Why you need original jingles

As many of you may know, I am a person of a certain age. And way back when if I wanted a jingle I had to pay a firm lots and lots of money and then – after a few weeks/months – they would send me a jingle on a reel of tape.

Thankfully those days are behind us. But for online stations on a budget (or no budget whatsoever) where can you get some decent jingles? There are a few places giving away such things – but only a few (which is part of the problem).

And because I listen to a lot of online radio I hear those same jingles all over the place. And I know exactly where they came from. You probably do too.

Station ID Jingles are important, because after the voice of the DJ ‘we’ are all more or less playing the same music. It’s the jingles that help identify and separate one station from another.

So why are so many stations not making the effort to give themselves their own identity? Why, after having invested so much time and money into a new station do owners then search for ‘free jingles’ and use the same stuff as lots of other broadcasters?

Fully sung jingles are really for the big boys, and in fact even they aren’t using them as much as they used to. Truth is, station ID jingles are far more simpler than they once were.

Today the ID jingle is often just a voice saying the station name and frequency / website. You can do this. One of your friends can do this. And with a whizzbang imaging library you can produce something original and unique to you and your station.

If you choose to use a piece of music for your jingle, use it everywhere so it becomes synonymous with your station.