The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) and new country music label CORE MUSIC have partnered to provide independent artists the opportunity to have single releases professionally serviced digitally direct to stations.

Gaining radio airplay has long been the challenge for many established and aspiring groups, singers and songwriters. The partnership and new service was developed by the CMAA and CORE MUSIC in a bid to provide more Australian country music to radio stations nationally.

Using respected and proven digital music provider ‘Play MPE’, the CMAA and CORE MUSIC has already begun liaising and informing radio stations nationally about the forthcoming distribution of new country music material each month.

Until now, this direct electronic music service to radio has only been utilised by major record labels for artists represented. With the first delivery to radio set for October, the monthly service will soon provide latest releases instantly to music directors, producers and presenters with the goal to achieve a greater country music presence on radio stations.

"The Country Music Association of Australia is pleased to partner Australia's newest country music label, Core Music in providing independent artists a direct opportunity to service their single to radio. This we hope will assist the genre in greater presence and promotion and as such work to increase the country music fan-base whilst providing artists with a respected tool to access and leverage off", said Cheryl Hayes, CMAA General Manager.

Knowing how beneficial this service can be to independent artists is award winning producer and Managing Director of CORE MUSIC, Rod McCormack. Preparing for the first digital delivery, Mr McCormack said, "There are many advantages in supplying your track digitally via a system such as Play MPE, these include no expensive hard copy CD's and no postage fees but the real positive is the instant access to a current and extensive list of radio programmers across Australia".

The new service will be launched within a few days with a dedicated presence on the CMAA’s website www.country.com.au as the portal for artists wanting to take advantage of the new service.

Keeping it simple, those wanting to have a single serviced to radio will need to log onto the website, complete the online booking form and attach an MP3 of the track to be distributed.

As part of CMB's committment to supporting up-and-coming country artists, they assist performers with a wide range of subsidised production services. This includes full music video production such as the clip below by country music artist Ruby Rose Taylor, or the more traditional on-location approach taken in Dave C. Cawthorn's "When Will It Rain?" filmclip. In the digital era, country music artists require more than just demo sound recordings.

The "demo" music video clip has become an important promotional tool and a means of reaching thousands of country music fans worldwide via services such as YouTube®, MySpace®, Facebook® and many other internet based video sharing or social networking websites.