Electronic Media 

The A&R department is responsible for developing the product. Just as a book company's acquisitions editor is responsible for locating authors and developing books, so the A&R function is carried out by producers whose task is to locate artists and oversee the preparation of the recording. A record executive's job is to spot emerging artists, nurture them and then showcase them. He must know the ingredients of musical excitement and be able to feel the potential for commercial success.

Errors in judgment can cost millions. Some A&R people are musicians with creative abilities. Others have sales and management backgrounds but are able to do A&R work as well. In addition to producers, the A&R department employs people"who listen to the hundreds of unsolicited demo tapes that individuals and groups constantly submit for consideration. 

 

Advertising and publicity are handled by the promotion or sales department. The promotion director's job is to help create an image for the artist or the group and to see that this image is firmly implanted in the mind of public. Promotional devices include large displays for record stores and personal appearances by the artist. In addition, sample records may be given away to stores as well as tovarious radio stations. Similarly, banners and posters may be distributed to radio station programmers as well.

Company representatives also visit the programmers and DJs regularly in order to keep them apprised of the upcoming releases that will be available to them. One additional function of the promotion department is to generate publicity for clients. One aspect of this task is to keep the press informed of the impending arrival of a particular star or group. 

 

The distribution system of the record industry is composed of records and distributors. The record store manager or owner may purchase recordings from individual manufacturers. This, however, requires that the owner or the manager work with a lot of different record companies, and it is time-consuming. In addition, the owner does not want to wait weeks for the shipment of an album that a consumer wants now. If asked to wait, the purchaser will probably simply locate another local outlet that stocks the item she or he desires. For this reason, the industry has instituted distributors who stock inventory from all record companies, especially the major labels. Purchasing from one-stops saves the store manager time and bookkeeping hassles.  

 

The  station  manager  is  responsible  for  overseeing  key  station  functions,  including  sales,
programming,  news,  and engineering. The departmental structure of a radio station depends on the station's size. Small stations with five or six employees will rely on the same people to fulfill a number of different tasks; in large stations responsibilities will be more dispersed. Most stations are divided into four departments. 

 

The sales director is in charge of a sales staff or group of account executives; together they work to sell airtime to sponsors. Each  station  has  a  rate  card  which  gives  its  prices  for  ten-,  thirty-,  and  sixty-second commercials. Rates vary according to the time of day morning drive times are probably more expensive. 

 

The programming department is composed of the program director and a staff of announcers and disc jockeys.The director is the person responsible for the station's "sound" as well as the station's standing in the market. The process of programming a radio show is complicated. Programmers must work with a programming clock in mind; they have a limited amount of time within which to incorporate a number of different programming elements, including music (if that is the station's dominant format), talk, news, station IDs, weather, and commercials. The sound of the station depends on the emphasis given to the various elements from which the program director has to choose. It involves the choice of announcers and the time allotted to them for recording programs. Simply varying the amount of time devoted to a particular type of music can affect the station's sound. Thus programmers must alter or fine-tune their station's clock so as to attract the maximum number of people in the listening audience. A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience.

 

The news department of the radio station is composed of anchor people, DJs, copywriters, editors, and reporters. Radio news efforts range from a "rip and read" approach, in which the DJ simply takes the information from the Associated Press or United Press International wires and reads it, to the complete and intensive all-news approach, in which news is broadcast twenty-four hours each day. 

 

The members of the engineering department are responsible for keeping the station on the air and for maintaining the station's equipment. The engineer of a large station will also operate the turntables and tape equipment during broadcasts, while in small stations; this function is performed by the disc jockey.