a few things i have come across
OK so youve spent every last penny on your demo CD, done the Radio edit and sent a copy to every Radio station in the county, listened for a month to every station and guess what ‘NO PLAYS’, why ? lets throw a bit of light on how the system works -
A typical ‘local Radio station’ consists of a series of ‘Playlists’ and a ‘Playout System’ with (very) few humans to join it all together - or there are Radio stations that are fully automated using just Playlists and a Playout system - everything being pre-recorded days or weeks in advance and pre-loaded via the internet whereby a person can control many stations in many locations from a central point -
The first hurdle that your ‘MUSICAL WORK OF ART’ has to overcome is getting past the Listening panel, Person, Quango or whatever decisions the station uses as to what goes on air -
OK, lets say your track was selected for air play - yet it never got played -
SO, did your track have an ISRC code ? - this is a header block that contains details on who owns the track, when it was published etc, This code is entered in a ‘HIDDEN’ area situated before your track and is inserted during the ‘MASTERING PROCESS’ - this code is used by many Royalty gathering bodies for Royalty payments and if a Radio station uses that system for reporting airplay to those bodies, then you will not go on air without it -
Did you send in your track only in MPEG3 (mp3) format ? - MPEG3 is a ‘Propierty brand’ in other words somebody owns it - if a Radio station plays mp3 tracks and the station total earnings exceed 100,000 dollars per year, then the station has to pay a royalty to the mp3 governing body for every mp3 track played, this is on top of all the other royalitys they have to pay -
To overcome this many Stations use Playlist generators that only accept WAVE files or OGG VORBIS for which no extra royalty is generated (remember your track will be copied from your CD to a hard disk on which the playlist is generated) - So send in three versions of your track on the CD, 1 version in MP3 format, 1in BROADCAST WAVE format and 1 in OGG VORBIS format - (the broadcast wave will appear as a standard wave file to un-sophisticated systems) -
Lets look further at the MP3 problem - OK, so the station plays MP3 tracks, DID you fill in the ID3 tags correctly? -
Like the ISRC code ‘ALL’ legal mp3 tracks have a ‘text header’ that travels with the track wherever it goes, this header contains a lot more detail than the IRSC code especially the section for ‘GENRE’, this determins which section your track will be contained in on the studio hard drive, ie ROCK/HIP HOP/RAP etc, OK so far ?, but here lies a major problem, that being that most Playlist generators have an automatic feature that allows the overworked operator to just specify that every hour the playlist generator automatically selects 'X TRACKS from ‘X GENRE’, the type of GENRE selected for airplay will depend on the target audience for that time of day and/or the overall concept that the station adopts - so if your track is ‘SOMEHOW’ catagorised as ‘ROCK’ and that station rarely plays ROCK then no air time - so you have to make sure your track falls within the GENRE played by that particular station - there are many TAG EDITORS that are available to set the tags to the correct GENRE -
If the station demands only BROADCAST WAVES then as far as N Track is concerned you are shot!, Ns track properties are very close to the BROADCAST WAVE STANDARD but untill Flavio say that N produces Broadcast Wave files you will have to use Sonar or the like (i use Sonar LE which is the old Sonar 4 for broadcast waves as it came free with a keyboard i bought) - Broadcast Waves contain extra details such as SMPTE frame rate and how the volume level is set - it is important that your track conforms to the standard used in Radio stations, this is so that all tracks play at the same speed and the same output level without using expensive automatic controls or even more expensive Humans being used to manually set the speed and volume levels that are used on high end sophisticated playout systems now becoming available and affordable even for local stations -
OK so lets have a look at what happens in a ‘LIVE ASSIST’ station, this is a Radio station that goes out live using real people (?) at the Mic . the presenter will have in front of them a screen on which the the playlist is displayed, the playout system does all the hard work like lineing up the next track, inserting station idents and adding commercials from CARTS, when the presenter is ready to play the next track all they do is press the ‘SPACEBAR’ and the next track will play - when you hear the presenter reel off a load of facts about the next track, it’s likely they are reading from the details contained in the ID3/broadcast wave tags displayed in front of them - if there is nothing in the header for the presenter to read your track will not reach the Playlist - so make sure all the box’s are correctly filled in -
