Airspun Is A Waste Of Money
I like Guy Kawasaki, so when he recommended Airspun for indie musicians as a way of getting airplay, I just had to check it out. Not surprisingly, some indie marketing consultants are also recommending the site. The idea is interesting: Through agreements with commercial radio stations across the U.S. (they currently work with 17), Airspun allows you to purchase a one minute "artist profile" that includes roughly 45 seconds of music. The cost goes from $30 to $400 for each broadcast.
As an indie artist, what's not to like? For a relatively modest investment, you get all the benefits of radio station airplay. Well, let's break it down for you.
Problem #1: These are commercials
This is not traditional radio airplay. These are commercials, and each of your broadcasts won't be surrounded by other music--they'll be surrounded by commercials. Additionally, the songs are packaged like commercials, complete with "showcases paid for by..." tags at the end. This is hardly the best environment to showcase your music.
Problem #2: You only get to present 45 seconds of your song
With roughly 15 seconds reserved for all the promotional voiceovers, each of your promotional broadcasts include only 45 seconds of your song. Note that the biggest problem isn't that the listener will only hear part of your song (although for a lot of songs, it is an issue), the problem is the length of exposure. For a song to truly make an impression on the listener, it needs to sink in. A 45 second snippet just doesn't have the impact of a full song, complete with several repetitions of a song's hook.
Problem #3: To use this strategy right, you need to spend a lot of money
One of the draws of this approach for indie musicians is that it looks extremely cost-effective. At $30/spot (the lowest rate quoted), you can get 3 spins on a commercial rock station in San Diego for less than $100. What a deal, right?
This is where cost-effectiveness comes in. Former Arbitron executive Pierre Bouvard wrote a book called Optimum Effective Scheduling (OES), the essence of which was that, for a message (or song) to get effectively exposed, it had to reach the audience at least three times. The trouble is that people don't listen to a station 24 hours a day, so to guarantee reaching them three times, you need to schedule many more than three spots. How many spots required is based on reach frequency analysis, but from my experience, I would estimate that it would take a minimum of 40+ spins on an average rock station.
What does this mean? This means that if you spent $300 for ten spots via Airspots, you may as well not have received any airplay at all. Reach frequency analysis would say that your spot was heard by the average listener one time, if that much. And one listen just isn't enough to make an impact.
How often do we criticize radio for focusing so much on one listen records and not the stronger music that artists like you create? This is the type of trap you will build for yourself if you ignore OES. Your song will get played 10 times, but even with great positioning during the day, it will hardly make a ripple. So, for your Airspots to be effective, even at the cheapest rate of $30, you're looking at an investment of at least $1200. And even that is the bare minimum.
Problem #4: You will get screwed on when your profile spot is scheduled
Radio stations make a lot of money from their commercials at peak listening. You can be certain that if the station needs to make a scheduling decision between playing your spot during the afternoon commute and the spot from the local Chevy dealer that spends $60 thousand a year at the station, they Chevy dealer will get the afternoon drive spot. You? You're spot will run in overnights.
The Airspun site supposedly lets you choose your part of the day that your spot will run, but the choices are so vague as to give you no protection. Say you open your wallet and drop the $115/per spot fee for the "JAN Prime Special" on KBZT in San Diego. "Prime" certainly sounds like your artist showcase will run during the morning or afternoon commute, doesn't it? Well, here's the definition of "JAN Prime Special" from the Airspun website: "Special Prime-Time Rate - Jan Only." Note there is absolutely no definition of what "Prime-Time" is.
Don't believe me? Browse the spot times by each station that the Airspun site conveniently provides. I looked at KNDD/Seattle. Six artists used Airspun to promote their music on KNDD, including 2 spins by a band called Latent Anxiety. When did they play? Well, four the six spins occurred between 2 AM and 4 AM. Yes, these indie artists spent their hard-earned money to get exposure in the middle of the night. Does that sound like a good investment?
Look at another example: From the Airspun site we can see that Movin Melvin Brown bought ten spots on KMTT in Seattle. Ten spins on a major market adult rock station! Sweet, right? Well, 8 of the 10 spins occurred between midnight and 5 AM. The cheapest rate for KMTT is $35, so that was $280 in wasted money. Not so sweet.s
Problem #5: The spins don't count on charts
I just looked up on Mediabase, an airplay monitoring service, to see if I could find the Movin Melvin Brown airplay on KMTT. If I did, that would mean that you could conceivably buy your way on to the radio charts via the Airspun system. That would be kind of unsavory, but in a business sense it would actually be worth the monetary investment. Well, guess what? It's not there. This is not surprising. Both Mediabase and BDS go to great efforts to protect the integrity of their charts. They specifically do not include spins from songs that are featured in commercials, even with 45 seconds of music.
