Having your song played on the air is, perhaps, the most difficult obstacle an artist will come up against. Even if an artist is signed to, and has the backing of a record company, the competition is tough. One route many artists and record companies take is to enlist the assistance of a radio promotions person to lobby on the artist's behalf for airplay. CM spoke to radio promoter Anya Wilson to gain insight into this part of the music industry: “I began in the music industry in London, England in late 1960's, working for several companies; but started my own radio promotion business after a friend, Tony Visconti, had produced an album by a band called T-Rex. The single was ‘Ride A White Swan’. Visconti, disappointed with the promotion his single was getting from the promotion person who had been 'working' the track, asked me if I would try. I was delighted to. I loved the song. I worked out a strategy for the single at radio, and promoted it so aggressively that it rose to #2 on the U.K. charts. My solo career as a radio promotion 'plunger' was launched. Visconti, and both Marc (Bolan) and his wife Jane, supplied me invaluable clients, as well as the opportunity to work on all future T-Rex tracks. Wilson's client base in the 1970's included such headliners as David Bowie, Paul McCartney, the Kinks, and also The Stranglers and The Jam, who were becoming established on Britain's potent pub circuit. In 1978, longtime client, singer Long John Baldry, asked her to come with him and work in Canada. Wilson, intrigued by a new challenge, took up his offer. “I found the Canadian music industry to be at least a decade behind Britain,” says Wilson. “When I started my own radio promotion company, I found myself to be a pioneer in this field here. My company, Anya Wilson Promotion & Publicity, has enjoyed success in Canada for over 20 years. “Radio promotion, or tracking, is a lobbyist working on behalf of clients to obtain radio airplay. Experienced promo people utilize connections they have built over the years with radio, usually with the station's music director. The first challenge is to get radio people to open the shrink-wrap of a recording, and to listen. By strategizing your sales pitch, you describe the music and the artist to the music director. If on the first listen of the track, they think it may be suitable for the station, they will play it in their weekly music meeting. Some music directors listen alone, some with a group of station personnel - possibly with the program director and with others. “At this crucial meeting, it is decided what will be added or dropped from the station's play list. Some stations consult American and Canadian trade charts before they will add a track. Some will give an independent track a chance by assessing the music and agreeing that it will fit their station's sound. This process could take anywhere from two to ten weeks. “One thing to take not of is that radio is dealing with more releases than ever before. You, as an artist, have to do extensive research and ask yourself what would make you stand out musically and image-wise to a music director. I find, when I ask a potential client what radio station in the locality would they hear their track being played on, some have answered with all the stations in town. This tells me they don't listen to radio.” “A decade ago, it might have been possible for an act to represent themselves at radio. That's impossible today. Unless a person is familiar with the politics and the formalities of radio in general - as well as at individual stations, and has a relationship with music directors, phone calls are not usually returned. Canadian content regulations may have helped the Canadian music industry develop; however, these same regulations are often an obstacle today. What we all hope to achieve on radio is, of course, airplay. Airplay usually comes in four stages: Feature, which is exactly that - the odd play now and again, maybe even once in a specialized show; Light Rotation; Medium Rotation; and Heavy Rotation. Obviously, the ideal situation would be to progress through all of these stages. One thing that often happens is that if, on the same station for instance, an American hit is being played in medium rotation and a Canadian track is being played in medium rotation, even though both recordings are 'medium', Canadian tracks traditionally get less spins than American tracks. So while the American track enjoys maybe 15 spins a week at a station, at the same logged rotation, the Canadian track may get only ten spins a week. This situation makes our job - to get Canadian records heard on Canadian radio -even harder. There is some opinion within the industry that Canadian radio programmers are using Canadian content quotas irresponsibly.” “My company works a three month campaign on a single track. There are many things that the artist can do as well to assist our promotion including interviews, doing station ID's, etc. When an agreed-upon strategy is followed, and if the track gets airplay and eventually charted, we are again proud to prove that Canadian talent is world-class.