However, as most independents have experienced, there is some key information you must have when attempting to get radio air play. First, you must know the radio stations that play gospel music, and to whom at the station to send your recording project. You must also know the Program Director, Music Director, and On-air Personalities. To service a station, you will need their addresses and phone numbers at a minimum. Email addresses and web site addresses will also be helpful in communicating with the station.  Second, you need the ability to keep your information current. Radio station addresses, phone numbers, and on-air personalities change frequently. Sending out CD’s to the wrong addresses can be costly.

It can take a significant amount of effort and time to service radio stations. You should package your product professionally, inserting a CD and cover letter. You also need to address the package in a clear and legible manner. Addressing packages and/or letters by hand can be very tedious, cumbersome, and time consuming,  particularly when you consider that you will need to send out several hundred CD’s for every project  release to get national exposure and air-play. In addition, you must follow-up with stations to ensure your package has been received and to track air-play. This will require that you have a good system for maintaining  records of stations serviced.

Independent artists/record labels either rely on a servicing/tracking company to service radio stations for them, or in most cases attempt to do it themselves by  referencing certain magazines  or web sites to obtain radio station information. However, often times the information is limited and/or not current. Even if current, it’s not available in a format where it can easily be used for mailing purposes. Also, to hire a servicing/tracking company can often exceed the budget of independents.

The Gospel Radio Station  Information System  was specifically designed to assist independent record companies, recording artists, and magazine publishers with the task of servicing gospel radio stations with their products. The information and features included in the system enables them to better organize and plan for servicing radio stations, simplifies the task of obtaining and applying address information to packages, and  reduces the time and cost. Key features included in the system are as follows:

• Includes the Gospel Radio Station Information database that contains information on over 1200 radio stations. Stations listed  in most gospel magazines such as The Gospel Roundup are included in this database.

• For each radio station, it provides the music format, station address, phone numbers, and on-air personalities. Some web site addresses, and email addresses are also provided. It also provides the ability to keep comments or notes on file for each station.

• Enables the user to keep information current by providing the ability to add new stations, or to change and delete information as necessary.

• Identifies stations that are on the air 24 hours.

• Provides the ability to maintain separate address and phone information on radio personalities, and their affiliation with gospel associations such as GMWA or GMA.

• Provides the ability to maintain on-air schedules, identifying the time of day radio personalities, are on the air.

• Generates reports detailing radio station information which can be filtered and sorted by Region (West Coast, East Coast, South, North), State, City, or Format.

• Includes a “Quick Search Find ” function that enables a user to quickly retrieve information on a particular station.

• Generates mailing labels in multiple sizes. As with reports, these can also be filtered and sorted  by Region, State, City, or Format.

• Provides the ability to export all reports or labels generated into Microsoft Word, Excel, Lotus, and other file formats.

• All reports and labels generated  can also be emailed

The Gospel Radio Station Information System is designed to run on a desktop computer. It comes with an Installation CD and  User’s Manual.  It runs under the Windows Operating System (Windows 95 or greater).

For more information contact Alpha 7 Ministries at 707 428-3334 or send an email inquiry to .