So this means that not only are you not getting any significant exposure from your Airspun investment, but you don't even have the benefit of having your purchased airplay showing up on radio station playlists or airplay charts. As far as the radio industry is concerned, it's as if your airplay didn't occur at all.
Problem #6: You can't do any co-operative advertising with your showcase
We already mentioned that one downside is that these are actually commercials, but commercials do have some benefits, and one of the primary benefits of a spot schedule is ignored by Airspun--the ability to leverage the commercials with music stores or clubs. Imagine going into a record store and telling them if they place your CD for sale on the counter you'd mention their store in all your advertising. In that scenario you get airplay and potential sales from that airplay. But you can't do that with Airspun.
In conclusion
Radio is still the single most powerful force at exposing music to a mass audience. Unfortunately, getting commercial radio airplay is incredibly difficult. A service like Airspun is enticing because it makes what is so difficult suddenly appear to be so easy, and not just easy--but not that expensive. Unfortunately, you can file this in that overflowing file: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
As an indie artist, what's not to like? For a relatively modest investment, you get all the benefits of radio station airplay. Well, let's break it down for you.
Problem #1: These are commercials
This is not traditional radio airplay. These are commercials, and each of your broadcasts won't be surrounded by other music--they'll be surrounded by commercials. Additionally, the songs are packaged like commercials, complete with "showcases paid for by..." tags at the end. This is hardly the best environment to showcase your music.
Problem #2: You only get to present 45 seconds of your song
With roughly 15 seconds reserved for all the promotional voiceovers, each of your promotional broadcasts include only 45 seconds of your song. Note that the biggest problem isn't that the listener will only hear part of your song (although for a lot of songs, it is an issue), the problem is the length of exposure. For a song to truly make an impression on the listener, it needs to sink in. A 45 second snippet just doesn't have the impact of a full song, complete with several repetitions of a song's hook.
Problem #3: To use this strategy right, you need to spend a lot of money
One of the draws of this approach for indie musicians is that it looks extremely cost-effective. At $30/spot (the lowest rate quoted), you can get 3 spins on a commercial rock station in San Diego for less than $100. What a deal, right?
This is where cost-effectiveness comes in. Former Arbitron executive Pierre Bouvard wrote a book called Optimum Effective Scheduling (OES), the essence of which was that, for a message (or song) to get effectively exposed, it had to reach the audience at least three times. The trouble is that people don't listen to a station 24 hours a day, so to guarantee reaching them three times, you need to schedule many more than three spots. How many spots required is based on reach frequency analysis, but from my experience, I would estimate that it would take a minimum of 40+ spins on an average rock station.
What does this mean? This means that if you spent $300 for ten spots via Airspots, you may as well not have received any airplay at all. Reach frequency analysis would say that your spot was heard by the average listener one time, if that much. And one listen just isn't enough to make an impact.
How often do we criticize radio for focusing so much on one listen records and not the stronger music that artists like you create? This is the type of trap you will build for yourself if you ignore OES. Your song will get played 10 times, but even with great positioning during the day, it will hardly make a ripple. So, for your Airspots to be effective, even at the cheapest rate of $30, you're looking at an investment of at least $1200. And even that is the bare minimum.
Problem #4: You will get screwed on when your profile spot is scheduled
Radio stations make a lot of money from their commercials at peak listening. You can be certain that if the station needs to make a scheduling decision between playing your spot during the afternoon commute and the spot from the local Chevy dealer that spends $60 thousand a year at the station, they Chevy dealer will get the afternoon drive spot. You? You're spot will run in overnights.
The Airspun site supposedly lets you choose your part of the day that your spot will run, but the choices are so vague as to give you no protection. Say you open your wallet and drop the $115/per spot fee for the "JAN Prime Special" on KBZT in San Diego. "Prime" certainly sounds like your artist showcase will run during the morning or afternoon commute, doesn't it? Well, here's the definition of "JAN Prime Special" from the Airspun website: "Special Prime-Time Rate - Jan Only." Note there is absolutely no definition of what "Prime-Time" is.
Don't believe me? Browse the spot times by each station that the Airspun site conveniently provides. I looked at KNDD/Seattle. Six artists used Airspun to promote their music on KNDD, including 2 spins by a band called Latent Anxiety. When did they play? Well, four the six spins occurred between 2 AM and 4 AM. Yes, these indie artists spent their hard-earned money to get exposure in the middle of the night. Does that sound like a good investment?
Look at another example: From the Airspun site we can see that Movin Melvin Brown bought ten spots on KMTT in Seattle. Ten spins on a major market adult rock station! Sweet, right? Well, 8 of the 10 spins occurred between midnight and 5 AM. The cheapest rate for KMTT is $35, so that was $280 in wasted money. Not so sweet.s
Problem #5: The spins don't count on charts
I just looked up on Mediabase, an airplay monitoring service, to see if I could find the Movin Melvin Brown airplay on KMTT. If I did, that would mean that you could conceivably buy your way on to the radio charts via the Airspun system. That would be kind of unsavory, but in a business sense it would actually be worth the monetary investment. Well, guess what? It's not there. This is not surprising. Both Mediabase and BDS go to great efforts to protect the integrity of their charts. They specifically do not include spins from songs that are featured in commercials, even with 45 seconds of music.
