Why does Maiden recieve so little airtime?

I

IronDuke

Ancient Mariner
Honestly now, why does a dipshit like Eminem or a no-talent like Britney Spears get so much airtime in North American markets when Iron maiden gets absolutely none?

LooseCannon and I discussed this a while ago, and neither of us, in our 20 years of being alive, have heard Maiden played on the radio. There are metal/rock stations all over our region; they play Metallica, Megadeth, etc. But no Maiden.

Is this just a North America thing, or does the band have this problem in Europe as well?
 
It's the same deal here in Minnesota although I've heard Maiden on our rock radio station before. But still, I've only heard them on that station 5 times (though I actually got into Maiden from hearing 2 Minutes to Midnight on it). I guess it all comes down to the most air friendly bands/songs being the only ones played on the radio. Maiden doesn't have as much air friendly or commercial material as bands like Metallica who I hear on the radio pretty often. If I worked at a radio station, I would demand that more Maiden be played. [!--emo&B)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/cool.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'cool.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
You guys are lucky, it doesn't play ANY METAL AT ALL here, in Lithuania. Yay for me [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Sometimes we hear Metallica's "Nothing else matters" or NU-metal, but that's all.
Pretty most of the radio is filled with bullsh*t music, commercials, traffic, news and weather.....

We had radio station years ago, which played some harder stuff, but they had to stop trasmitting, 'cause of too few "market share"...

Anyway, that's why they produce CD-Players [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
we have a brilliant Metal radioshow on our local station called Powerplant - they don't give a fuck about fashion or radio compatibility. Therefore, you can listen to everything, from Maiden to Mayhem [!--emo&;)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
They also have brilliant interview specials, the last thing they did was a special with [span style=\'color:red\']B L A Z E[/span] !!! [!--emo&:rock:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/headbang.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'headbang.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
The show is aired 3 times a month, one hour each time + specials.
A very good listen... don't you think?

BUT if you want something like that, you have to do it yourself!
In other words: I am one of the editors/presenters/interviewers [!--emo&;)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--]

Anyway, apart from that there's no Maiden on the radio, not to mention Death or Black Metal [!--emo&:lol:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/lol[1].gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'lol[1].gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Why isn't metal on the radio? I have a theory, that's been puttering around in my mind for awhile now. It's because metal is, for lack of a better word, "solid". Metal musicians are among the top caliber of guitarists, bassists, drummer, and vocalists. Imagine if you took, say, Kurt Cobain when he was alive, or some other pop guitarist now, and handed them the riffs for The Trooper or Paschendale and said "Play this". Or if you gave Britney Spears the lyrics for Hallowed Be Thy Name, let her listen to Bruce, and told her to make everyone feel it.

Metal's hard to copy. People who manage to break in are great players, no matter what subgenre they play. Therefore, it's a BAD investment for radio/MTV types. You saw what happened when they made Backstreet Boys famous...within 2 years there was about 50 more bands following the exact same formula - all of them wanting airtime, all of them wanting advertisments.

If you start to play metal, you might get 5 or 6 of these copy bands emerging. And copy bands have never been taken to by metal bands. Look at the "great" metal bands. The only one that's been successful and is somewhat of a clone of another is Megadeth (which of course is because Dave Mustaine started out playing for Metallica) and even their style evolved differently.

The fact of the matter is, MTV knows that in these 50 new bands, ONE of them will likely be worth another 50 cheap bands copying. They're basically ensuring their own economic future by pushing pop and rap over everything else.
 
I'm afraid us metalheads belong to a bit of an underground movement, and underground music never got much airplay. The main reason for it being that metal isn't as "popular" as your average Britney or Christina or all of that mindblowingly boring R&B crap . It doesn't atrackt a large enough crowd of viewers or listeners fot that matter, and therefor is not commercially interresting for the various radio/tv-stations. It's all a question of money. When one makes cheesy and boring dance or r&b crap wich has already been done about a million times, the majority of numbskulls out there will go out and get it, and you'll get all the airplay you could ever want. It's very sad but that how it works.
 
Reading some of your posts, I guess we have a pretty good rock station here. While it plays a lot of shitty popular stuff like grunge and nu-metal, the DJ's sneak in quite a bit of good hard rock and metal. I've actually met 2 of the DJ's and they're surprisingly metalheads. I hear a lot of Metallica, Megadeth, glam metal, and hard rock.
 
