Radio has always been a huge part of the music industry, yet in recent years the landscape has changed.  With the iPod replacing the Walkman and the growing field of alternatives to terrestrial radio, you need to rethink your radio strategy.

In the golden age of terrestrial radio, stations would reach tens of thousands (or more) in their local market.  If you got played on one of these stations, you would have had gotten your music in the ears of a lot of people.  That said, there generally wasn’t much that could be done in the sense of targeting your audience; your music was played with whatever broad genre it fell under.  These stations tried to appeal to the masses, so they stuck to safe “proven” hits and rarely took a chance on any new music.  For those with selective tastes this steady stream of top 40 genre music was hard to swallow.  Fans of classic songs, for instance, would have to sit through “new” music to hear the songs that they wanted and fans of newer hits had to sit through classics that might not be so classic to them.

Now radio has many faces and most of them don’t even appear on the AM/FM dials.  College and independent radio stations have always been friendly to unsigned musicians and can really be considered the only terrestral radio venues worth trying to get on.  Internet radio is also a great place for indies.  Heather McDonald, About.com’s Guide to Music Careers, wrote this article about how unsigned artists get much more exposure on internet radio than terrestrial radio.  Then there’s podcasts, which cover all types of music and music scenes.  There’s also satellite radio, which supports independant and unsigned musicians as well.  Both XM and Sirius have programs for unsigned artists and genre specific stations that, in many cases play music from indiependant labels.

As you can see, there are now many places for you to get you music played.  While it’s a lot of work to research and contact so many different broadcast outlets, it is much easier to get your music played on them and much more effective as well.

These days you can target your specific sub-genre and reach more potential fans.  By specifically targeting fans of your genre you are limiting the exposure that you get, but you’re concentrating the exposure you are getting to people that are more inclined to appreciate what they hear.  It’s better to reach 100 potential fans than 10,000 people who’d rather listen to something completely different.

So do your research, find the stations and podcasts that play your genre of music and contact them… oh yeah, and have something to send to them.