If you grew up listening toCasey Kasem ’s American Top 40 , keeping your own listing of the top songs and digging the behind - the - scenes tidbits of information Casey give during the show , you ’re not alone . The syndicate American Top 40radioshow was one of the most successful in the account of popular euphony . The snippets of data about your favorite recording creative person , sentimental long - distance dedication , and Casey ’s personal flair for puzzler that kept you listening made the show the success that it was and still is today .
The spunk of the show , however , is the euphony . Those select 40 songs that fall at the top of the Hot 100 chart – and sometimes stay there for a while – are compiled by Billboard Magazine and are based on some pretty amazing enquiry . But what entropy does Billboard search at ? How does music promotion affect what you listen on the radio set ? And , how does what you hear on the radio touch on what music sell ?
In this clause , we ’ll look at how radio station decide what to act , and how Billboard comes up with the magic list of " the good " music . We ’ll also see what happens when artists make up one’s mind to buck the system and go for it on their own . Read on , and , as Casey always articulate , " Keep reach for the stars ! "
How Does a Song Make it to the Top 40?
Each workweek , Billboardputs together a chart of the top 100 most popular song ( as well as several other chart ) based on a interior sample of top 40 tuner airplay , top 40 radio playlist , and euphony sale . Since the Top 40 come from the Hot 100 chart , get ’s calculate at how the Hot 100 is collect . As you may imagine , this is quite an task .
First , there isairplay . What is really being played on the radio and on music video line onTV ? accept programme directors and disc jockey have their finger on the pulse of democratic euphony , this could be skilful measuring of what masses like . Airplay is tracked throughBroadcast Data Systems(BDS ) , run by Nielsen . BDS utilize digital pattern - recognition engineering science to identify song that are work on radiocommunication post and euphony telecasting TV channels across the United States and Canada . This is done 24 hours a sidereal day , seven day a week , and captures over100 million songs annually . BDS also provides " gross impressions , " which is but the number of multitude listening to a station multiplied by the telephone number of times the record was played . When unexampled song are register , a copy of the transcription is send out to BDS so it can be encode and track by its organisation on the stations it monitors . This data is used not only by Billboard in compiling the weekly chart , but also by record company executive , wireless stations , publication firms , carrying into action rights organizations ( to forecast performanceroyalties ) , medicine retailers , independent promoters , cinema and television manufacturer , and artist handler .
Another measure of what music is hot is what people are buying . To find out what music is sell in criminal record memory board , Billboard goes to SoundScan . Nielsen SoundScanis an info organisation that tracks thesalesof music and music videos throughout the United States and Canada . By scanning thebar computer code , they can collect gross sales information from cash registers each workweek from over 14,000 retail , mass merchandiser , and non - traditional sources such as on-line entrepot , concert sales , etc . The data point is amass and available for indorser every Wednesday . Like BDS datum , the datum from SoundScan is also very worthful forrecord companies , creative person , concert promoters , and retailers .
Billboard ’s methodology for roll up the charts have gone through several change over the year . Since switching to Nielsen ’s BDS and SoundScan ( see below for a little background ) , Billboard vary the weight of airplay versus sale . Because track a undivided song through album sales is n’t exactly accurate , single sales have always been used to track the sale side of song popularity . But , since only about 20 % of mass actually buy singles and over 90 % listen to the radio , it made sense to alter the proportion of level . Now , the overall point are weighted to 20 % sales agreement and 80 % airplay .
But , if Billboard bases its charts on what is already being toy on the radio and purchased in music memory board , how do receiving set stations feel out about new euphony ?
How is Music Promoted?
euphony furtherance is heavy business . Here is a distinctive scenario in a recording company :
You , the transcription artist , have signed a transcription contract bridge with a majorrecord label . The phonograph recording recording label wee your album and ships it to a distributor that sells it to stores . The record label then start out the massive furtherance of your music . This promotional effort call for a lot of work by a lot of people . Here is a short list of what ’s involved .
But , in the world of music promotion , this only scratches the open .
Independent Promoters and Radio Play
Ever since Clear Channel pledged to discerp its connexion with independent promoters , the world of medicine packaging has been exposed for all to view and label .
What the world does n’t recognise is that , according to some , much of the medicine we find out on prominent rock and Top 40 radio station is act because sovereign showman ante up the stations to add it to their playlists . Because it is illegal for record companies to directly bear radio station to play their music – or for radio stations to play euphony someone paying them to play , at least without disclosing on the air that the fourth dimension is paid for – they bring in a middleman , the independent promoter , or " indie . " This is reportedly how it forge :
An indie approaches a radio station coach or chemical group owner about becoming their exclusive congresswoman . In exchange , the indie will pay the post an annual requital of $ 75,000 to $ 100,000 per year ( for average - sized markets ) for " promotional support . " This means the indie gives the station money , holiday , or gifts in other forms ( often giving cards or American Express money cards ) that they can use for their promotions , or for whatever use they take . Because the " gifts " are to be used for promotion , the pay - for - frolic is side - ill-treat . The station ’s part of the mint is to add songs the indie recommends to their play list . These are called " adds " in the job . Most stations have an average of three adds each week .
The indie then contacts record book companies to tell them he has this agreement with the place . He charges the record company a fee ( usually around $ 1,000 ) every time the station adds one of the label ’s songs to its playlist . For most 1 , the record book company are paying in the neighborhood of $ 100,000 to $ 250,000 to indie . According to some , if they do n’t , the strain wo n’t get played . In improver , there are " spin care " charges to keep the song on the list . To avoid legal problem , indie have their lawyers essay their records to check that the transactions are still on the legal side of the line . The real job come in when , rather than using the money or " gifts " for publicity such as vacation game show for listeners , the program theatre director or other station staff pocket the money themselves .
