How To Register with Mediabase April 25th, 2014

MEDIABASE: This system is similar in concept to BDS, but instead of using computers to listen, it uses people. Also, since a human is actually doing the listening, that person can make notes of special things, like if the music was heard in a advertisement, or if the artist was talked about by DJs, or other things that a computer would miss.

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MediaBase is used to make many of the charts in Radio & Records (except for the specialty and “indicator” charts, which are still done manually.) I should repeat this one point about specialty: Although MediaBase does detect specialty spins on the stations it monitors, this info is not used for the specialty charts in R&R… instead the specialty charts are made using manual reporting. MediaBase subscribers could still, however, search for and find a specialty spin if they wanted to.

MediaBase and BDS monitor about 80% of the same stations; therefore you may need to get both in order to get proper coverage.

The other major charts, FMQB and CMJ, use manual reporting for both the specialty and regular-rotation charts, and thus they are more suited to the beginning label.

Larger labels that have several projects going at once (and who are already selling 200 to 300 albums per week) might want to take a look at a BDS overall-package that let’s them log on at any time to check spins. Smaller labels will have to get the limited one-title package that just emails you the results every Monday. Mediabase, since it can be accessed at any time with even it’s smallest package, is a good starting point for smaller labels.

Mediabase has a special section for the indicator stations, called R&R Tracking. This sub-section of Mediabase is good if your genre has a lot of indicator stations, but, it’s non-real time; the results can only be had once a week.

HOW TO REGISTER WITH MEDIABASE

A: Send new music to:

Mediabase Research
Attn: Encoding Department
15260 Ventura Blvd., Ste 400
Sherman Oaks, CA, 91403

or email MP3 file to:
digitaldelivery@mediabase.com
NOTE: It is very helpful to include as much information as possible, e.g., the name of the track(s) you are working at radio, the format(s), contact name at the label, phone number, e-mail address, etc.

You can submit song information through the Mediabase New Music Notification Form:
http://w2.mediabase.com/mmrweb/NewMusic.asp

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