Vigilant Promotions

Besides radio, there are three other main parts to marketing an artist... press, gigs, and retail, which can be quite difficult for a new artist/label to get started. Fortunately, radio can be a tool to get these going by using radio referrals. College radio should be considered for every campaign, even if you are doing high-level commercial radio. College radio is relatively inexpensive and can provide some very positive chart or report results to show retail, press, and clubs.

CMJ is the "College Music Journal" or "College Media Journal", depending on whom you ask. For us, it stands for music. And we are focusing here on the professional *weekly* version (available by subscription only), not the consumer *monthly* version (which is available on newsstands.) You can get a feel for CMJ by looking at their site (www.cmj.com), but most of the real material is in the magazine only.

The beauty of CMJ is that it lists (on a weekly basis) a huge number of play-lists of individual stations around the U.S.; these lists (being that they are from college, community and NPR stations) actually show music mostly from new artists. This is not a pay to play situation. If they like it, they will play it, unlike commercial claims to do. Thus CMJ is subscribed to by managers, labels, booking agents, and music press who want to be informed of upcoming "trends" in music.

Top 200
Within CMJ, the first chart we want to look at (and the main chart in CMJ) is the "Top 200", which is 200 listings deep of alternative charting artists (compared to 40 or 50 of other charts). 200 might seem like a lot, but on any given week, over 2000 artists are *attempting* to chart (and don't.) There are about 1000 college stations, which are eligible to send their play-lists to CMJ to be included in the Top 200 chart. About 350 to 600 do it on any given week.

It works like this: A college radio station's programming is made up of many one-hour segments, each one being programmed by a student who is taking a broadcasting class, or by a volunteer that comes from the local community. Each student or volunteer presents his/her one-hour play-list to the music director, and the music director then compiles a "Top-30" for that station...the 30 artists that are getting the most airplay from the different DJs at the station. The "Top-30" for that station is then faxed/emailed to CMJ. CMJ then averages all the individual “Top-30” charts for that week, and this is what makes up the “Top-200” chart for that week (and that week only). Any “Top-30” received before or after that week cannot count for that week's “Top-200 chart”.

Whether or not you appear on the “Top-200” chart is dependent upon how many stations put you on their Top-30's for that week. To make it onto the bottom of the “Top-200” chart, you will need anywhere from 5 to 40 individual “Top-30s” for that week, depending on the time of year.

Radio 200 Adds
A companion to the “Top-200” chart is the "Radio 200 Adds" chart. An "add" chart is different from an "airplay" chart; because at non-commercial radio, an "add" just means a station "added you to the music library"...it does not mean they gave you any spins (airplay). However, getting an "add" can be, and usually is, the first step to getting spins.

Genre Top 40
The next chart to look at in CMJ is your genre’s chart. This is where your genres in particular information shows up. These charts average the top 40 artists in your genre, and have a most-added section that is five artists deep.

Remember college station people are unpaid; so that means they also work in their communities doing something they love... music! So where better to work than a record store, music magazine, or club? Not only do these folks provide more knowledge (compared to commercial regular rotation people) of what's available in their town, sometimes they are the same people that you need to talk to at the stores, magazines, or clubs in the first place.

If you are interested in “College Radio Promotion” and would like to be considered for future campaigns please "Contact Us" for details.