Originally Posted by Billy Darnell
Hi Artist,

I can answer that question in one word...NONE!!

...Secondly, I think you'll find that if most artists, or songwriters, have to pay to have their songs heard on internet radio, they will opt out.... Making the grade, knowing what we do is good enough to make folks want to listen to it, and radio stations play it, is what strokes our ego's. It's our barometer of quality....

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Billy Darnell


Billy,

I like that you say..."...making the grade, is an artist's barometer of quality..." I truly understand the pride of ownership in that statement. Creatively speaking, voluntary audience participation is a rewarding measure of success.

However, looking at it from a business perspective, it seems that, at least as far as you are concerned, there is absolutely no marketing value to be had by paying to advertise your brand on any Internet Radio station and that even if an artist is good enough to be on radio, and should be on radio, they should leave the attention getting mechanism, what ever it happens to be, up to pure dumb luck.

I think is it always difficult to balance one’s philosophy about creative success, earned by virtue of personal discovery and recognition to commercial success, earned by virtue of using savvy sales and marketing techniques to accelerate recognition.

I know that for many artists, the act of creation is reward enough. Any money derived from creation is merely gravy. However, there are many others that see music as a business and they measure success in a different way. Both of which include recognition.

I prefer recognition with reward and that is why I posed the original question about where and how artists might spend a very thin marketing dollar in the event that Pay-for-Play becomes a more standard reality.