Is radio airplay a release?

I was checking these releases by Beyoncé, and they seem to have been added solely based on the songs being sent to the radio.

Freedom - sent to radio in Italy
Sorry - sent to radio in United States and Italy
Hold Up - sent to radio in Germany, Italy and United States

Is this correct or should I just remove these “releases”?

When I come across these types of deals, I just try to match it up to a promo release on Discogs if there is one. There’s a country radio station that adds a ton of releases for their station that I have had to change to promos. They are actually added with the information that was given to the radio stations directly from the labels. With the artwork supplied to them. Kinda interesting actually. But yeah, on these Wikipedia adds, I’m not so sure how legit they are. At least when it’s the radio station actually adding themself, I’m more likely to trust the source.

3 Likes

Seems like a case for ‘promotional’ status:

promotion
A give-away release or a release intended to promote an upcoming official release (e.g. pre-release versions, releases included with a magazine, versions supplied to radio DJs for air-play).”

Less satisfying than adding CD’s sent to DJ’s, but I guess these days you’d email the song instead…

5 Likes

There’s a match for Sorry on Discogs, so I guess I’ll be changing that one, but will probably remove the others unless someone opposes.

1 Like

It’s totally fine to keep them. Discogs can be useful as an additional reference but it is not THE reference either. Even a release without any online reference is fine if you mention your own source of information. Releases sent to radios are promotional indeed as others mentioned above.

9 Likes