S.A. Sebastian: A View From The Bottom

According to a new study which takes the stand against performance royalties, being examined by congress, says that the more radio play a song gets the greater the album sales.

“There is a direct correlation between the number of ’spins’ (plays on free, local radio) and the sales of albums or singles,” the report concluded. “It is this promotion - free advertising - that drives record sales and represents just one of the many ways local radio provides value to artists and contributes to their financial and commercial success.”

The study analysed airplay and sales for “17 artists covering all genres and varying levels of success such as Velvet Revolver, U2, Rascal Flatts, Linkin Park, Green Day, Bruce Springsteen, The White Stripes, Taylor Swift and Josh Groban,” and come up with the conclusion that playing songs on the radio encourages people go out buy the records they are on, increasing album sales. Can you say, “Duh!”? Really? Playing songs on the radio leads to increased album sales? Who would have thought!

This is the latest weapon the National Association of Broadcasters is using against the RIAA, and recording artists, to prevent having to pay out performance royalties, and it makes sense. If people don’t know you exist - hear your music - they won’t know to buy your album. So, in a sense, yes, this is free advertising for the album. Conversely, you could infer that the songs sell the advertising for the radio station.

Radio is in the business of selling advertising. Why would they give away free advertising if they need to sell advertising? Look at the list of bands includied in the study; some pretty big bands in there. Those are some really popular bands that keep people tuned into the radio. And the more people tuned into the radio station, the more a radio station can charge for the advertsing. If they were playing bands like mine, and the bands I work for, they would have less listeners and have to charge less for advertising. This would continue until they were forced to change format or go out of business. So, who needs who in this case?

I think it is time we the artists, the RIAA, and the NAB, start looking at radio as we do television. The movies, sitcoms, game shows, reality show and other programming are various forms of content that networks buy or lease, for broadcast in order to sell advertising. The more successful a program is the more they can charge for advertising. The least successful programming, and failures, are canceled because they cannot charge more for advertising around them.

Technically radio works the same way, except they don’t buy or lease their programming. (Well, with the exception of talk show hosts like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Imus, Rush Limbaugh and others. It’s perfectly OK to pay for them to pay for that content.) But why shouldn’t radio work the same way and pay for the content that is broadcast? If radio were to follow the television model they would be buying or leasing each song for x amount of time with the option to cancel if a certain ratings target, ad revenue target wasn’t reached.

The performance royalty is a cheaper alternative to this. The station pays a blanket royalty fee, at the rate set by the Copyright Royalty Board, for all programming, rather than on an a la carte basis. As content providers, I think if we position the arguement this way we stand a chance getting the performance royalty. Otherwise, we could try something daring and NOT grant radio stations a license to play our music. But, to work this would have to have serious buy-in by the bands cited in that NAB study -  Velvet Revolver, U2, Rascal Flatts, Linkin Park, Green Day, Bruce Springsteen, The White Stripes, Taylor Swift and Josh Groban. Sure, if enough of us independent bands did this we could shut down many college stations and small, local broadcasters, which would encourage change, but it is the conglomerates like Clear Channel and Evergreen that really need to feel the pain before things change. They are leading the charge on behalf of these smaller stations.

The RIAA is at it again, this time acting in the best interest of the recording artists. What’s happening now is that, on one side the RIAA is teaming up with the Music First Coalition saying that artists should get a performance royalty for radio play, while on the other side, they are saying that the current mechanical royalty rate of 9.1 cents per song paid out to songwriters against album sales, is much too high. The coalition of record labels wants to lower rates to as little as 5 cents per song per album sold, a rate that hasn’t been seen since the 80s.

According the Copyright Office the mechanical royalty rate was fixed at 2 cents per song sold from 1909 until 1977! That’s almost 70 years of the price of albums and tapes (even 8-tracks!) going up, but the payment to the songwriter staying the same.

The important thing to note is that this rate is paid to the people that write the songs, not the performers, and many times not the “artist.” so, for example, Britney Spears puts out a record, she gets a recording advance against record sales of several hundred thousand dollars, plus she gets paid 10-20% of album sales (depending upon the negotiated rate in her contract). That’s between $1-2 per album sold, while the songwriter gets their 9.1 cents per song per album. It is often the case with band’s like Atomic Brother, where the songwriter is the artist, so we would get the songwriter royalty and a percentage of album sales. Also, the songwriter usually splits their royalty 50/50 with a publishing company, which in many cases is the record company. So that 9.1 cent rate is halved to about 4.5 cents.

