Radio Servicing: The commercial radio industry is not very friendly to independent musicians. Given the industry’s preference for popular artists and the ever-growing list of new music, emerging artists in Australia face an uphill task in getting airplay.
Play MPE’s Caster helps Aussie artists connect with verified music industry contacts. The tool helps artists build and send professional radio promo campaigns through a simple process. With it, musicians can promote their music to radio programmers, hosts, supervisors, and professionals.
As a new artist, you can use this DIY radio plugging tool to build your music promotion campaign and distribute it to recognised industry contacts nationally and internationally.
Click here to learn more about Caster and its benefits.
Why Radio Servicing Still Matters for Indie Artists
While playlist pitching calls for reaching out to playlist curators with the hope of having your music featured on their playlists, which are shared on digital streaming platforms, radio servicing aims to promote airplay by sending music to DJs, program directors, and radio stations.
With over five million community radio and 13.2 million commercial radio listeners across the nation, radio still plays a huge role in breaking new music in Australia. Many stations regularly showcase emerging talent, exposing new artists to a wider listening base.
Since music directors and DJs curate playlists based on their audience’s preferences, local radio stations can introduce listeners to music they would not have discovered on their own. As an emerging artist, you are more likely to get heard on community radio and Triple J Unearthed.
Radio airplay can help budding musicians build a loyal following by boosting brand recognition and visibility. But, how do you find the right people to contact and pitch your music to? That is where Play MPE’s Caster comes into the picture.
What Is Play MPE’s Caster?
Caster is a professional music promotion tool for artists to create promotional content to get their music heard. It’s designed to help independent artists reach promotional success as major acts without huge label budgets.
Play MPE’s Caster streamlines the music promotion process by supporting secure sharing, access, permissions, distribution list management, metadata entry, and more. Artists can craft music promotion campaigns with all the necessary music files, assets, and promo materials. They can then pick distribution packages, and send them to verified industry contacts. Every campaign also comes with two free resends.
Caster’s full-service version breaks down the creation and distribution of professional music promotion campaigns into six simple steps:
Step 1 – Sign-Up: Create a Caster account and start building your music promo campaign. This automatically creates an MTR radio tracking account using the same credentials.
Step 2 – Upload: Upload your broadcast-ready music files, release artwork, and metadata.
Step 3 – Promote: Provide information on how you would like music tastemakers to promote your project(s). This includes uploading promotional copy and setting a release impact date. You can include a press release, promo photos, and a music video.
Step 4 – Distribute: Specify how your song releases will be distributed. You can select recipients and the package lists to include in your release distribution. Recipients include satellite, internet, and terrestrial radio programmers, radio hosts, media, bloggers, music industry VIPs, A&R, and record label execs.
Step 5 – Summary: Review all the details of your promotional release, and make changes where necessary. You will also get a checkout cart showing your balance and the total due.
Step 6 – Export Release to MTR: Use MTR to track when and where your songs are playing on the radio. After setting up the promotion, go to MTR and start tracking airplay by clicking “Track Music.”
Play MPE distributes music in Australia and internationally to trusted outlets across the US, Canada, New Zealand, Europe, and Latin America.
How to Build a Winning Radio Promo Campaign?
Even in today’s digital age of streaming, radio is still a powerful form of music listening. Millions of listeners tune in to community and commercial radio stations, which play millions of songs yearly, featuring both popular and emerging artists.
This could be a breakthrough if your music lands on the right station. To get on the radar of these potential listeners, you must create a winning radio promo campaign.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Create High-quality Music: When assessing a radio promo pitch, music directors normally look for radio-friendly quality, solid hooks, and tracks with a clear genre.
- Research and Find Relevant Radio Stations: Pick out stations with a history of featuring indie artists and matching your genre. This is a key step to build a relevant and loyal listener base. For instance, if you make pop music, the chances of getting airplay are lower if you contact a techno music station.
- Create a Professional Radio Servicing Package: To align with industry standards and best practices for music promotion to radio –
- Provide broadcast-quality audio files (WAV preferred or high-bitrate MP3).
- Include a radio edit version of your track—clean (no profanity) and ideally under 4 minutes.
- Embed metadata (artist name, song title, genre) in your audio files.
- Create a detailed one-sheet (Electronic Press Kit) containing artist bio, song information, promo photo(s), notable achievements or press mentions, social media and streaming links, contact information, etc.
- Partner with a Radio Promotion Service: Directly reaching out to radio stations rarely brings positive results for new artists. Even as you hope for the best, your best shot is using a radio servicing platform, like Play MPE, to directly contact radio programmers, DJs, and music directors.
- Submit Your Track(s): Whether you choose to contact radio stations directly or go through a radio servicing platform, provide all the resources and broadcasters may need to air or discuss the music further.
How to Get AirPlay?
Although Australia is huge on radio, the initial challenge to be heard is still there. Here’s how you can increase your chances of getting airplay as an indie artist:
Step 1 – Submit Your Music to Triple J Unearthed and Community Radio Stations: Emerging artists are most likely to get airplay on these stations.
Step 2 – Follow Submission Instructions: Boost your chances of being heard by sticking to the specific submission guidelines for each platform/radio station. And for a solid first impression, submit an EPK (Electronic Press Kit).
Step 3 – Supply All Necessary Information and Resources: Include complete and professional music files, photos, and press communications in your submissions.
Step 4 – Be Seen to Be Heard: Open yourself up to being discovered by attending events and using visuals to connect with your audience. If you know places where radio programmers might stumble on your music, get it played there on a consistent basis. Besides, keep promoting your music on social media and streaming platforms for maximum exposure.
Step 5 – Keep Growing Your Reach: Once you gain ground locally, expand to trusted outlets across the US, Canada, New Zealand, Europe, and Latin America.
With Play MPE, you can take care of all of this in one go. Simply submit your music to Triple J, community radio stations, and curated lists by genre or format. You can choose to expand your reach across both Australia and New Zealand with the Oceania package, which includes all Australian radio and New Zealand lists. Or you can export your music around the world with one of Play MPE’s international bundles.
Wrapping Up
Play MPE has helped Aussie artists and labels grow their reach by transforming how they service music to verified industry tastemakers worldwide.
Check out Play MPE’s Caster to start your campaign and amplify your music across Australia and the world.