Radio

[Mike Parrish]

We've been fortunate in Europe lately with making the European National Top 40 Country Music Charts 12 separate times in 7 different countries over the last 10 months with 4 of the tracks from my album. We've enjoyed making the acquaintances of so many European music industry professionals but here at home we continually run into a problem.

As an added measure, we make contact with radio stations and get permission to send one of our CDs so that just maybe it won't get trashed as "unsolicited" as soon as it gets delivered. Once we've allowed enough time to ensure the station has received the CD we let our fans know that they can begin requesting the songs from that station. Time and time again our fans are told that the station doesn't have any music by Mike Parrish even after receiving permission to send the CD and then making sure it gets delivered. In some cases, DJs are telling our fans, "I handle all the local music and I've never heard of this artists."

So we start the process over again by sending yet another CD to the stations. We notify our fans that the station has the CD and it becomes just a repeat of the first instance. In some instances we've sent CDs as many as 4 separate occasions and still, each time, our fans from Ft. Worth all the way down through Houston and to the Rio Grande Valley continue to email us with the same report.

Has anyone encountered anything like this? Could this simply be a case of the stations not liking our music? What else can we do to obtain U.S. airtime?

[Kickradio]

Hi Mike,

I certainly know and can understand and appreciate your frustrations in these efforts.

The deregulation of the radio industry is what created this situation. Years ago most radio stations - whether they be AM or FM - in the U.S. were independently owned and locally operated. During those days the stations could be easily accessed by artists and songwriters to play new material -- especially local talent in local and regional markets. If a song was aired and became popular by the local listeners then often times a label would then approach the artist to contract.

Regulation by the Federal Communications Commission limited the number of stations that could be owned by the same individual or entity.

Deregulation allowed for big corporations to acaquire, own and operate stations -- so nearly all the successful local community stations were absorbed into Corporate America. Consolidation also meant the elimination of local control over programming (the decisions to play what songs when). Radio programs became automated and even Disc Jockeys as local announcers, were replaced by an automated cart system of music that was pre-programmed at the higher corporate levels where ever the corporate headquarters were located.

Those ability of local program managers and DJs to give a musician a break was eliminated.

This entire story becomes very complex but this is the reason you have problems placing your tunes.

Clear Channel was one of those corporate conglomerates and they have been in and out of court and hearings regarding this very issue. So far we see no real progress in restoring access to local stations for local and regional talent.

I could go on and on here discussing these issues including the old and new payola scandals but I suspect that is why you started this forum thread and I thank you for that.

This issue is not unique to you and I have a feeling we have hundreds of members right here on this site who share your frustrations and difficulties. I hope others will join in with their experiences and what they know.

I can tell you that this is one of the many projects that your Kickradio staff is working on. Providing solutions for problems faced by songwriters and artists in accessing the radio markets is one of our goals. Part of the solution, we feel, is syndicating The Kickradio Show on a regular basis to Corporate Radio around the world. Obviously if more and more stations would set aside an hour each week to air an episode of The Kickradio Show then the reach of artists, like yourself, will be greatly expanded and allow you to break the seal of radio programming from the back door since the front door is already guarded by big business interests.

But even these efforts by us on your behalf face not only stumbling blocks identical to what you have encountered -- but also are efforts are being hindered by "copyright office do gooders" who want to collect your songwriting royalties on your behalf by trying to assess royalty penalties on us just because we attempting to promote your work. Think about it. You are looking for promotion from us to help you promote your work and talent. Those folks feel that they should be charging us to promote you. LOL..... more on this is coming out soon and you will be shocked. If they succeed in this effort then you will see the opportunity door on the internet also slammed in your face as well.

We are not a program or site where we go "borrow" your music without your permission and then stream it for the benefit of listeners and national advertisers for free. On the other hand every song you upload you give us an individual license to make available during that upload process. The same thing happens when you use "Instant Audition" -- you agree to an ephemeral license for that show to appear on Kickradio if you are selected. We do not allow downloads on this site, either.

But what is interesting to us is that all of these issues: Radio access, internet access, fair competition, etc. are all tied (in one way or another) to the same sources of influence who want to dominate the entire music marketplace world wide.

[Mike Parrish]

On 8/21/2008 I was contacted by a radio station that requested me to stop by for a radio interview that would take place on 08/22/2008. It was short notice, however, the band wasn't playing anywhere on the 22nd, it was an early morning interview and the interview was being conducted by the program manager. Also, I knew that this station had already received a copy of our album because it was hand delivered, upon request, to the program manager by the President of Willow Street Entertainment.

I arrived on time and ready for the interview, met with the program manager and (not to my surprise) he asked me if I'd brought along a copy of the album and explained the station no longer possessed a copy of the album because he had given it away to one of his employees. Although I was infuriated, I simply walked out to my vehicle and retrieved a copy so that tracks could be played during the course of the interview.

The interview was very detailed and went very well. Two tracks were played, in their entireity, during the course of the half hour interview.

When it was over, I retrieved my copy of the album and left the station.

Guess I just figured that, if my album was going to simply be given away then maybe I should have at least some input as to who the recipient would be. Others may think that it may have been beneficial to have simply left the second copy but I knew that this station received its copy in September 2007 and never aired a single track. 11 months later, after doing fairly well on the European charts, I suddenly became a person of at least enough interest that the station would contact me for the interview (instead of me contacting the station trying to promote my album) and the station had already given its only copy away. To make matters even more frustrating, this station is completely computerized (as the majority are today) and no one even bothered to rip a copy onto their hard drive so they would be able to play the tracks should the tunes ever be requested. Personally, if I had been in the program manager's shoes and was the person responsible for requesting this interview, I'd have been online buying a copy of the album to save face.

Last week, some of our fans contacted a radio station requesting one of our tunes. The station advised that they no longer had a copy of our album because a DJ (who was no longer employed with the station) had taken it when he left. On the same day, one of our street team leaders contacted the radio station and requested information on purchasing 60 second radio spots to promote the album. The station requested the street team leader to leave her email address and she did as requested. Within an hour she received an email containing an mp3. The mp3 contained a 60 second radio spot that highlighted 5 tunes from my album and there was a Word Document with an estimate of almost $1000 to run this ad for a certain period of time. Would it be beneficial to a radio station to purchase downloads to create an ad for a customer when the customer hadn't submitted any sort of deposit on the ad? Maybe I'm just being cynical but I believe the station had the album all along and when approached with an opportunity to make money from possessing the album it suddenly materialized.

I've come to believe that, as a musician, radio is well guarded by those who control the purse strings and that I should simply continue nurturing the relationships I've been fortunate to establish in Europe, continue to do live shows and simply promote my album at shows and through the internet. Maybe I'm completely offbase but I just don't believe an independent artist will ever be taken seriously until he/she is no longer an independent and becomes involved with a major label. Some may say that I shouldn't make my feelings known because I'd somehow become black-balled by radio. My response is that this is already the case, what are the stations going to do to me? Are they simply not going to play my album? Hmmm . . . .seems I was black-balled from the beginning by being on an independent label because that's happening already.