Im kinda glad that metal isnt really played much on the radio. I dont want it to be popular. Then all of the assholes at my school would take great bands and tear them down to the level of simple musical accesories to make themselves more popular. Metal would lose something if it was more (for lack of a better word) popular. With more airtime, more douche-bags could here it and ruin it. A good example of the idea im trying to convey is skateboarding. Before all of the shitheads who created the God-foresaken X-games came along, skateboarding was just fun. Only people who really wanted to skate did it. Now you've got a bunch of assholes who dont give a shit about it going around and using it to be cool. Posers. It already happened to skateboarding, i would hate to see it happen to metal. [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
I think that in the next ten years or so the popular mainstream shit music will be out. Everything has already been done with metal, rock and all the other types of shit music out there. All the eighties stuff are coming back now. Especially the rock music. I would by far listen to poison or cinderella than Britney spears and Everclear, etc.... [!--emo&:bow:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/bowdown.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'bowdown.gif\' /][!--endemo--] Hail Maiden.
 
Here in england we have no decent radio shows. Bruce used to do a show but i dont think he does any more. We have kerrang music channel but they rarely show maiden or anything decent, all nu-metal. The scuzz channel has an iron maiden and metallica week this week, but so far i havent seen any maiden on it. [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--] [!--emo&:angry:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/mad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'mad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Still Life+Aug 3 2004, 06:05 AM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Still Life @ Aug 3 2004, 06:05 AM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--] Im kinda glad that metal isnt really played much on the radio. I dont want it to be popular. Then all of the assholes at my school would take great bands and tear them down to the level of simple musical accesories to make themselves more popular. Metal would lose something if it was more (for lack of a better word) popular. With more airtime, more douche-bags could here it and ruin it. A good example of the idea im trying to convey is skateboarding. Before all of the shitheads who created the God-foresaken X-games came along, skateboarding was just fun. Only people who really wanted to skate did it. Now you've got a bunch of assholes who dont give a shit about it going around and using it to be cool. Posers. It already happened to skateboarding, i would hate to see it happen to metal.  [!--emo&:(--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--] [/quote]
That's what happened to metal in the late 80s early 90s with glam metal and hair metal and crap like that...
 
you guys dont know that metal is undergound? underground social behaviour, philosophy etc. mighties of this world need no self-existent, thinking and free people. they need batch of horses responsive to their financial interests and so on.
but i think maiden has always got adequate place in the air and in tv. just look at all those chart entries when the new maiden is out!
if you dont watch tv and listen to the radio (at the right time and the right place) you cant see/hear any maiden. here in slovakia i have heard/saw maiden many times. there were special day with maiden on the mainstream statutory disco-pop radio (paradoxicallly called ROCK FM) when maiden was out with DOD! they played the whole album + lots of other stuff and even roskilde 2003 recording!
 
[!--QuoteBegin-LooseCannon+Aug 3 2004, 04:25 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(LooseCannon @ Aug 3 2004, 04:25 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]That's what happened to metal in the late 80s early 90s with glam metal and hair metal and crap like that...[/quote]
I hate glam metal. [!--emo&:angry:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/mad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'mad.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
we have a couple of metal shows. And I mean METAL.From maiden to cradle of filth.It lasts from 10 pm till one AM and it does put maiden on.I heard maiden many times...
 
I always thought that there are some good stations around here. Compared to what some of you ar esaying, I guess there are plenty of realy good stations around here. I've heard Iron Maiden on the classic rock station around 10:00pm or so a few times. Usually, the only song they play is "The Number of the Beast." One of the other stations does "Mandatory Metallica" at 9:00pm. They play three Metallica songs in a row, that is. They also have "Necessary Nirvana" later at night. If you check at the right times, the rock stations sometimes play the more-well known metal.

-Ponch
 
Last christmas was my best christmas EVER!, I heard run to the hills on the way home from the boring familly «party». Beside that time I heard only one Maiden song on radio. The worst thing I've heard though is in a club that plays song from the '80, they played the revelation part of NOTB during the intro of thunderstruck but they NEVER played the freakin song!!!!
 
Well I think a simpler reason why metal isn't played on the radio is because an average Metal song is 6:00 minutes long... in radio lingo that's a waste of time when in that same span you can play a 2:30 pop song 2 minutes of advertisements and still have time to introduce the next song and maybe say a stupid joke. In my opinion it is not about popularity, seriousness or accesibility. It's about the songs being too long to fit enough advertisements to pay the bills.
 
And if a song is too long, people might not care to listen to the whole thing and switch stations. People are stupid like that. They only like songs if they're pointless catchy songs with a stupid beat or if the songs have the "cool" nu-metal guitar sound. If a song is 8 minutes long, is packed with solos, has a huge instrumental section, and has long verses, people won't listen to the whole thing and instantly declare it "stupid."

But still, Stairway to Heaven is 8 minutes long and it's the most requested song to be played on the radio.
 
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