 |
 |
|
#11
07-11-2013, 11:01 PM
|
||||
|
||||
I had caught a bit of (wrong) info that the local station I mentioned before played something French M-Sat 7-9am. Well, this morning at 7:30 and again at 8:30 it was Spanish. That station hasn't responded to my e-mail yet, and I'm not expecting them to anymore. They are off the list.
I'm going to try to search for some kind of ratings and/or market information next. I'm also thinking about trying to see some census data to see if there might be any indication of what areas have any sizable population that lists French as a primary or secondary language. I'm considering contacting my local library system to see if they can tell what kind of circulation they have on French Language items... Books, CDs, DVDs... I'm sure they keep that kind of records on the collection but I don't know if anyone will care to spend time on it for me. I don't want to give them a CD just to have it sit there. The college station thing, I'm not sure about either. Wikipedia lists 12 in Maryland. Some are located in rather rural areas, and I doubt there would be interest in "5" there. I tried to listen to two today and wasn't able to get any reception. They are low power and hard to receive. Less coverage area. This is what I want to see the ratings/market information for. Of these stations have internet-only channels as well, which don't have the same programming as the radio stations. This may provide more 'listeners' but I that's if they'd play her in the first place. Quote:
Quote:
That's great you found the meet-up group. Hopefully that will be a way to get some people to give her a listen! 
|
|
#12
07-12-2013, 03:31 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Another frustrating part of getting this done is I don't have much time when I'm home to do much with this, so I try and get things done at work when we have some down time. Now the company provides a wifi connection for us that used to be pretty good, but over a month ago, we lost power and when we got it back, it hasn't been the same.
It's very slow now and we often lose the connection time and time again. We've talked to the company and they've been unresponsive and we're not sure if it might be an attempt to limit what we do at work. Well luckily my old flip phone crapped out and now I will have to buy a smart phone, so hopefully by next week, I will be able to tether with it and hopefully I can make better progress with this. I did e-mail the CBC to either see if they might be either interested in my offer or at least offer me some advice.
|
|
#13
07-12-2013, 10:54 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I accomplished nothing related to this today. I work part of the day Saturday this weekend but I hope to write an email to the library and I'm going to see if I can find that census and radio ratings information.
The two "5" cds I ordered arrived today from Amazon, so I'm ready as soon as I find a good recipient radio station, or whatever.
|
|
#15
07-13-2013, 07:17 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
When the movie 'The Good Year' came out, I wrote letters to the Today show, Regis & Kelly, The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live in hopes of getting Alizée to appear and sing Moi... Lolita on their shows. Only The Tonight Show responded but with no results. So I can understand your frustration.
|
|
#16
07-13-2013, 01:16 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I'm trying to get this better organized by creating a spread sheet to keep track of which stations I've contacted and where. I still have to fill in a lot of info.
Due to another members input, I am taking note of who these stations are affiliated with and I will try and contact them too. I think I mentioned before that I've tried looking up am stations in Quebec province and that has been a complete waste of time. Most are of an informational nature or if they are of a language, it's usually not French. Now a lot of these Quebec stations are French language only. Now I would think where the majority of Canada is English speaking, most of the people in Quebec, speak English too, but maybe I should have someone put together a message in French to e-mail these stations too. This picture does not show all the info I have on this spreadsheet. The CBC has offices in Toronto and Montreal. I sent both offices a regular letter by postal mail today, asking if they might consider listening to these two albums or at least giving me some advice on whether my idea is a fool's errand or if there is some way I can get this done. If I don't hear from them in about 10 days, I will try calling them.  Uploaded with ImageShack.us Last edited by Scruffydog777; 07-13-2013 at 01:20 PM..
|
|
#17
07-13-2013, 01:43 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Unfortunately, most radio stations in the US are owned by a handful of big companies who do the programming. It's very hard to get an "outsider" song played because they don't use vinyl or CDs. Many stations couldn't play it even if you mailed a CD to them since everything in on hard drives and comes from the labels they work with and is pre-programmed. When a song is added to the rotation, another song must come out of the rotation. It's not likely they will bump, lets say a Taylor Swift song, to let in a French language song by an artist who isn't well known in the US. In any case, it's doubtful your local affiliate station has the power to alter the playlist. The one thing to remember is the station makes its money from advertizing and the rates are dependent on how many listeners they have, so they are going to play music that appeals to their listeners. On the face of it, according to the radio company's perspective, playing an Alizée song would not be in their best interests.
