you up via your own phone calls or the tracker's, you
must spread the word. As management we would follow up this info with an emailed
newsletter to all the PDs in the relative format, alerting them to the call letters
of the stations who have added our singles. We would also offer a bit of info
on the single, or the artist, e.g. where they are gigging, why they wrote the
song, personal notes such as the artist getting engaged, having a baby or getting
divorced. DJ's
like to talk so giving them something to say is a great tool to talk you up before
or after they play your tunes. Schedule an interview if the interest is there.
Of course we always opened our letters with a thank you to all the stations who've
added us this week. We
would do a bi weekly blurb initially till the song sat in the 20s on the charts,
then we'd give it a stronger push to see if we could get it to climb that little
bit more and combine it with print ads in industry newspapers. In
summation, the timing of your singles has many considerations: You should plan
on releasing a new tune every 20 weeks or so to give your CD about a 2 year life
span. Plan to release before or after the release of a similar artist. Your radio
pushes should be before peak holiday seasons for PDs such as summer months and
December to January. Make sure you hit BDS stations first then the follow with
the balance of stations the next week. And
for those of us in the northern hemisphere, there are seasonal considerations
as well. Till
next time Jana
| 