The radio airwaves have outlived their usefulness to the recording industry, or so you’d think listening to recording company testimony on Capitol Hill. All of which makes one wonder why the first serious marketing move for singer Sade’s new album is the hunt for airplay for the lead single.
Sade shares a writing credit on the song “Soldier Of Love” with “longtime collaborators” Andrew Hale, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman, and she co-produced with Mike Pela.
Epic Records, which is part of the Sony Music Entertainment empire, says the song, the title of which is also used for the entire album, “is set to hit airwaves December 8th and will kick off the countdown…” to the album’s February 2010 release date.
Epic’s press release announcing release of the single makes no mention of any other marketing techniques it plans to incorporate into its mix.
RBR-TVBR observation: Hmmmmmm – The recording companies think radio should be required to pay a royalty for the privilege of advertising record company wares. But everybody else pays radio for the right to advertise on the radio, not the other way around.
Radio will simply have to start charging recording companies for advertising time whenever they play any music. Unless radio and labels could work out some kind of barter deal.
How about this? Radio plays music for free, and recording companies get the airplay they crave for free. It just might work.
What – it works like that right now? Then what is the big ruckus on Capitol Hill over the Performance Rights Act all about?
