Streaming is the New Radio says Steve Morgan, MD of new Belfast based Record Label, Royale Music.
In the new music Industry it has never been more important to gain as much traction from whatever source you can and whereas in the past this used to be Public Service Radio (BBC, RTE etc) now the new “Power Brokers” can quite often be the new generation of Playlists to be found on all of the Digital Streaming Platforms such as Spotify, Deezer etc.
“Getting on the right Playlists can quite often be the difference between having a hit or not” says Steve Morgan who went on to say “whilst not replacing Radio entirely, Playlists are now forming an ever more influential part of today’s Marketing Mix.”
“Whilst it is true that Radio is still king when it comes to overall fan engagement, an increasing emphasis is being placed on the engagement found online by fans such as “Liking, sharing and play listing your favourite artists and tracks”.
But… it is not always the case of “Big is Beautiful” and indeed Steve went on to say “we’ve found quite often that it is the more “niche driven” medium sized Play lists that have quite often helped our Artists gain better traction. If your Artist is on a playlist of over 150 songs and you’re near the bottom at 134 or so then to be blunt… you’re not going to get much action. Be at no 17 on a playlist of 20 and it’s obviously a totally different story.”
“We’ve found medium sized playlists such as “Irish America Central”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dQXH2MY1xIR2cQwgfcsoz?si=o4CY6q99QAyODi6UmwOzLQ and others like “Rock List New Tracks”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0K1fGVbCPKmV89ZEgx96BE?si=WqkBwk2wRrGpMfMX1Y0IYA, “American Celtic”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ca2z9AwLuZMyISuTwVo6Z?si=-NhXV1lKSJ2i9Y90aJMw7g have been particularly beneficial.
Others such as “DigiMedia 202” https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5m8wUmgF7LvNIoJluwjPTj?si=3HLuBcJWTA2yZf-htOgvPw and “Hot Hits Xtra” https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Oo70lSgRknR5Cvn3c78Wr?si=uZYnpE77TeSngYqfIiy9Sg have helped drive traffic for our Artists.
It’s a new landscape out there and as Bob Dylan once said “The Times They Are a Changing”