In the second part of their secret interview series,
Idolator talks to a label college radio promotion person, and gets the straight dope.
Here's a summary:
- College radio programmers love to name drop, but do not really know who Sebadoh is.
- Adds and college charts are an irrelevant barometer of success that exist only to please out-of-touch higher ups.
- Records are seldom, if ever, added on merit- it's all politics.
- A large percentage of charts are totally fake.
Besides a handful of stations like WSOU, Blackout! never really was big into spending money on buying overpriced trade ads, or indie promotions teams. I always felt that tour support yielded a much better ROI.
1 comment:
Billy-
It is imporant to distinguish College Radio as a some form of club activity to make random noise in between P.A. annoucements from the administration from College Radio in support of some type of R-T-B or Communication program at a university or community college. The former is what people think of as "College Radio" and the later is a training ground for commercial radio. The former act unprofessional because... well they are hobbyist. The later act like trainees because ... that's what they are. In the best case, the hobbyists are motivated by an intrinsic interest in music and a desire to explore interesting new stuff. In the worst case, its both incompetent and narcissistic. On the flip side... well you get the idea.
-william
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