So is there a way that you can test out your track to see if it conforms before you release it on the unsuspecting world ? - The best low cost system i have found so far (mainly used for internet broadcasts yet is comprehensive enough for using as a test bed) is STATION PLAYLIST STUDIO and STATION PLAYLIST GENERATOR both available from www.stationplaylist.com as a free (30 day time-limited) download - this will keep you well busy for quite a while but you will at least have grasped the basics of how a radio station works and will put you in a better position to grab valuable air time over those who just send out their CDs and hope -
OK, but remember to state clearly on the CD BOX COVER not the CD label which only needs minimal information on it, (nobody can read it when its in the player) AND the accompanying data sheet has full details of the track plus details on yourself/group etc you are presenting for airplay, this is because all of the details discussed above are ‘hidden data’ that may not be displayed or is beyond the comprehension of the initial listening panel - but the fact that you took time to indicate so much technical information will always help you when your track reaches the playlist stage -
Be selective, do not blanket cover every station with your CD - listen to the stations in your area and select only the ones that play your type of music - dont bother with the MAJOR NATIONAL STATIONS at this stage, if they hear your track is getting serious airplay at the local level thay will be in touch double quick -
These are just some of the problems and situations which i have been confronted with or have cropped up in my research on how to set up a internet radio station streaming background music to dedicated recievers (not ‘for free’ broadcast) there is still a lot more like ‘A LOT OF MONEY’ needed before i can get it up and running - You may or may not agree with the necessity of the above, but they ALL deserve serious consideration if you want to maximise your chance of getting on the air - hope it may be of help -
yours Dr J
Good stuff Doctor! You have obviously done your research.
Thanks, Jeff
I started as an announcer back when FM was making its big debut in the early 70’s. You brought what you wanted to play…if your stuff was good, you garnered an audience and kept your job. I stayed a long time. When automation began to come into play I saw the writing on the wall…got out of radio…and took some Microsoft programming courses and certification classes… Dr J: Your essay confirms that I made the right decision.
Too bad about “radio” as it stands today…one ‘rock’ playlist, clear channel…one country playlist, clear channel…one hip-hop playlist, clear channel…one jazz playlist, clear channel…blah blah blah
Anyway, guess this should be in the “anything else” section. Sorry all.
cliff
heres a station that opend up bout a year ago near me,no news,no weather, only spoken comercials,nothin but blues an bluegrass,independent radio they call it,check it out
www.wuspfm.com
free the music 105.5 fm
nekoosa wisconsin,
wuspfm
Thanks Dr J. I have a group that is getting close to that stage of the recording process. I will be printing that out and presenting it to them. Excellent material.
Flavio, we need that Broadcast wav format incorporated into n-Track. What’s the point in recording, if it can’t be put on the air?
Paul
Hey Dr J. could I suggest you put this in the wiki?
thank you vanclan, for your suggestion Re Wiki -
i have never discovered why, but here in England accessing the server that N is sited on can be impossible - like cannot send BUG REPORTS (server locks up) cannot reply to posts unless i access forum directly, - cannot log on if i access forum from Ns front page (says logged in but still shows me as guest) - cannot enter Wiki as it says’ not logged in’ but i am logged in because i could not type this reply if i was not ? - if anybody can get it in to the WIKI please do so -
yours Dr J
| Quote (DR Jackrabbit @ Oct. 14 2006,11:11) |
| thank you vanclan, for your suggestion Re Wiki - i have never discovered why, but here in England accessing the server that N is sited on can be impossible - like cannot send BUG REPORTS (server locks up) cannot reply to posts unless i access forum directly, - cannot log on if i access forum from Ns front page (says logged in but still shows me as guest) - cannot enter Wiki as it says’ not logged in’ but i am logged in because i could not type this reply if i was not ? - if anybody can get it in to the WIKI please do so - yours Dr J |
Dr J
I put it on the General Topics page of the Wiki.
cliff
Thank you
Dr J