What does the record company get? All the rest! That’s a big hunk of pie leftover that they are crying about. What do you think is fair? Are the songwriters being burned? Is this really in the best interest of the artist?

I don’t mean to be turning negative with this blog o’ mine, but this business of music is pretty damned negative. Read Nikki Sixx’s Heroine Diaries. I’ve been especially negative towards hip-hop and R&B as evidenced by my Kanye rants. Anyway, on with the negativity.

This afternoon I was listening to one of my favorite radio stations, Triple J, from Australia, when Push It, from the album Desire, by Pharoahe Monch came on. Normally I get pretty pumped when a song I played bass on comes on the radio, but today I got pissed off. Really pissed off.

When I wrote about recording bass on that song from the album I left out a small detail. Mainly because I was trying to be the better man, but now, screw it. I’m tired of being nice. Here’s the real deal - the reason I’m pissed off.

That day I got a call from James (from Atomic Brother) sometime after 5pm saying that he got a call from Pharoahe’s manager Angie asking if I was available to record bass as soon as possible. He called me right away, and lucky for them I was in the neighborhood and available, but didn’t have my bass. I told him to ring her up and have her call me with the details, he’d already told her my rate.

She rang me right away saying that Pharoahe needed me right away, that they had a bass in the studio and that they could pay my fee. After a a little while on the phone I got to the studio just before 6pm. I met Angie and she showed me around the place and I asked what was going on. She told me that Pharoahe was recording some backing vocal tracks and it would be a few minutes and she led me into the studio to meet the man.

I met Pharoahe right away and he was wondering why I was there, they weren’t ready for me. They’d need an hour at least. I figured that wasn’t a big deal, I’d sit around and watch them record. So after about an hour I was getting antsy, and they weren’t getting anywhere with vocals. They all just kept smoking and drinking and adding more and more layers of vocals I forget the one guy’s name (I actually forgot all their names), but he just kept taking hits and saying that he was a genius and needed to record more. He wouldn’t stop.

So, I asked when they were going to get to me. If they were going to keep this up I’d rather leave. My fee wasn’t high enough to deal with this. So anyway, Pharoahe decided he’d rather have me record the part than leave. You can read how that went here.

So, after I finished recording they were all excited and in love with the part, Pharoahe told me to go see Angie to get paid. I went out to the lobby to meet Angie and she asked how it went and if things were OK. She said she had to see Pharoahe about paying me and she’d be right back. After seeing the boss she said that they could pay me for the session, that I could have 20 bucks for a cab. Bullshit! I told her how much my cab to back to my place in Jersey would cost (much more than my fee) and she offered me cab fare to the train or bus station (which was 4-5 blocks walk away) instead.

Explaining that wasn’t the deal, that they owed me my fee, she said it was Eminem’s fault because he hasn’t paid them the advance for the recording yet, and they were paying SO much for the studio, they couldn’t afford me. Eminem’s fault and the studio cost too much. She had to be kidding right? If they couldn’t afford me, why the hell would she call me agreeing to my fee? They had no intention of paying me. To top it all off, after I filled out all the paperwork, making sure that I would get credit on the recording, I finally got my hands on a copy and I didn’t get credited for playing bass on the track. Turns out nobody got credit except all the singers getting drunk and stoned that day.

Needless to say, I never got paid and James has one less “friend.” What makes it worse is that this asshole is selling records all over the world and getting radio play all over the world and I can’t get performer royalties through SoundExchange because they didn’t credit me! I could sue, but it would cost more money than I’d get out of it. So he kicks back and collects royalties and he couldn’t pay me my tiny little fee. I chalk it up to yet another hip-hip session gone bad - and there have been many sessions gone bad. And people wonder why I refuse to play on R&B and hip-hop records anymore!

The last couple weeks have been real interesting with Radiohead announcing that they would be self-releasing their latest album, In Rainbows, and Trent Reznor telling people to steal his music and that he wants out of his contract. Finally the Radiohead album is out this morning and so is Reznor, he’s free of his contract with Interscope. So, has there been any fallout yet? You bet there has.

