Why I Can’t (and Sometimes Won’t) Play Your Music On The Radio Part 2 – Matt Brooks

Matt Brooks (right), along with older brother Adam are two of the reasons why I’m looking to retire from publishing UKGospel.com very soon 🙂

Through their excellent work on the mBrio Music website and other Brooks Brothers Ventures projects, they’re fast becoming an authoritative news and media voice not just here in the UK but increasingly in the transatlantic Christian music scene, an excellent state of affairs in an industry like ours sadly prone to (usually under-deserved) hyperbole.

Anyway, one of their (many) projects is UKFIYAH, a radio show featuring 100% UK music (I told you they make me want to retire :-)).  They present it on the multi-nominated, award-winning (and US-based) Bonnerfide Radio.

Since UKFIYAH’s launch last year, Bonnerfide’s listeners have taken the show pretty much to heart.

That made them prime candidates for me to target about sharing their thoughts on how they choose what they choose for their show in this instalment of the ‘Why I Can’t (or sometimes Won’t) Play Your Song on the Radio…’ series.

If you’ve ever wondered how presenters and/or DJs make the musical choices they do, this series should hopefully be of some help.

I fired off an email to Matt. The following is what he came back with…

Why I Can’t (and Sometimes Won’t) Play Your Music On The Radio Part 2 – Matt Brooks

UKFIYAH, the Radio Show I present with my brother Adam is a show that plays UK Christian music on a USA-based radio station, Bonnerfide Radio. 

Make Sure You know What It Says on the Side of the Tin

Firstly, we play nearly 100% UK music. So when people send music that isn’t from UK artists (unless it’s from Europe – which still doesn’t mean it’ll get radio play) it most likely won’t get played. 

Where Exactly Did You Say Your Song was again…?

If the music resides on iTunes/Amazon, etc. but not in my inbox or on a CD sent to me, it won’t get played.  I do buy music but if I had to buy all of the music I play on the radio I’d be a very poor young man.

Production Values

There’s been a few times where I’ve heard a great song but the production quality/recording quality has really let it down to the point where I won’t play it.

Please Release it, Let it go…

I won’t normally play music that has no release date (unless it’s a special case), even if it’s going to be a free download.

The Long (and short) of It…

Unless a song is absolutely amazing I won’t play it if it’s long.

Yeah, I can fade out but most of the time if a song is too long that results in missing a big part of the song which often is the best part of the song too.  Radio edit versions are still a good idea.

EXPLORE MORE

• mBrio Music
• UKFIYAH on Bonnerfide
• Bonnerfide Radio
• Matt on Twitter
• Adam on Twitter
• Why I Can’t (and Sometimes Won’t) Play Your Music On The Radio (Part 1)
• More Matt Brooks – More Top Tips to Make the Media Work for You