Learn How to Get Music on Radio

Avery Malone

Nov 21, 2025

Why Radio Airplay Still Matters

Even in the streaming era, radio remains an essential exposure channel for artists. For many music professionals, learning how to get music on radio is part of a broader strategy to build long-term visibility, credibility, and fanbase growth. But getting spins isn’t just about sending tracks to stations — it’s about understanding what works, when, and where. That’s where airplay analytics tools come in.

Two major players offer solutions for analyzing and optimizing radio airplay performance: Viberate and Chartmetric. Both provide data-driven insights, but their strengths differ. Below is a comparison focused on radio campaign planning.

Airplay Analytics with Viberate

Viberate’s Airplay Analytics Dashboard is built to help professionals make quick, informed decisions about radio promotion. The structure is modular and intuitive, allowing users to track artist performance across time, geography, and competitive context.

The Career Health on Radio Airplay module gives an instant overview of an artist’s radio impact. It shows overall and genre-specific rankings, and even suggests competitors—other artists getting spins in similar formats. This is useful for benchmarking and targeting stations that play related acts.

The 12-Month Overview module breaks down airplay totals, stations, countries, and top-performing tracks over the past year. It’s easy to identify which stations and cities are key drivers of success.

The Spins Through Time module provides a clear visualization of how spins rise and fall month-to-month. You can spot peak periods and decline phases. Hover features reveal top contributing stations per month, and you can export the data for reports.

Most Spinned Tracks helps answer which tracks are working and in what markets. Tracks are ranked by spins, and you can analyze how older songs perform compared to new releases. Filtering options allow for focused short-term or long-term evaluation.

Geo-specific insights are handled in Spins by Country and Spins by City modules. These include interactive maps and pop-ups that show not just where songs are playing, but also which tracks and stations are leading. You can quickly identify priority regions for your next campaign.

Radio Stations by Subgenres shows where your music is played in genre terms. The tool also reveals which artists are played on the same stations — a useful discovery feature when building collaborative marketing strategies.

The Top Radio Stations module gives a clear breakdown of which stations matter most. You can sort by spins, location, and genre, and see trends in station-specific performance.

Airtime Distribution lets you analyze when — by hour and day — your songs are most played. This helps optimize campaign timing, such as pitching for primetime or building off-week engagement.

The Latest Radio Spins feed updates in real time, showing song, station, location, and timestamp. You can search specific cities or stations and export the latest data.

Overall, Viberate’s dashboard doesn’t just provide data — it supports decision-making. Whether you’re tracking performance after a playlist push or planning your next pitch to stations, the UX is built for practical, day-to-day use.

Airplay Analytics with Chartmetric

Chartmetric’s Radio Airplay Dashboard also provides a robust view of radio performance, focusing on detailed breakdowns and comparison tools.

The Summary Stats Module shows high-level metrics like total cities, countries, stations, and plays. A world map visualizes the top 50 cities where your music is spinning. Filters allow users to focus on timeframes, tracks, or geographies. The comparison tool helps evaluate performance against other artists.

The Total Plays Breakdown Module shows daily plays over time using stacked bar charts. It can be broken down by track, station, country, or city. You can hover over chart elements to get more details and use side panels to dig into totals and share percentages. Filtering by timeframe and region is possible, and data can be exported.

Top Tracks by Plays ranks songs by total airplay, with historical trends included. You can see changes week-over-week and in 28-day windows. It also includes first and last spin dates for each song, which is helpful in understanding campaign longevity. Filters allow users to dig into station-specific data.

Each module is optimized for clear visual reporting, and the export functionality is useful for creating presentations or internal dashboards.

Which Tool is Better for Radio Campaign Planning?

Both platforms cover the essential metrics — spins, geography, top tracks, and historical trends. But how they present this data and how users interact with it is where differences emerge.

Chartmetric focuses heavily on detailed breakdowns and visual summaries, making it useful for long-term analysis and internal reporting. It performs well when comparing artists or looking at macro trends across stations or markets.

Viberate, however, stands out in day-to-day use. The UX is faster to navigate. The dashboard modules are clearly labeled and purpose-driven. Features like real-time spins, competitive artist listings, and subgenre filtering make it practical for execution—not just analysis.

If you're learning how to get music on radio and need a tool that helps you make quick, campaign-driven decisions, Viberate offers the better fit. From identifying peak airtime slots to mapping spin hotspots, the tool supports the workflow of labels, managers, and independent artists who are actively pushing songs to radio.

Finally, there's pricing. While both tools require a subscription, Viberate offers more for the cost—particularly if your goal is fast, campaign-oriented insight rather than long-range historical analysis.

Final Verdict

For professionals asking how to get music on radio and looking for actionable analytics to support that goal, Viberate offers the stronger package. It combines a campaign-friendly UX with powerful geographic, station-level, and timing insights, all in one dashboard. While Chartmetric brings value through its global view and long-term track data, Viberate is better optimized for those who need to act fast after a spin.

In short: if you're running or planning radio campaigns and need real-time support, Viberate provides the best balance of depth, usability, and price-performance.