Mediabase

This system uses people to listen to the large stations throughout the country. The information is tabulated and sold to subscribing customers... most of which are medium and large labels, management, radio group owners, and others which absolutely have to know where a record is playing, because the decisions that need to be made are going to cost thousands of dollars per market. Subscribers can log on at any time and find out exactly where and how many spins any record is playing, and what time of day it played. Also, since a human is actually doing the listening, that person can make notes of special things, like if the music was heard in a advertisement, or if the artist was talked about by DJs, or other things that a computer would miss. MediaBase is used to make many of the charts in Radio & Records (except for the specialty and "indicator" charts, which are still done manually.) (Billboard does not use mediabase numbers but mediabase and billboard do monitor 80% of the same stations)

ADD Campaign

The "add date" is probably the most basic building block of airplay, and it is used in every successful airplay charting campaign there is. The closest analogy there is to an add date is the "street date". A street date is when a CD is "available" to the public. It is supposed to tell retailers when to "make available" the release to customers. That is where the similarity ends, however; radio goes on to be far more complicated. A radio "add date" is supposed to tell stations when to add a record to its playlist. It is completely separate from, and has little else to do with, the street date. The add date can be before, the same as, or after the street date. Regardless, an add date simply MUST be used with any serious airplay attempt. A negative side effect, however, surfaces: You have one chance... and one chance ONLY... to make a particular song or album go at radio. After all, the date is printed right there on the package. You cannot come back next year and ask a station to reconsider it (and, we are talking here about new artists/labels.) Everything a radio promoter does when talking to stations centers on the add date... Four weeks before the add date, the promoter is describing the package to the stations (and for commercial stations... the consultants are handled too,) giving the stations a rough idea of what to expect musically. Also, a fax goes out, showing the release. Three weeks before the add date, the promoter is describing the artist and the music in more detail, describing the spine of the CD, and scheduling resends for stations with changed personnel/addresses. Two weeks before the date, the promoter solicits PDs/MDs for their initial interest/non-interest, and continues resends. Also, the details of any pertinent tour dates, press articles, or retail events/carriage are presented. It is also at this time that the first trade ads (advertisements, not "adds") will run... scheduled and worded by the promoter. Finally, one week before the add date, the promoter fishes for commitments from the most-interested stations; re-words the next trade ads; sends a second round of faxes; re-affirms to each station that they know the correct add date; does a final round of re-sending; scans for possible early adds; and finally, makes one last contact/message with each PD/MD in hopes that the station can be swayed at the last minute... while stations are deciding on which record to add. This is done with 25 to 2000 stations every week, depending on the campaign. That's the easy part. Now the real work starts... getting spins to occur after the add date; being "added" does not necessarily mean you are being "played". Being added simply is the step you have to go through, "officially", before spins occur. That's why the "add charts" are separate from the "spin charts" in radio magazines. Your goal for the first charting week of every radio campaign is to get on the "most added" chart first, and you have only one week to do it. Thereafter, your focus becomes the main spin chart. And one by one, every week, the promoter contacts/messages each PD/MD, and attempts to get more and more of them on the bandwagon. Artists with bad music, or with no support, will struggle to get new stations, and probably won't be "most added". Releases with great music and good support will easily make the most added chart, and will then jump onto the main chart, with several new stations coming on each week (again, assuming we are working a new artist/label.) The promoter's work then continues: A non-commercial campaign may go 5-10 more weeks; A commercial campaign (for a single song) may go 3 to 12 more MONTHS, depending on results.

Audience Impression

Audience impressions are the amount of people a song reaches each day counted by the millions. The same station will have a higher audience impression in the morning which is considered primetime than at night when only a few people listen

Most Added

Most added are just stations saying they will support a song. That station may play the song once and drop it but it is still a commitment that it will at least support this song

Taking Off

Taking off is how many new stations play a song a song must receive a minimum of 7 spins in a one week period to make the taking off chart. The chart will be read by how many stations played the song and how many spins those stations played it. Example, Free Yourself : 4 stations 32 spins, It would read 4 new stations played Free Yourself 32 times.

Jump Chart

Jump Chart is how many spins a song increased over the amount of spins they had the week before. Example, If a song received 50 spins the first week and 100 spins the 2nd week it would have a Jump or bullet of 50 spins. It is very important for a song to continue to increase it's spins week after week

Spins

Spins are how many times a song is played at each station that is monitored.

Syndicated Spins

Syndicated spins are how many times a song is played multiplied by how many radio stations the syndicated show broadcast to. Example, If Tom Joyner is broadcasted on 70 stations each time he plays a song it receives 70 spins.

Urban

Urban is for R&B and HipHop music. It's main attraction is R&B artist. These are songs that attract young and old listeners. There's also a lot of HipHop and a small amount of non mainstream rap. HipHop and Rap with an R&B flavor will receive a lot of airplay

Urban AC

UrbanAC is for the mature audiences. An Urban AC song can receive airplay on Urban Station but will usually find small success crossing over to other formats. Urban AC also contains gospel and inspirational music. It is a very small format and very hard format to find a home if you are a young artist.

Urban Recurrent

Urban Reccurrent chart is for songs that have received massive airplay and have been in the Top 10 for more than 20 weeks and have dropped below the Top 20. It is an honor to make the recurrent list

Rhythm Charts

Rhythm Charts are a combination of HipHop, Rap, and Pop for young people. Rhythm Stations are only in the large metro areas like New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas for example. These stations have the largest listening audiences. They do not report to Hot R&B HipHop Station but to Rhythmic Top 40 Charts. This is one of the toughest audiences out there. A Pop act must be accepted by HipHop and a HipHop act must be accepted by Pop to make these charts and the songs must be on syndicated radio.

Urban Overall

Urban Overall is a combination of Urban and Urban AC Charts. Majority of Artist receive massive airplay on one or the other but few receive massive airplay on both. An Artist that may only be Top 20 on Urban charts can be #1 on Urban overall if they receive Top 5 radio play on Urban AC. This chart will resemble Billboard the most