In this follow‑up video, Wendy Day expands on her earlier radio‑promotion advice by covering three key areas for independent artists. First, she promotes affordable internet‑radio campaigns, noting that they reach dedicated hip‑hop fans and can boost a song’s visibility, especially when tracked with Digital Radio Tracker. Second, she stresses the importance of registering with SoundExchange to collect royalties from internet streams. Finally, she explains the necessity of joining a performance‑rights organization (PRO) – ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC – as both a writer and a publisher to collect terrestrial (FM) radio royalties, outlining the sign‑up process, the need to choose a publishing name, and the differences between ASCAP (artist‑run) and BMI (broadcaster‑owned). She also mentions that Songtrust can handle BMI registration on an artist’s behalf. Throughout, Wendy offers practical tips, cautions about administrative delays, and encourages artists to do their own research to select the best options.
Chapters
So yesterday I talked about getting radio play, and there are two other things that I want to add to that. One is internet radio. Internet radio is digital radio. It's— there are a bunch of folks out here that have radio stations online, and there's actually viewers of that. Like, there's, there's followers who actually pay attention to internet radio. So if if you want to do an internet radio campaign, they're quite affordable and you can still have a decent-sized reach. They're especially great for underground artists because most of the people who pay attention to internet radio are like the true hardcore fans of rap and hip-hop. So, um, I used to, I used to not be a believer in internet radio for a couple of reasons. One, I didn't really listen to it myself, so I didn't really understand it, which is just ignorance. And then the second reason was I couldn't track it. Well, now that we have Digital Radio Tracker, we can track internet radio and we can get a feel for the size of the audience that is actually listening to the music. And I do internet radio campaigns for almost all of my clients, and the thing that I'll say about internet radio radio, even though I can't really track exactly who's listening, I have noticed that the songs that I do an internet radio campaign on always seem to be bigger than the songs that I don't. They seem to have a better reaction, they seem to get more views and just overall more attention than the songs that I don't do. And I don't know whether that's because doing more mainstream music for internet radio campaigns, or if the reach is just really that great. But it is a wonderful way to make some money because you're going to get paid for the internet streams. So make sure you sign up through SoundExchange, and that's soundexchange.com, because that's who's paying you for internet radio. And, um, which leads me in my second thought for, um, a follow-up to the radio video is if you're gonna get terrestrial radio, which is FM radio, make sure that you are signed up to one of the performance, um, rights organization, either ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. I know there's a couple of newer ones that have sprouted up. I haven't done any research on them, so I'm not going to mention them here, but you guys may want to just do some research and see what is out there besides ASCAP and BMI, because they are, um, definitely, um, places that you want to be a member of. With ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, you're going to join as a publisher, and you're also going to join as a writer. They're the two different, um, sides of publishing that matter when you're getting radio play. So just make sure that you sign up for both aspects. For my clients, the most frustrating part is you have to choose a name, and once you fill out the form, you've got to wait for them to respond. It's not— you can't choose a name and find out if it's, if it's possible to use that name in real time. And that's a little bit frustrating because you're going to fill out the paperwork, you're going to then have to wait for them to respond before you're going to be able to know what name you can actually use for ASCAP or BMI. I don't know if SESAC does it in real time or not. I don't really know anybody that is affiliated with SESAC. I know that they're legitimate. I know that they own the Harry Fox Agency, um, and I know that, um, they're pretty well funded. I just don't know any artists that are part of SESAC. So definitely do your research. Um, ASCAP is at ascap.com, BMI is at bmi.com, and SESAC is at seesac.com. Um, they all kind of do the same thing. The difference, um, that I see between ASCAP and BMI— and I don't recommend one over the other, you're going to have to do your research and figure out which one's better for you— but BMI, um, is owned by broadcasters, and ASCAP is a membership organization that is, um, owned and run by artists. So that's a little bit different. They police, um, radio stations. So whether you want belong to an organization that's run by broadcasters or run by artists, that's certainly your choice. But just do the research and see which one makes more sense. Look at the price to join each. It's a little bit different. It's about the same, but it's a little bit different. That may enter into it. And for those of you that are using Songtrust, Songtrust goes ahead and signs you up for BMI so that you don't have to do it yourself, nor do you have the expense. So That's all I wanted to say. That's my follow-up to my radio promotion video from yesterday. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you soon. Bye.
