Radio Airplay Review: Scam or Legit Way to Promote Your Music?

One of the biggest challenges musicians face is the amount of airplay, if any, they get on radio. Airplay is the broadcasting time devoted to a particular record, performer, or musical genre. Airplay helps the musician get exposure since your songs are played to a larger audience and this comes with a lot of opportunities.

For most musicians, getting airplay is a dream come true since it assures you that your music is getting heard. This can make a big impact on your music career. Traditionally, upcoming musicians approach music stations to request for their music to get airplay. This process is very tiresome and discouraging to up and coming musicians and requires a lot of patience.

In recent years, there has been the development of radio internet platforms, such as Radio Airplay, Pandora, among others, which use algorithms to generate playlists with music from both established and emerging artists, and giving them airtime. This is awesome since emerging musicians get a platform through which their music gets heard.

What is Radio Airplay?

Radio Airplay is a platform which provides free internet radio. It is the sister site of Jango.com, which is also an internet radio station.

This internet radio station plays music by artists depending on the genre of music you prefer. Radio Airplay plays a very crucial role in the discovery of new artists since you get to listen to new artists who produce music which is similar to the genre you selected to be listening to on the online radio.

These are artists who normally you would never have known to exist. Radio Airplay is therefore very helpful in the discovery of new artists.

My Story with Radio Airplay

I am an aspiring musician who has a dream of being a huge star in the near future. Being in the music industry requires tough skin. I am still new to the industry and I have experienced major setbacks which sometimes are disheartening. These include getting no response to your music demo, low turnout to my gigs, low funds and cancelled shows.

The biggest problem in my case has been getting airplay in a radio station. This is because by achieving this milestone would help alleviate these other setbacks since airplay greatly enhances your exposure since your music gets to be heard by a large audience. Getting airplay, in turn, helps you to get more opportunities.

I was recently introduced to Radio Airplay by a friend of mine. It was pretty easy to use and what impressed me was that they offered me a free trial. All I had to do was to select the preferred audience for my music by selecting musicians who perform in the same genre of music as me and upload my song, and my song was added to a playlist of similar songs in the internet radio station.

Over the past few months that I have been using Radio Airplay, my songs have racked up 1971 plays, and have garnered me a small fan base. This, however, has not been for free. I have had to pay some money in order to get airplay.

There are monthly packages which I have had to subscribe to, in order to get up to 1000 additional plays on the online platform. This has helped me so far since I am not suffering as before, and I hope that things continue to improve as I continue using Radio Airplay.

Key Features of Radio Airplay

• Guaranteed Airplay

In this feature, you get to upload your music to Radio Airplay. You choose the genre of music which you want your music to be played under. This is so as to get listeners who like your style of music. You also get to promote your music in order to get new fans.

• How Airplay Works

This feature gives you instructions on how to operate Radio Airplay with ease.

• Reports and Data

The reports and data feature enables you to constantly get updated reports on your fanbase. You get notified when your music is being played together with who is listening to your music. Through this feature, you also get to know how well your music was received through the ratings given by listeners. Through the reports and data feature, you also get to know your fans and what they like.

• Listener Targeting

In this feature, there are two options on how you would like to target your audience; standard and premium. Premium targeting costs more credit than standard targeting.

In standard targeting, your listeners are targeted based on the type of artists they listen to and their geographic location. The cost of standard targeting per play is one credit.

In premium targeting, you get to target your audience on the basis of demographic (based on their age and gender), strict geographic targeting in addition to the targeting of the listeners’ preferred artists.

• Popscore

This feature awards popscores based on how well your music is received by your listeners. The better your song performs the higher your popscore. The popscores can be used as play credits, which can be used to get you more airtime for your music. The more fans you get, the more popscores you are awarded.

• Airplay Plus

Airplay plus is a feature which enables you to choose the type of packages you would want to subscribe to.

What to Expect from Radio Airplay

With Radio Airplay, you should expect guaranteed airplay for your music on your desired playlist. This is when all the required payments have been made.

You should also expect your music to reach the desired audience since your songs will be played alongside music of similar genres to yours.

How Does Radio Airplay Work?

When your song is played on Radio Airplay, listeners get to view the profile of you, the musician. The profile provides an option where the listener can vote for your song. It is the listener’s choice whether to vote for your song or not. If the listener gives you a thumbs up, he/she becomes your fan. Fans can share their email addresses with you, or they can comment on your song.

You also get to see which of your songs have been listened to most recently, and your fans on your dashboard. Radio Airplay also has an internal messaging system where you can message your fans. You can choose to message your fans individually or you can message them all at once.

Price and Plans

Payments in Radio Airplay are made on a monthly basis. There are 5 plans which you can subscribe to:

• In the intro package, you pay $10 for your music to get a total of 250 plays in a month.
• In the gold package, you pay $30 for your music to get a total of 1000 plays in a month.
• In the platinum package, you pay $100 for your music to get a total of 4000 plays in a month.
• In the multi-platinum package, you pay $200 for your music to get a total of 9500 plays in a month.
• In the diamond package, you pay $500 for your music to get a total of 25000 plays in a month.

Pros

• You music is guaranteed to get airtime
• You get to choose the audience for your music
• You are able to know how well your audience received your music
• It provides a large audience for your music
• There is a free version

Cons

• The song airings are not broadcast to masses at a time
• The pay for play arrangement is expensive
• For you to get more than one song on the network, you have to pay more
• Most listeners do not bother to vote for your music

Verdict

Radio Airplay is a really good platform, particularly for aspiring musicians. It gives the musicians airtime especially when it would be impossible to get airtime on normal radio.

Although expensive to some extent, it really gives your music good exposure to both the local and international audience.