From Radio Business Report:
More radio “lovers” promoting satellite as well It turns out that Alicia Keys isn’t the only artist who’s been promoting satellite radio while recording spots for the new PR campaign that’s supposed to boost terrestrial radio (1/17 05 RBR #11). A little digging by RBR has found that Ludacris made a live appearance just this month to promote XM Satellite Radio. He was one of the artists who appeared on the “XM Performance Stage” at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Another of the artists featured in the new terrestrial radio campaign has ties to Sirius Satellite Radio. Nelly hosted the “world premiere”! of his two new albums last September and appeared on two “commercial-free Sirius music channels as guest DJ,” to quote the company’s press release. It quoted Nelly as saying, “Satellite radio is an important outlet for artists and I’m glad to have the opportunity to play my music personally for fans. I hope they enjoy it.” As we googled around the Internet, we also found that Ashanti made an in-person visit to XM’s studios in Washington, DC last month to promote her latest CD, although there was no indication that it was anything more than the type of promotional visit she would also make to terrestrial radio stations.
My Take:
What kind of idiots are we to be surprised by this? And what kind of idiots do you think our listeners are? Is there anyone in your audience who doesn’t know that these artists are compensated for doing these Radio promos? And that when you’re compensated you generally do what you’re paid to do regardless of whether or not it’s your true “authentic” feeling?
Why must we be so naive? Our audiences are several steps ahead of us.
The ads are a failure and smelled like a failure from day one. What we’re watching is the inevitable simply playing out.
Comments