December 8th, 2009
Choosing A Release Date
I interned at Universal Records in the Motown Sales division the summer of 2005. One day that sticks out in my memory was when we were trying to decide the optimal street date to release David Banner’s record. Even then the industry was hungry for data to make these sorts of decisions. At that point all we had readily available was SoundScan numbers and terrestrial radio plays.
The Ying Yang Twins had just released USA (United States of Atlanta) and seen sales take off on the strength of The Whisper Song on urban radio. David Banner had a similar song, Play, seeing good pick up across the country. Knowing the overlapping demographics of their fans we wanted to time the release of Banner’s Certified album to hit the same point in the radio trajectory as the Ying Yang Twins had done.
I was in charge of creating the pretty Excel chart that my supervisor wanted to present to the label heads. I can only imagine how much longer it would take to put a similar chart together by hand nowadays. There are more data sources out there than ever before. The trick is knowing the right comparisons to make, which metrics are important, and being able to present it in a way that tells a clear story.