According to Billboard thousands have been downloading the new Radiohead album at an estimated voluntary price of £5 GBP. That’s right, voluntary price. Radiohead left it up to the fans to decide how much they would pay for a digital version of the album. According to Yorke, “The wonderful [thing] is that the consumer can decide how much a download is worth,” he added. “I’m not sure how much just a digital download is worth. I’m not sure 79p - the iTunes price - is the right price.”

This has prompted the following response from Guy Hands, from Terra Firma, the group that purchased EMI, “”a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.” He goes on to ask, “Why should [superstar acts] subsidize their label’s new talent roster – or for that matter their record company’s excessive expenditures and advances?”

Trent Reznor has said if could break free of his deal he would sell his CDs for as little as $4 USD. Now we wait and see what Trent is going to do. It is unsure when Trent will release a new album, especially since Year Zero is still fairly new, but Billboard says, “Billboard understands Reznor, in keeping with past practices, will not decide how to actually release, market and promote the next album until the music is finished.”

What does this mean for bands like NIN and Radiohead? It might mean a drop in sales, but it means a much higher profit margin, and less dependence on touring and merchandise sales to make a living. What a lot of fans don’t know is that while many bands get fronted thousands to millions to record an album, most only make 10-15% of 90% of the retail sales. That advance money gets paid back before they can make any money, and it gets paid back based on those percentages, not overall sales. So they get closer to 100% of the profits, but it also means that they incur the costs of recording, marketing, promoting and manufacturing and anything else the label would pay for.

What does this mean for the labels? If more big bands follow suit, then they won’t have those large album sales dollars to fund their infrastructure, and won’t be able to support signing new artist that currently lose them money. It could mean labels take even less chances with breaking new artists than they do now because they won’t have the money to invest.

What’s this mean for the rest of us? Who knows, but it’s definitely going to be a very exciting time to be in the music industry as things get further shaken up.

Finally the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the final installment of Getting Your Song on The Radio: Getting Your Song On The Radio. The first 5 parts of this series looked at all the preparation needed to execute the things outlined here-from recording and producing to defining your audience and all the boring paperwork that needs to get done.

First thing, since you’ve defined your audience, is to find the radio stations you want to be on, that would play music similar to yours. There are many resources like the Musician’s Guide To Touring and Promotion or the Musician’s Atlas, that list commercial and college radio stations across the country, listing program directors, music directors and addresses and station formats. While these are good tools, even the latest editions are probably going to be out-of-date at the rate today radio stations are changing format and staff. The radio trade magazines are probably the best place to start to find out what stations are playing your genre of music. The trades you should be looking at are Billboard, Radio and Records and FMQB (referenced here frequently). The magazines are updated weekly, and the websites updated daily, and are more reliable than directories that are published quarterly. However, you don’t get the addresses and contact info from the trades.

Once you’ve found the stations that are likely to play your music, you need to verify the information and narrow the list to the stations most likely to play your music. The best way to do that is on the Internet. Look up station websites online. You can usually get the station’s address, Program Director and Music Director on the contact or info page, but most importantly you can verify that the station hasn’t changed its format! If the rock station is now a hip-hop station there’s no longer a point sending a CD if you are rock band. You can sometimes find the station’s submission policy on the site, too. This is very important, it will give you a clue if you are going to waste a CD or not. For example, Clear Channel stations now have an online submission form for unsigned, or independent bands to fill out, while some CBS Radio affiliate stations, like K-Rock in NYC have this disclaimer:

92.3 K-Rock adds new music to the playlist via: listener requests, (email and phone), local audience music research, regional/national building stories, and by the judgments of the music committee consisting of the Program Director, Tracy Cloherty, Music Director/APD Mike Tierney and Music/Programming Coordinator Danni.

Also, listen to the stations for a little while to get the feel for their playlist. If they are only playing hits all day then it’s unlikely that your CD is going to get played. You can also look at what thousands of radio stations are playing on Yes.com. They give you the Top 100 songs plus songs played each hour going back a week This is probably the best way to get a feel for a station.

