Relationship between music directors and label reps

[Emixam]

Hey guys, I'm just a new cat who's really curious about the radio world and how it works.

What's the relationship usually like between label reps and music directors? How would you describe it?
I'm guessing this mostly applies to CHR (or maybe not?) as you're pretty much only dealing with currents, some recurrents and a few golds.
If you're a music director for that kind of station, wouldn't you then have tons of inquiries from label reps from basically every imprint + the indie guys, pushing you to put their new hot song in the rotation?
I'm really curious as to what that relationship usually is like, how it is managed, the decisions made, the possible influence they might have (or not have).. even if surely, there must be plenty of possible answers. I hope this isn't too much of a taboo/boring topic

Would love to hear insights!!
Cheers,

Max.

 

[gr8oldies]

I can't speak for now, but legendary CKLW Music Director Rosalie Trombley's son Tim, became a label rep.

 

[TheBigA]

What's the relationship usually like between label reps and music directors? How would you describe it?

Complicated. Most people describe it as a partnership.

Just last week, there was an event in Nashville called Country Radio Seminar. Hendreds of radio programmers from around the country went to Nashville to listen to music and attend sessions designed to improve programming. Each of the labels hosts a showcase where programmers hear new music & new artists. If you search the name of the event, you'll see a lot of coverage of the event.

At the core of the relationship is the music chart. Billboard and Mediabase track airplay of current songs, and publish weekly airplay charts. The goal of the label rep is to promote their music, provide music research, answer questions, and hopefully increase spins of their songs. I just received an email today with release material (artist liners, online content, etc) for a new single coming out Friday. The label hopes that by sending me this stuff, I'll play their new song, and they'll have a strong first week in the chart.

This kind of thing only happens for chart reporters. To be a reporter, your station has to meet ratings and ownership criteria. Not everyone is a reporter. If your station airs a format where music decisions are made elsewhere, you can't be a reporter. Your station needs to have a local decision-maker, and that person has to be available to take calls from label reps once a week. As you said, this mainly happens for currents-based stations.

On the other side of the equation, radio stations have format captains, program directors, and consultants who present their research on those same songs. That's the back & forth that goes on in the music decision making. In a partnership, you weigh both sides and make decisions. At the end of the day, the MD is judged on if the songs added improve ratings. If they don't, then the MD is in trouble. If the label isn't able to move songs up the chart, then the label rep is in trouble. That's how I would describe it.

 

[Emixam]

Okay thanks for the explanation.

So there is quite a lot of pressure on the MD from your higher ups to keep the ratings up, or at least somewhat stable. That makes sense.
Adding a new song for you is a risk and it needs to be a somewhat calculated risk because exposing the audience to unfamiliar music could have them tune out.
But also, on the other side, you have to keep adding new material in, to keep them excited and not bored so it's a fine line.

So you take the call from them, but what incentive do you have to listen? They'll have maybe metrics etc to convince you but at the end of the day, could you not operate just as well without them? I guess you'd still need to play currents anyways, and they will most likely come from a major, so why not take it from the rep directly who has additional metrics—and maybe your PD also having their own metrics and pressuring you to listen... Might also be part of the station's branding to present "the freshest new stuff", so that's one additional point of pressure.

As to the relationship, would you say it becomes personal with the reps? To the point where you know each other personally, and develop a friendship maybe? Or that is more on the rare side of things?

 

[ron772]

Often the PD has as much or more influence on the music decisions vs. the MD. There'll be a music meeting with at least the PD and MD where you might play the new stuff up for consideration, look at the charts, and change your rotations. Usually if you want to put something new in, something current is going to have to come out or move down to recurrent. The PD's relationships with the labels might be deeper than the MD because the PD might have been the MD for many years and built those relationships. Or maybe the PD just wants the MD to deal with the calls, but they will still make the decisions together. I don't know too many stations where the MD had the ultimate authority for adds and rotation changes, though I'm sure they existed.