So this means that not only are you not getting any significant exposure from your Airspun investment, but you don't even have the benefit of having your purchased airplay showing up on radio station playlists or airplay charts. As far as the radio industry is concerned, it's as if your airplay didn't occur at all.
Problem #6: You can't do any co-operative advertising with your showcase
We already mentioned that one downside is that these are actually commercials, but commercials do have some benefits, and one of the primary benefits of a spot schedule is ignored by Airspun--the ability to leverage the commercials with music stores or clubs. Imagine going into a record store and telling them if they place your CD for sale on the counter you'd mention their store in all your advertising. In that scenario you get airplay and potential sales from that airplay. But you can't do that with Airspun.
In conclusion
Radio is still the single most powerful force at exposing music to a mass audience. Unfortunately, getting commercial radio airplay is incredibly difficult. A service like Airspun is enticing because it makes what is so difficult suddenly appear to be so easy, and not just easy--but not that expensive. Unfortunately, you can file this in that overflowing file: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Labels: Airspun, radio airplay, radio promotion
Wow - Are you on the Google payroll? This kind of sounds like a smear campaign against AirSpun: from what I can tell, it's a very cool start-up committed to getting independent artists high-profile and much needed exposure.
As for your stated Problem 4: There are several definite smears here: for example, the ONLY AirSpun spots that play in the middle of the night are those that are the cheapest $12 spots. No one paying prime time rates will be scheduled anything but Prime Time, and each daypart is defined by the station. Artists choosing the cheaper options know they'll get any available airtime, but if they choose to pay for Prime Time, they'll get Prime Time.
"Problem" 5: Funny how you are trying to state a positive as a negative here. If Airspun ads could "cook the charts," then they'd be shut down by the FCC yesterday. AirSpun worked very hard to ensure that the 45 seconds the music plays would be acceptable (meaning not tracked for charting purposes) by BDS. Rather than being a problem, this is a huge benefit. Companies that have not abided by the rules of payola and tried to pay for airplay that impacts the music charts are getting fined millions of dollars, fired or worse. Because the rules are changing, AirSpun actually timed their new concept of "legal music showcases" perfectly.
Overall, when I read this, I am reminded that, if you are not being criticized, then you surely are not doing anything noteworthy. There is no doubt dmarc has a lot of ammunition (meaning $$ & resources), but AirSpun is a company run by musicians for musicians and is so passionate about helping indies get on the air that they're helping edit and produce all kinds of Showcases for FREE. Google/dmarc was all about business ads, and now that they see AirSpun focusing on music, they want a piece of the action there, too. I think AirSpun's stock just went up...
Posted by
Anonymous |
January 22, 2007 at 12:09 AM
I appreciate your enthusiasm for AirSpun, but you do a very poor job of making their case. Let me address your comments.
You state that "the ONLY AirSpun spots that play in the middle of the night are those that are the cheapest $12 spots." There are two problems with this:
1) You are basically admitting that AirSpun is stealing money from indie artists with their cheapest (and probably most popular) rate. Because, and I can't emphasize this enough, spots in the middle of the night are absolutely worthless. Why sell them at all if they are worthless?
2) You state that the "Prime Time" spots are defined by the station and imply they are truly valuable. ("if they choose to pay for Prime Time, they'll get Prime Time.") Well, I looked for a specific definition of what "Prime Time" means for a station, and (as I blogged about) the stations are less than helpful at explicitly stating what those times are.
So excuse me if I'm less than trustful of a radio station delivering prime time to an indie artist when they don't explicitly state what "prime time" is. Come back to me when a station is willing to give struggling artists a better guarantee than a vague descriptive term.
Next you state that it is good that AirSpun tracks don't count as spins on the radio charts. How is that good? Your statement that the FCC would shut down AirSpun if they spots counted as spins is completely false. The FCC doesn't care if AirSpun spins cook the charts. They only care if the spots are legally tagged as being sponsored, which takes them outside the realm of Payola. Since the spots clearly are described as such, there is no FCC problem.
As to the charts themselves, your response makes me think even less of AirSpun. Don't you think it would be good if AirSpun thought more about the artists it represented and less about Billboard or Mediabase? Fight for your consituents, not record company trade publications. As I said, I find it unsavory, but who is AirSpun to make that decision for the artists?
Oh, and I don't work for Google or dMarc.
Posted by
Jack |
January 23, 2007 at 9:20 PM
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