The nine things music directors across 1363 college, community and HBCU stations actually ask for, with the stations that prove each one.
The sheet gets you to the right door. These nine rules get you through it. They are drawn from what music directors at these stations post on their own submission pages, so every one of them is a real requirement somewhere, not general advice. Read them once and they will save you a hundred ignored emails.
Cut a clean radio editBroadcast stations cannot air profanity in daytime hours, and that is nearly every station on the sheet. A clean version multiplies where you can land. WNAA in Greensboro says clean edits only. WYXR in Memphis, WUAG in Greensboro and KXLU in Los Angeles all state FCC-clean up front. Many stations post the rule outright and the rest simply assume it.
Send a file, not a linkWAV or 320 kbps MP3. A music director cannot pull audio from Spotify, SoundCloud or YouTube and load it into playout, so those get skipped. Attach the file or share a link that downloads the file directly. WKNC in Raleigh says it plainly: WAV, no streaming links.
Name the file so it files itselfArtist Name - Song Title, and add (Clean) if that is the radio edit. A folder full of final_master_v3.wav is guesswork for somebody sorting hundreds of submissions, and guesswork loses.
One page, ten secondsBio, the release, your city, links and a contact. Say the genre and say whether a clean version exists. If it takes longer than ten seconds to read it is too long. Stations that ask for an EPK usually mean exactly this.
Own your rights and register with a PRORegister the song with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC and know your ISRC. Some stations only play music where the artist controls the master and the publishing, WNSB in Norfolk among them. Registration is also how songwriters actually get paid for airplay.
Submit to the show, not the stationFreeform stations route by programme. WRFN in Nashville, WHCR in Harlem and WMSC in New Jersey all say some version of send it to the show. Find the specific hip-hop show, the R&B show or the host who plays your sound and write to them by name.
Write a subject line they can fileGenre, artist, song, and the word clean if it applies. Make it obvious what the message is before it is opened, because the alternative is being read as spam by somebody with three hundred unread emails.
Never offer money for spinsNon-commercial stations legally cannot do pay-for-play. Offering it gets you ignored at best and blacklisted at worst. Let the record earn the rotation.
Follow up once, kindlyOne polite note after about two weeks, then let it go. Directors are often students and volunteers. Patience and respect are what turn a single add into a relationship that plays your next record too.
Every door is on your sheet.
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.
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 →