In my decades, labels never cared about recurrents or gold, at all. They called to get the newest stuff on, and get you to bump spins on stuff that was already on. Sometimes they'd WANT you to move something to recurrent so you could add the new one from that artist.

Every station is different. Some small markets would add almost everything so they could get better promotions. There were days of adding songs but not playing them, or just starting them in overnights, because the label wanted to be "Most Added" in R&R. And let's not get into the 80s when there was no electronic spin monitoring and stations added songs and moved them up their ranker without playing them at all! (Paper adds....sometimes I wonder how many of the middling titles on the heralded Hot 100 of the 70s and 80s were barely actually played on the radio at the time...)

It was and is a complex relationship, but halfway competent programming staff always knew that you were going to be judged on the station's ratings and revenue, and making friends with labels might get you better dinners or backstage passes, but if you didn't protect the station, you wouldn't have a job to enjoy the benefits. Playing the "freshest new stuff" is not a great strategy, as usually the more familiar stuff tests better. So it's a delicate balance of adding a couple of new titles every week and introduce them carefully, unless it's a superstar with an undeniable hit.

 

[TheBigA]

But also, on the other side, you have to keep adding new material in, to keep them excited and not bored so it's a fine line.

You also have to keep adding new music in to meet the chart standards that require a percentage of new music in station playlists. If the percentage drops too low, the station is dropped as a chart reporter.

As to the relationship, would you say it becomes personal with the reps?

You have to remember who you work for. If you forget, you'll lose your job.

 

[Emixam]

Often the PD has as much or more influence on the music decisions vs. the MD. There'll be a music meeting with at least the PD and MD where you might play the new stuff up for consideration, look at the charts, and change your rotations. Usually if you want to put something new in, something current is going to have to come out or move down to recurrent. The PD's relationships with the labels might be deeper than the MD because the PD might have been the MD for many years and built those relationships. Or maybe the PD just wants the MD to deal with the calls, but they will still make the decisions together. I don't know too many stations where the MD had the ultimate authority for adds and rotation changes, though I'm sure they existed.

In my decades, labels never cared about recurrents or gold, at all. They called to get the newest stuff on, and get you to bump spins on stuff that was already on. Sometimes they'd WANT you to move something to recurrent so you could add the new one from that artist.

Every station is different. Some small markets would add almost everything so they could get better promotions. There were days of adding songs but not playing them, or just starting them in overnights, because the label wanted to be "Most Added" in R&R. And let's not get into the 80s when there was no electronic spin monitoring and stations added songs and moved them up their ranker without playing them at all! (Paper adds....sometimes I wonder how many of the middling titles on the heralded Hot 100 of the 70s and 80s were barely actually played on the radio at the time...)

It was and is a complex relationship, but halfway competent programming staff always knew that you were going to be judged on the station's ratings and revenue, and making friends with labels might get you better dinners or backstage passes, but if you didn't protect the station, you wouldn't have a job to enjoy the benefits. Playing the "freshest new stuff" is not a great strategy, as usually the more familiar stuff tests better. So it's a delicate balance of adding a couple of new titles every week and introduce them carefully, unless it's a superstar with an undeniable hit.

Super interesting! Thank you.

 

[Emixam]

Right, you don't want to let those relationships cloud your judgment.

If the percentage drops too low, the station is dropped as a chart reporter.

Are stations owned by, say, iHeartMedia considered chart reporters?

So from what I understand, they definitely (still) do push hard to get as many spins as possible. Maybe I'm a bit slow but it's still not crystal clear to me as to why the stations need that relationship with the labels. Is it so they can keep their status of chart reporter? Or is it something that was vital in the very early years of the media, and that has stuck around?

 

[TheBigA]

Are stations owned by, say, iHeartMedia considered chart reporters?

If they meet the qualifications, yes. Some channels at Sirius are chart reporters too.

why the stations need that relationship with the labels. Is it so they can keep their status of chart reporter?

