David Bruce Murray
Aug 12, 2009
Advice|Observations
Two Or More Singles In Rotation
Back when music was delivered to radio stations on 45-rpm records, singles were typically issued in pairs with the “A-side” intended for airplay.
Today, digital distribution is the norm, so there’s no need to send a “throwaway” B-side single to radio that may get some airplay but no chart action. For whatever reason, people who manage airplay charts aren’t real fond of having the same group on their chart in more than one spot.
Let’s suppose for a moment that the largest point of radio airplay is NOT to see how high a single can go on a chart. It’s just possible that a greater goal should be to sell music. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to send two or even three songs to radio when a CD is new? A listener may not care for one of the songs, but that same listener may love the other single.
I can testify from my years in Christian retail that for established artists, most CD sales come in the first month after street date. This hard and cold fact runs counter to the chart game. A highly successful radio single later MIGHT cause a surge in sales for an already released CD months later, but that’s just not typical.
If I turn on the radio and I hear a new song that I like, I might seek out the group and buy their CD. Business as usual.
On the other hand, suppose I’m listening to enLighten or Joy-FM routinely throughout the week and I hear two or three brand new songs by the same group. I’m going to be much more likely to buy their CD.
Here’s an example. For simplicity’s sake, let’s suppose a label has three major artists who would typically release one single every four months. The singles would ordinarily go out in rotation…artist A’s first single in January, artist B’s in February, artist C’s in March, artist A’s second single in May, artist’s B’s in June, etc. Great is the rejoicing if just one of these singles goes to number one on the Singing News chart, even if the CD sales are running 10, 15, or 20 percent behind the artist’s last CD for the same time period.
Under my suggestion, this would be modified so that artist A’s first three singles ALL go out in January a few weeks before the CD street date, artist B’s three singles go out in May with a similar lag on the street date, and artist C’s three singles go out in September. The label isn’t asking the radio station to play more music. They’re simply asking the station to emphasize one artist over their other two top tier artists in certain months.
That’s not to say they couldn’t still play the chart game with individual single releases later. The goal, though, is to sell as many CDs in the first couple of months as possible. That’s difficult to do if the success of the CD is riding on just one song.
From a sales perspective, the time to push new music is when it’s still new.
Radio programmers would have to be convinced to go along, of course.
