Warner Records: Austin Bessey details his position as regional promotion manager

West Coast Regional Promotion Manager Austin Bessey joined Warner Records, a record label in Los Angeles, California, a few months ago.

​

Many notable artists are signed to Warner Records, including The Black Keys, Deftones, Disturbed, Joshua Bassett, Linkin Park, Mac Miller, Saweetie, and Teddy Swims.

​

Warner Records has many factors to consider regarding promotion, including a variety of artists across several genres of music. As a promotion manager, Bessey explained that his job is to get Warner Record artists' music played on the radio. Moreover, promoting an artist to a radio station can be an extensive and analytical process.

​

“Essentially, my days and weeks, mainly Mondays, are my most intense days,” Bessey explained. “I'm getting set up for the week. We're looking at how our records did.”

​

By analyzing a record's success, Bessey can determine whether listenership needs to be increased and decide which radio stations he needs to contact.

​

According to Bessey, each radio station defines the health of a record differently. Some radio stations will look at a record's streaming information (i.e., stream increases), and others won’t.

​

“It's a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of texts — a lot of just relationship building and communication,” Bessey said.

​

Bessey's position is akin to a sales position, and he uses various methods to get an artist played on the radio. But first, he needs to establish first contact with a program director.

​

“You can't close in an email. You can't do promo on email,” Bessey explained. “Initially, it's trying to get the phone call. Again, it's relationship building. So, you're asking about their weekend. You're asking about their cat. You're asking about their kids.”

​

After initial contact with a station, Bessey is already considering multiple things.

​

“At this point, I've already been on the phone with them. I've looked at their playlist, the other songs they're playing, how much they're playing our songs and where the room to potentially grow is,” Bessey said.

​

However, there is a caveat to radio — it moves slowly. Bessey said that if a station recently added a song to its program, it's unlikely that he will try "to get that push or increase a week later."

​

The last piece of the puzzle for Bessey is chart position, which is a chat that shows an artist’s ranking and can help Bessey determine an artist’s popularity.

​

“The last part is chart position. And that chart position is the media-based chart, media-based tracks, every single spin for every single station.”

​

As a perk of his position, Bessey has already experienced a few unforgettable moments through Warner Records.

​

“The coolest moment was part of a Linkin Park relaunch and being in a Warner Brothers studio sound stage the day it was happening. The stage is sick. There are a ton of fans in there,” Bessey recalled. “People came from all over the world. It was such an iconic moment.”

​

Bessey advised those interested in joining the industry to seek informational interviews and begin to network.

​

"Everything about the music industry and entertainment industry is relationship based," Bessey said.

​

So now, all principal players in the music industry have been accounted for, from venues to radio to record labels. Of course, many more roles in the music scene have yet to be discussed; however, now you should be able to draw connections from one entity to the next and understand that the industry is like a living, breathing machine of endless parts.

​

However, witnessing an event in which all proponents are involved is eye-opening. Keep reading for the finale of this story.