While we are certain you probably already know everything we are about to say, we would be remiss if we didn’t take a few moments to explain some of the finer points of college radio promotion. While we’ve had some amazing successes and a few CD’s that literally broke our hearts the truth is that college radio promotion, even wildly successful efforts, won’t sell a million CD’s for you or get you on the cover of MAGNET magazine. Promotion is only one part of the big picture that artists and labels need to look at when promoting a release to a much larger audience (others include marketing, retail placement, touring and of course getting some press!).

What radio promotion can do for you is get you music in front of people who love finding great new music, in fact they pride themselves on being some of the first people to find awesome new bands and then telling everyone who will listen about them! It can very well be the first thing that gets your act real notice outside you area and be the springboard towards becoming a successful full time musician.

Most of you are probably already familiar with CMJ, [College Music Journal], and their specialty charts like Radio 200, RPM (Electronic), Hip Hop, Loud Rock and World. Most  artists desperately want to chart in CMJ as that often opens some big doors for some lucky artists … and this is the starting point of most radio campaigns, since the stations who are sent the music are generally CMJ Reporting stations.

However you might want to keep in mid that these stations only get to submit 30 titles for the Radio 200 chart each week, and only 10 to the other specialty charts. If that wasn’t enough of a hill to climb each station is weighted differently depending on factors like wattage, programming, and market size. So getting onto the CMJ charts is like walking up to the ticket office 5 minutes before the Super Bowl starts and getting front row 50 yard line tickets.
What makes things even more difficult is that most of those 30 spots are given to chart’s old faithfuls like Garth Brooks, Marty Robins or Eric Clapton latest record or newer big names like Colter Wall, Greta Van Fleet and Bon Iver or even your favorite underground bands new off shoot project like the Bluehills. You get the idea, it’s tough for a new artist to get on these charts

In the end it really comes down to a bunch of factors, such as talent, timing, and hard work … and some genuine luck as to whether or not a artist becomes something that is larger than life in the music world.

So with all this in mind, the ideal band for MMR to work with is someone who has a quality recording, originality and a clue. Since these days to come out of nowhere and make waves you can’t just be good – you need to be exceptional and lucky. We can get your tunes to the right folks and talk you up as much as we can, but honestly a huge weight rests on your shoulders as an artist to set up the play for victory.

So in conclusion, if you have some amazing indie music you’d like to share with us, and want to get it out to College Radio – check out our programs section and let’s get your music out there!