Setting up a new radio station

[uncle al]

Might seem like a daft question..when a new radio statio opens (say a local station), where do they get their back catalogue? Can hundeds of songs be bought wholesale or is it a case of buying the "NOW" series from no.1?
Or do the DJs pool their resources?

[Rubyschmoo]

I work at such a place - and did so when they set it up nearly 6 years ago.

We got / get our music in a variety of ways;
- music companies sending it in
- employees bringing stuff in
- downloading it from a specialist media company that provides all the latest songs.

[mycats]

When I worked at a very small radio station, we got most of our stuff sent to us by promoters. Of course most of it was guff lol which explains why they were sending it to us and asking us to listen to it rather than allowing radio 1 to play it

[steve2010]

all record companies sell back catologues on hard drives these days,espeacially for radio stations,so thats where they get them.

[Buzz!!]

When a new station starts they usually copy the hard-drive from an existing one. 90% of the music will come from a playout system such as Mystro or ENCO so is easy to copy.

New songs are sent in by pluggers.