I find it extremely ludicrous that in this 2024, we still get bombarded with headlines about musicians complaining about radio airplay. It’s borderline upsetting, to be honest. I’ve lost count of the number of times I explained how these things work. I’ve been preaching the ABCs of this business for years! So, it’s either musicians refuse to read and equip themselves with the know-how that will benefit their business or Namibian radio or they are just being d*cks.
But you know what? I’ll explain it for the umpteenth time with a smile. Music is a business as is the case with radio. Even radio stations attached to the national broadcaster are moving towards commercialisation.
Community radio stations are in the ICU in Namibia because we have been classified as a higher middle-income country by the World Bank not so long ago. That means donor funding has dried up. Donor funding has been the backbone of community radio stations in Namibia. As a result, radio stations now more than ever are extremely cautious and sensitive about playlisting a bad song/unknown song and run the risk of irritating a listener. If you irritate a listener with a bad song/unknown song, what is most likely to happen? They will tune out with no guarantee of them coming back to that frequency. Radio depends on listenership to pull in advertisers. If there are no listeners, there is no radio business. Radio currently competes with literally everything. Radio is in competition with TV, smartphones, etc. It’s well-documented that people have very tiny attention spans, hence why the good old days of just yanking any song on radio are long gone. So, if your song is manure or unknown, you will most likely never hear your song on Namibian radio. However, what’s manure to one station may be gold to the next one, right?
This brings me to my next point. Music is a business. A musician needs to look at themselves as a business and invest in R and D [research and development]. Determine what your target audience is. An Oviritje song might be the highest degree of manure for Radio Wave, but it could be gold for Omurari FM. Why? Because each station has a target market! Your music will sound like a fart if you haven’t decided on a target market.
About the unknown bit…recording a song and submitting it to a radio station is not enough. A musician needs to create demand for their song. If there is zero demand, a commercial radio station and the national broadcaster-attached radio stations are most likely going to keep it moving and ignore your song. I mean, there is zero buzz around your song; why waste precious airtime by playlisting your song?
Do you ever see musicians like Gazza, King Tee Dee, Top Cherie, Yeezir, Ethnix, Lioness, etc complain about radio airplay? A majority of the time it is the no-names with zero footprints that are the loudest with “radio does not play our music”.
Creating demand means executing a thorough marketing and branding plan for your music. In the absence of such a conscious plan, you will continue to complain about music airplay. The sad part is…nobody cares. Musicians think running to a newspaper to complain about airplay will somehow magically change the laws of business. What’s worse is that in Namibia, we will talk about something for five minutes and move on to the next. Namibians are the definition of keyboard warriors. Perhaps a musician will boost your ego but in reality, it will do nothing to change the reality. Namibians are not going to toy-toy in thousands, marching to demand airplay for you. It’s just not going to happen. Well, perhaps not in this lifetime.
I have been in this analytical business for a decade and some change. Complaining will not get you anywhere. Stop complaining, work on your music, and work on your business as a musician. You will see the fruits of your labour.
* Until the next Loop, we say #GMTM Need an MC? I’m your guy. Hit me up…naobebsekind@gmail.com