There are smaller stations out there that may have more flexibility with their playlists, but even many of these stations use a programming service who picks their songs based on local market research. Some stations have a "local music hour" or some such thing and will play music by request from local bands. But there again, Alizée isn't a local band. There is a large radio station in my area who will play requests, but the request must already be on their playlist (on their hard drives). They have a massive library, but no Alizée, and they won't add her to their library. Again, they see no broad interest in her. Then you have college stations and some publicly owned stations. These might be your best bet in getting something played. I would target your efforts there. Unfortunately, the US system has become very corporate and very closed. It's not like it was prior to the 70's and 80's. I have a local public radio music station that I've mentioned here before. They do their own programming and they take requests on Saturday evenings. I repeatedly requested Alizée, but no luck. So I sent them a letter and CDs figuring if they had her on hand they would play her the next time I requested her. It didn't work though, because she is not on their playlist, therefore she is not on their hard drives. I then submitted several requests to have her added to their playlist, but again, no luck. It really pissed me off because they have played French music. Yelle is on their playlist. I'm sure that is because her label got it put on the list, since Yelle performs in the US. It seems much of the US radio is structured in a "top down" rather than a "bottom up" fashion. If you have local college or public radio that plays music, it's still worth a shot targeting them. If it's a public station, maybe you can sell them on the idea that playing Alizée would offer some cultural diversity to their playlist. Keep in mind though, that many college stations are not into playing pop music. I actually think UEDS would have had a better chance of getting played on college radio. The last thing is the dance clubs. If you can get the DJ at your local dance club to play Alizée, maybe people will get into it and then request Alizée songs on the radio stations. If enough requests came in, maybe she would get on the playlists somewhere. The downside of this is that most requests are funneled through a central location, so to make an impact, you'd have to have requests coming in from all over the country. I don't think we have enough members to hit up a ton of dance clubs. Maybe if there were enough requests in the right market, it could work. But without Alizée's label pushing the stations to play her, it's doubtful she will get on the air. Hell, Alizée's label can't seem to even get her much airplay in France! Granted though, it seems a resistance to Alizée has been built up in the French radio markets. One other thing I participated in was the Disc-drop that was done in the Psyche era. A number of fans made sample CDs of Alizée's music and dropped them in public places. I left mine in parks and malls. Along with the CD was a short letter which referred them to this site, asking them to become a member and report where they found the CD. Not one person reported in. As far as I can tell, the idea was a failure. I think for it to work, thousands of discs would have to be dropped. We probably dropped a few hundred. Sorry for the long post, and sorry if it sounds negative. My purpose is just to point out where our efforts probably won't bear fruit so we can look for other opportunities that might have a chance to work, and not waste our efforts on areas where we have little chance of success. It's sort like a catch-22; it's hard to get Alizée to come to the US without some interest established, and it's hard to establish some interest if she doesn't first come to the US.
__________________
http://www.youtube.com/user/lefty12357
|
|
#19
07-13-2013, 06:25 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Dropping cds off in public places or having them played at dance clubs is not going to work here. It will pick up a fan or two here and there. It's not going to work in the English speaking part of America because her best Enlglish songs are not current. You would think that all that should matter is so many people here haven't heard her before, but unfortunately, such doesn't seem to be the case. They seem to be not willing to listen when they find out the songs are from years back.
Like I said, giving away cds, going to dance clubs, isn't going to get her the type of exposure she needs. She needs to get her music played over a mass media system such as radio, be it a major station or an independent station or a college station or what ever. That I feel is the only thing that can make a difference. So if we can get one dj or one radio broadcasting executive to listen to her music, we might gain a fan in the most important of places, who could make a difference. I feel time is running out. This has to be done while the album is relatively new and I feel it has to be done now, because there may not be a next time. It's a long shot. If we do nothing, then we'll probably have a long time to regret we did nothing, or at least we can try and have the satisfaction of knowing we tried.
|
|
#20
07-13-2013, 10:51 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
The way the radio industry has been described in this thread (corporate, playlists, etc.) is the way I imagined it to be. I was hoping that I'd/we'd be able to find some local independent station that would at least give it a chance but it seems to me that no one here listens to French broadcasts or music.
Take for example my coworkers... I had been keeping the Alizée thing quiet at work. I knew they wouldn't understand, etc. When I went to Paris I only asked for some days off, but I didn't say where I was going. On coworker was aware of Alizée and knew where I was going and he snitched to the others. I didn't find out about it right away, but I could tell people knew more than they should have. So I eventually came clean and made them some carefully planned DVDs that showed some recent stuff. They watched them and still don't get it. I told them to buy the CDs or at least to buy on iTunes. One keeps saying he will get it from iTunes, but still hasn't. All I hear is "She's a beautiful girl" and "I don't want to listen to music I can't understand." It's a losing battle at work, and I'm afraid rather than getting easier for us to try to get radio stations to play her, it's getting harder. The way music is tracked now and programmed, to get the most listeners, we don't stand a chance. At least not in the US. The system has evolved into a closed machine. As for disc drops... I'd never heard of that under my rock here before. I know I wouldn't put a random CD into my computer though. I'm not giving up quite yet though...
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
I think all of you are on the right track. I don't know why she won't come to 'Merica, after all, she got married over here! Go figure!
Linear Mode
