Glossary · The record itself
Clean edit
A clean edit is a version of a recording with profanity and explicit content removed or masked so a licensed station can broadcast it at any hour. It is not a remix or a different arrangement: the same master, the same performance, with the words a broadcaster cannot air taken out.
It is the most common reason a good record cannot be played. A licensed station is responsible for what it broadcasts during the day, so without a clean version your record is limited to the overnight hours, which at many stations means automation and almost no listeners. Sending only the explicit version narrows your own reach.
The usual approaches are muting the word, reversing it, or replacing it with an instrumental hit. Any of them work. What matters is that the timing stays intact, the edit does not draw more attention than the word did, and the file is clearly labelled so nobody has to guess which version they are holding.
At least 42 of the 273 confirmed accepting stations state a clean-edit or FCC requirement in their own published submission rules, including KXLU, WMSC, WNAA, WNSB, WUAG, WYXR. That is a floor rather than a total: nearly every licensed station on the list is bound by the same daytime content rules whether or not it says so on its page.
Pick your sound and region on Rotation and each of these stations shows its real submission contact and the exact rules it posts: clean edit, WAV, form or mail. Checked by hand and kept current. No station here paid to be listed.
Open my sheet →Radio is the free half, and it stays that way. Every station here is free to reach and no station ever pays to be listed. The Doors is the other half: 100 verified places that are not radio, sync libraries, music supervisors, festivals, contests, live sessions and the music press, 43 of which can actually pay an artist. It also lists the 162 we opened and refused, with the reason each one failed, because most lists of this kind are stale and the rejections are the part nobody else will show you. $9.99, the 2026 Q3 edition →
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