Since part of the1996 Telecommunications Actincreased the number of radio stations an item-by-item company could own in a single market place and eliminated the cap on the number of post it could own nationally , there has been a Brobdingnagian run by large corporations to buy up as many radio stations as potential . Rather than having more than 5,000 radio set station owners in the country , four company now own 62 % of the Top 40 wireless market . In increase , the perpendicular grocery store has been affected . These same large corporations , such as Clear Channel , own not only the wireless place , but concert venues as well . This puts into the hands of a few large player much of the control over what medicine makes the Top 40 and what we , as the hearing public , get to find out . centralised decision making regarding playlist is typical . Disk jockeys and station managers may not have the control they used to have over what gets played and what does n’t . minor record society who ca n’t afford to ante up the indie have an extremely hard time getting their music on the air .
While many station traverse that indies have this control over what they play , others , like Radio One , which have 65 radio stations across the country , let in accepting money from indie . After all , it is n’t illegal , and it ’s another revenue flow for them .
See theJoint Statement on Current Issues in Radio(PDF ) for more information .
By the way , those charge for main promotion come out of the artists royal family – not the record caller ’s earnings .
How do Radio Stations Decide What to Play?
According to theFederal Communications Commission , there are 13,296 radiocommunication stations certify as of September 20 , 2002 . Aside from the reports of " payola " through indies discussed in the late division , how do those 13,296 radio stations settle what to meet ?
Playlists
radio set stations haveplaylistsof Sung , which can change weekly . These lists are put together by radio coder ( and others ) who employ selective information from many sources to " add " vocal . Disc jockeys have not rightfully been make decisions on what to play for many years . The job falls to the programme directors ( PDs ) who develop lists that calculate the disc jockey on what to represent and when to play it . In some cases , the decision regarding what is play come from higher up the ladder , especially since so many radio stations are have by mega corporations . More and more programming decisions are now made by owners and/or regional program directors .
Tools program directors use to know their market
Deciding what to “add”
experience the audience is the key to a PD being able to discover the good medicine to add to playlists . To stay on top what their hearing likes , PDs watch the charts and other stations ' play list . They may bide tuned to college wireless stations , which often play new music that has n’t made it to the mainstream . They may also keep up withRadio & Recordsmagazine ’s " Most Added " report , which it generates from data it collects from radio stations in major market place harmonise to genre . In the past few years , many have also found new music on TV . In the 1980s , MTV changed the music scene ; today , we have music - relate TV serial , traditional programs that use new music , cable television service channel , and even commercial that introduce new songs and artists .
Onlinepeer - to - equal ( P2P ) networksare also influencing radio playlists . BigChampagne , owned by Clear Channel , is tracking the songs most oft downloaded in the P2P electronic connection such as LimeWire , KaZaA , Morpheus , and others . The programme parses this data point by geographical region and reports it to radio station , giving the stations a more precise feel for what is " hot . "
Clear Channel also has a Web site ( ClearChannel New Music connection ) dedicated to new music . New group can register and post their music for PDs and consumers to listen to . If PDs like it , there is always the chance they ’ll add it to their playlist .
How Does a Top 40 Hit Affect a New Artist?
The goal of most any recording artist or chemical group is to trade its music and get tour gig . The means to this last is to get their music on the radio . But , does a song have to make it to the Top 40 and quell there for a while for " make it " and make money ? In most cases , yes . The divergence can be trade 1,200 record album in a calendar week versus selling 1,200 in an hour .
Moving up the charts
With price of producing an record album , boost it , move on term of enlistment , and everything else that is involved , a player has to sell a pile of music to make money . sell more CDs means more touring opportunity , and more touring opportunities mean sell more compact disk and getting more airplay . It becomes a cyclic thing that feeds on itself : charts are ground on airplay and record sales event ; phonograph recording sales meliorate with more airplay , which maintain the song on the charts .
However , with Billboard ’s shift in ratio , angle record sales lower than airplay , the key to outride on the chart is now staying on the radio receiver .
Can a Recording Artist Make it Without a Top 40 Hit?
For some musicians , have a Top 40 hitting is not the be all , cease all of melodic success . There are artists who are quietly contented in recording , producing , and sell their own music . Yes , you take heed it right-hand . You canproduce your own medicine , sell it yourself ( or through independent music computer storage and other distribution networks ) without the contracts , sound bills , and headaches come up in dealing with major , mini , or even independent record book labels . While this is not every aspire music star ’s pipe dream , for some it ’s a perfect via media . They defend control of their music , make decent money , and still see a small spotlight time .
In " The Musician ’s Guide to Making and sell Your Own CDs & Cassettes " by Jana Stanfield , Ms. Stanfield explain that she got tired of wait for her big breach in the music line , so she went on without it . All it takes is a niggling backbreaking employment and some substitute marketing idea – and , of path , the requisite talent .
If you readHow Music Royalties Work , you also know that the money musicians make from their recording is commonly less than you might expect because much ( and sometimes all ) of the costs of production , promotion , touring , and other expenses come out of the artists ' royalty before they can be paid . And , unless you also write your own Sung dynasty , you do n’t see royalties from performance of your music on the wireless or other programme . Advances that recording artists received prior to making the album must be also be paid back out of those royal line . If you compare that to selling your ownCDsat local and regional concerts , music festivals , lodge , and other small musical field , you may find that you make comely money doing it yourself . Jana Stanfield state in her book that her five ego - promoted and ego - sold album pull in about $ 30,000 per class .
For more information on Top 40 ranking and related to topics , check out the links on the next page .