The next step: making contact. Most radio stations have call days set aside where they accept calls from promoters pitching CDs that they want added. You are now one of those promoters. These hours vary from station to station. College radio stations are notoriously a pain in the ass to a hold of. The MDs and PDs are usually college students that are in class-or should be in class-all day. They usually have office hours 1 or 2 days a week for only 1 or 2 hours each day. Call, find out the hours and call back during those hours. Be polite, courteous and professional, and maybe use your publishing company name instead of your band name when identifying yourself. Some stations may take these call whenever, but if they have these hours set up, don’t be clever and keep calling outside those hours. You’ll just get on someone’s bad side. Once you’ve made contact, you’ll want to verify the mailing address, person to send the CD to, and any special requirements they have. Have a script, or checklist, handy to make sure you say what you want to say about your CD and the information you want to get form them.

After you’ve made contact send over a package. Remember to include the cover letter we discussed last time, re-introducing yourself. Make sure you tell what you are sending and why and how it fits in with their format and why they should play it. If you’re a new artist you’ll want to include a bio, the one-sheet, maybe a sticker. Be creative, but be careful about gimmicks. NoFX made a big noise by including a blow sheep with a copy of their album Heavy Petting Zoo. It got the attention they wanted-on the radio and in print-but the CD in the pizza delivery has been done to death. Remember, you’re not trying to get in the door, you already got permission to send the CD, you just want to get someone to open the CD and listen to it. One band I was in made beer that had labels with our band name and logo and album cover. We sent 2 bottles with each CD to magazines and radio stations. Our CD got played on about 70% of the stations that got that package. Not a bad ratio of success. But remember, the gimmick is not always necessary; we did our research to find out the radio stations most likely to play our music, which was about 80 stations out of over 200 possible stations. Sending to the more than 200 would have been less effective, and cost a lot. And who knows, because we did the research we may have had the same ratio if we didn’t send the beer.

You should also consider specialty shows. These are shows that are only on a special times, like a local band show, hard rock show, new release show… whatever. Because of their limited nature they may not offer the most exposure you want, most songs can only get played once. With these shows, you send your CD directly to the DJ or show producer, not the station PD or MD. But, this can be a good way in to get on the main playlist. But you have to be sure that you’ve already sent your music to the main address, the specialty shows normally don’t share Cd libraries.

Follow-up about 2 weeks after you send the CD to make sure that it was received. Be polite and ask when you can call back to see if it has been reviewed for airplay. It could take a while, consider the K-Rock example above. Unless you are an established major band, you may have to go through the vetting they describe, before getting on air. In the meantime you have to give the radio station reasons to add your music, so add them to your mailing list for events that you are doing in their area, and major national updates. As long as you aren’t calling too frequently you can build a relationship with PD or MD and get some more insight into their particular needs. Find out why they are or aren’t playing your song, maybe suggest an alternate track. Help them to help you!

For college radio stations you can be a little more creative about getting your music on the air. Sometimes the DJs control their playlist and you can bypass the MD or PD. One band I was in lived near a college campus, so we called in to a radio show each week after band practice to talk to the DJ. We developed a relationship with that particular DJ and he asked us to send a CD which he ended up playing weekly. We were invited to become part of the show as regular guests whether or not we had anything to plug, we did on-air banter, read the news and weather and had fun being characters on his show.

This all sounds easy, but you also have to consider today’s political climate surrounding the music business and radio in particular. There are some roadblocks that have been put up in the name of helping us out. The government legislated that commercial radio stations must serve the public by playing several hundred hours per year of local and independent music. This should be helpful, however, the radio stations are driven by ad revenue and are slow to implement this because ad revenue will decrease during those times. Also, the independent promoter/payola scandal revealed by Elliot Spitzer, has caused many radio stations to be very cautious about adding anything new for fear of being accused of taking money in exchange for airplay. Then there’s the new license fees and royalty rates being set by the Copyright Royalty Board that aren’t helping things out. Playlists are tighter than ever, and the odds of getting on commercial radio are still quite low.

Getting on the radio is a big gamble, and like in gambling, if you hedge your bet, betting with the most likely winning hands, and folding with the less likely winning hands, you are likely to win more often. You may not get on every radio station that you try, but can increase your odds of winning-getting on the radio-by following these tips. It takes courage not to send your CD to every radio station. It might be more important and effective to get played on 15 out of 20 stations rather than 15 out of 100.

Got any questions or comments? Success or failure stories you want to share? Please drop me a line and let me know. Best of luck!