College radio is a great way for new artists to get their name out to youth and build a fanbase and brand, and WordPlay T. Jay is crafting a multi-part series on how to get plays at college stations around the U.S.

A former college radio DJ and program director himself, T. Jay has first-hand knowledge regarding what stations look for when selecting whose music is sent over the airwaves.

“College radio can be a great vehicle to push your music into the market and is a low-cost way to get radio plays, get fans and built a network of people who will play your music,” T. Jay said. “Summer and winter breaks are also the perfect times to prep all your stuff to send them, because not many people are on campus, so you can get everything together, and send it for when students return in the fall or spring.”

T. Jay said the main things college radio stations look for in submissions are: original music, high-quality recordings, clean and radio-friendly versions, and being respectful when following up.

“There is a lot of turnover in the college radio business, so if you don’t get in one semester or year, try again the following one,” T. Jay said. “The quality of recording when I was in college radio was hit or miss. There was some garbage music and artwork sent to us, and that went up on a wall of shame in the station. You also have to send in clean album versions or EPs — not a lot of stations take singles.”

There are four main steps to prepping content for submission to college radio stations.

1. Create a folder with the label “[album title] - College Radio”

In this folder, you will put all the things you plan to send.

2. Add clean versions of your songs from your album

Any radio play, marketing or promotions will have to use clean versions, so you may as well make them early.

3. Check your metadata via iTunes

Things like your track title, album title and artist name have to be included in each of the songs. Program directors will toss out any CD or submission without the proper metadata, as they will not want to spend time entering that info into their system.

4. Add an artist one-sheet

A template for this is available here. This is typically done in a Word document or on Google Docs and includes things like the album art, a 2-3 sentence bio, a description of how the album sounds, a track list, suggested plays(pick your top few tracks), your website/social media information and a contact email.

Put this in the folder with the tracks and get ready to send it off, which T. Jay will talk about more in the next part of this series.

For more about these steps, check out the video below!