WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
Whether you’re a musician or represent one – thank you for your interest in sharing new music with us!
We receive a high volume of new music pitches. While we wish we could thoroughly review them all, we simply don’t have the resources to do so. With that said, there are some things you can do to make it significantly easier for us to consider your release for review and airplay.
Tell us upfront if there are any language concerns or not (aka “FCC issues”)
- We do not play lyrics that are obscene, sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.
- We also cannot play “indecent” language during the day. We won’t list every single word and context here, but if it’s something that a parent probably wouldn’t appreciate hearing as they pick their child up from school, consider it inappropriate for daytime airplay.
- One of the ways you can help us save significant amounts of time and avoid FCC penalties is by telling us about whether or not your lyrics are “clean”. If there are any songs with “cuss words” or even heavily suggestive (sexual) themes, please specify which tracks they’re on, and what the lyrics or concerns are. If you’re not sure about whether or not the lyrics are clean, the next best thing you can do is send us the lyrics, and we can read them ourselves.
- It can be very tricky to identify “cuss words” just by listening closely, and it takes a lot of time and focus. When we receive a release with no “FCC” info at all (clean or not), we just have to assume that it has not been screened for explicit lyrics. If the only option we have for screening the lyrics is to listen very closely, it’s likely that we will simply pass on reviewing the release.
CDs are our primary format, and we strongly prefer to receive CDs in the mail
- On-air DJs mostly play from CDs. We enjoy having the “physical experience” of a release (album art, liner notes, etc.), and CDs are easy to digitize for archival purposes.
- The next best option would be to receive MP3s via Dropbox, Box, WeTransfer, Google Drive folder, etc. We ultimately burn MP3s to CDs, but if you can help us preserve our resources by sending us a CD, it makes it much easier to get your release into the air room.
- Because CDs (and in particular, albums) are our primary format, we do not tend to add individual singles to our music library in an “official” way. If your single is part of an upcoming album, please let us know about the album so that we can keep it on our radar.
Tell us a little bit about yourself (the artist) and the album
- One paragraph about the artist, one paragraph about the release, or even short descriptions of each song can help us better understand and review the music. Where the artist is based, unique biographical info, inspiration, collaborators, etc. are also nice to know about.
- If you’re a local musician or have local connections (used to live in south central Indiana, collaborated with some who does, recorded nearby, etc.), we love to know those details!
Tell us the genre(s) – and which WFHB program(s) you think the release is fitting for
- While the music director oversees all incoming music, we have a team of genre directors and reviewers to focus on specific styles of music. If your music matches multiple genres, that’s fine – just tell us a few different genres it fits under so that we can get the release into the hands of the right reviewer(s).
- Even better, check out our program schedule and tell us about which show(s) you think your release would be fitting for!
Snail mail is the best way to pitch us, followed by email. Please do not call the station to pitch new music. Our music director and music reviewers are not consistently at the station during regular business hours. To check in, please email music[at]wfhb[dot]org and address your message to Abby.
Thank you again for your interest in sharing music with WFHB!