The chart requires that reporters are accessible to labels. Otherwise, the labels could bypass the stations completely and speak with format captains or corporate programmers. To me, it's a form of democracy. That HAS to be vital now, or radio companies would get rid of it to save money. Same with label people. Record labels have cut promo people in formats where they're not needed. Label reps also interact with streaming services.

 

[L Chanon Gade]

Positions of M.D. and P.D. came about from the bribery scandals of the late 1950s. .
Having a management position overseeing the playlist added a layer of protection to the station owners. The idea was to (mostly) eliminate the DJ's from the programming process.

The bribery problem still exists, but radio has greatly reduced influence over music sales. Today, I see as being more a problem in smaller markets were a track may breakout and get noticed.

LCG

 

[davideduardo]

Positions of M.D. and P.D. came about from the bribery scandals of the late 1950s. .

No, they did not.

The positions existed long before "music radio" started in the early 50's. A "music director" was a record librarian, and responsible for organizing the record library and providing the recorded songs needed for each show that had recorded music.

The "bribery scandals" you refer to were shown to be only a few cases, in the late 50's, of "payola" among a few disk jockeys, the most famous being Alan Freed. There were investigations of people like Dick Clark, but they generally went nowhere.

Except at some very big and famous stations... KHJ, CKLW, WMMS and the like, the "Music Director" was just one of the DJs who assisted the PD in dealing with the often-annoying record promoters, getting the "new stuff" together for a weekly music meeting and tasks like getting the "adds" carted and in the studio or replacing "burnt" 45s with fresh copies.

If the station did a chart publication for record store distribution, the MD might be in charge of that.

Yes, off and on there were cases of payola... the "stuff" related to Joe Isgro being the most notorious. But the dealing with the promoters, particularly the independents, was generally the responsibility of the PD and... in the case of the "indies" often done with the consent of management.

Having a management position overseeing the playlist added a layer of protection to the station owners. The idea was to (mostly) eliminate the DJ's from the programming process.

DJs were eliminated from music selection very early in the era of music radio; generally where a DJ played their own music was at small stations or on stations where pop music was just played in one daypart or shift. Those Top 40 stations with hitlists had very tightly defined playlists and rotations and the jocks had nothing to do with the selection of currents.

The bribery problem still exists,

And your proof is where?

In general, unless a station plays a lot of currents and is in a larger market and has its playlist monitored, no record promoter even cares what it plays.

We don't have Hamilton and Gavin and FMQB and the rest of the tip sheets any more. Adds can be seen instantly by subscribers to the airplay monitoring service, and any unusual add is going to be noticed instantly.

but radio has greatly reduced influence over music sales. Today, I see as being more a problem in smaller markets were a track may breakout and get noticed.

Few smaller market stations are monitored...

Major companies that monitor radio station playlists and song airplay include
Mediabase, Luminate BDS (formerly Nielsen BDS), Radiomonitor, DigitalRadioTracker (DRT), and WARM. These services use audio fingerprinting to track when and where songs are played, providing data for music charts, royalties, and promotion.

So if your song is added in Flagstaff or Traverse City or Valdosta, it is not going to be noticed anywhere.

As an example, I have programmed in markets as big as Buenos Aires, Lima, Santiago, Bogotá, San Juan, LA, Chicago, Houston, Miami and the like. I did not have a music director at any of those stations. I had very tight controls on when record promoters could visit, and a log of each visit. Promotions involving artists and their labels were always memorialized in a memo or agreement. Complicated promotions got review of the station or group's lawyer.

And... going back five decades... no song got to stay on the air more than a couple of weeks without some kind of research. No positive listener feedback, no airplay. Yes, I had a music committee in each case... a group that represented the demos of the station and/or programming experience that auditioned the songs critically.

But your idea that Music Directors were created to control payola is just not correct.