I met yesterday with one of the few remaining Indie radio promoters in L.A. He claimed the others had to leave town because of their unscrupulous business practices although one still keeps a local mailing address on his advertisements.
By the end of our meeting he was confessing that hiring a radio promoter to get your song played on the radio, AM or FM not Internet radio, which he claims has zero listeners, is a waste of money. A LOT of money. I don't know of too many other businesses that take your cash up front on the promise that they'll try and get you what you want but can't guarantee anything. All they can promise to do is make a phone call on your behalf and send out a copy of your CD if the station is interested. He even suggested that if someone has a good telephone voice, he or she could do just as good a job.
Of course the advantage a professional has is that they have the radio station Program Director's phone number and that person will take their call. These days I can't get a living, breathing human being on the line to save my life, literally, even the Police Department has a pre-recorded message. Indie radio promoters have their ways of greasing the wheel as it were. Sometimes it's giving the station free SWAG like boom boxes, free CD, T-shirts and other merch that they can give away to listeners when they do remote broadcasts from businesses which in turn can legally pay them. Other times it's just showing the radio personnel a good time (hookers and blow) or free diners and big name concerts. What would you do to make a business person like you enough to always take your call?
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