Commentary on this issue by Wendy Day:
The politics at radio are insane. For example, a Top 10 city had 2 competing urban radio stations and it was a key market for Twista when I consulted him in 1996. He was signed to Atlantic at the time, and we had to keep Twista out of this major city, one of his key markets, during the promotion of Adreneline Rush, because if we brought him or the single to one station before the other we’d be banned from whomever got it last. It was better to let both radio stations discover the record on their own and maybe play it and then pay whomever played it. Stupid, huh? But very real. Had I not been told this by Atlantic radio staff, I would have marched right into that city with Twista and fucked up radio, not just for him, but for Brandy, Aaliyah, Lil Kim, and the Braxtons, all of whom had radio records out from Atlantic at that same time. Radio is very sensitive and when they get pissed off, the whole label suffers because they pull all the songs. And with the huge conglomerates in radio now, it’s even scarier: you might piss off a Clear Channel station in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and your record gets pulled from 247 of the Top 250 markets around the country where they own radio stations. Radio is so sensitive, that in respect to Twista’s career I did not mention the city or the radio stations from 6 years ago for fear they would retaliate and not play his new record. Another example: I heard recently from an independent label in the Midwest that station personnel were banned from a local artist’s show because he performed at a club on a night sponsored by a competing radio station. The single was pulled from their radio station and the staff was told they could not attend the show. Welcome to the world of radio promo. The worst part is that the radio station most likely thought this small label understood the game (and they should have before stepping onto the playing field) and had gone to the competition purposely. The reality was they were just happy to perform in front of any crowd, no matter who sponsored the night.
taken from http://wendyday.blogspot.com/