So you’ve received a pretty dodgy email saying that they’d love to release your music on a label, even though you’ve only got 50 followers… riiigghht.
And, at this point, your alarm bells are ringing, and you’re asking yourself: is SRL networks (Skunk Radio Live) a scam?
In this article, we’re going to answer whether SRL Networks is legit, and whether it’s worth submitting to them or not. Is your money being wasted, or is it a legitimate chance? Find out here.
Contents
Is SRL Networks A Scam? (Quick Answer)
SRL Networks looks like a scam, but it’s not certain. There are some huge red flags like fake social media followers, a pay-to-play business model, weirdly named blog posts, and inconsistencies across social media names with broken links. It is a real business, registered on Companies House, but the service it provides is awful.
Whether that’s a scam in your eyes is up to your own due diligence. I don’t think you can outright call it a scam, because they are providing a service. It’s just a terrible service that you wouldn’t want to pay for.
It may seem like a dream come true to receive an email like this, especially when you’re a budding, new music producer. And, it definitely made our hearts skip a little beat when we received it back in 2020.
However, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and, if you click the link in the email to audition, you have to purchase a ticket, which costs £9.99. This used to cost £5, but since 2020 it’s changed a bit.
SRL Networks now offers a free ticket, but… wait for it there’s a catch!
The free ticket doesn’t promise you any coverage for your music. So it’s probably not worth it anyway.
The purchased ticket however does promise some things, and it made us wonder: are these empty claims? Will they actually follow through on what they said they would?
With a £9.99 ticket you can submit music for an audition, and supposedly get coverage across a social media network of 7 million, get added to Spotify playlists, and they’ll even run a PR campaign for you!
The artist promotion roster looks fake and past artists that have been promoted on SRL networks, have blurry, ripped videos from other, more popular YouTube channels.
We did a lot of research and put it on one page for you to take a look through, and decide whether it’s worth purchasing a ticket. They may be a legit, registered company, but it looks like the service they provide is sub-par and close to a scam.
Only you can answer whether it’s worth it or not, but please read the entire article before you do make a decision. There are some important points on here that will help you decide.
What Makes SRL Music Look Like A Scam?
There are a couple of things that make SRL Networks look like a total scam, and we’re going to list them here so you’re informed.
Facebook Page
Although at first glance the Facebook page looks like it has a lot of followers, if you scroll further down, you’ll notice that the SRL Networks pages get next to no engagement.
Now we know that Facebook has made constant changes to the algorithm and that FB pages’ reach has been sliced, and sliced, and sliced. But, for a page of over 100,000 likes to get virtually no engagement on their posts, something’s not right.
They also promise 7 million reach across their social platforms, with a link to a screenshot that shows confirmation of them receiving 3 million reach in the last 3 months.
Now, this could well be true, but we all know the wonders of Google’s inspect element function, which can be used to make yourself a millionaire in PayPal – if you never hit the refresh button ever again.
It seems like they do have an active Facebook, but the lack of engagement is what worries us.
They may well get the 3 million engagement as shown on the statistics and they’re actually very active with their posting, but, it just looks a little off.
YouTube Channel
On the SRL Networks homepage, they have a showcase section, presenting previous artists who have been on SRL networks before. This looks incredibly fake. There’s a pixellated video of an artist called Ezi Emela that they claim to have had on their YouTube channel.
However, when doing a bit of digging we found the exact same video, on a different YouTube channel, in much higher video quality.
The video was also longer, showcased the entire song (3:01), and was much higher quality than the one showcased on the SRL Networks YouTube channel, which has been renamed, “Music Discovery XO”.
Now, this was posted 3 years ago, and back then Ezi Emela wasn’t that big. Since then she’s grown a bit and now has her own Vevo page, but her video views vary massively.
It’s a potentiality that she did in fact use SRL Networks to promote herself, but it’s the difference in video quality and length (as seen in the above pictures) that seems a bit weird.
Broken Links
There are some broken links (or non-existent links) on their website. The links that direct you to Apple Radio stations, and Orange radio stations don’t seem to go anywhere.
This could be the website design, but you’d expect the links to direct you to the right place, and be there.
However, there are more live links than the broken ones, so we give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, and would chalk this up to website designing. We designed our own website and sometimes you just forget things!
Weirdly Titled Google News Blogs
This is one that really threw us off. Most of the titles looked pretty legit, apart from the “aww, did you make __ __ again?”
So, we did what any curious human would do, and clicked the link. Thankfully the album it was promoting didn’t have the same name as seen above and was promoting a different album. In fact, we even tried to do a Spotify and Apple Music search for “aww, did you make __ __ again?” and found nothing.
Upon further research into the artist promoted in the post, we found that she writes Children’s books, but again there was nothing even remotely related to the original blog title SRL Networks chose. It looks extremely fake and we really feel for the artist who paid for promotion like this.
What Makes SRL London Look Legitimate?
There are some things that make SRL Networks look legitimate too and we wanted to list them here. This is an honest look at whether the company is a scam or not. It’s for you to decide whether you purchase their services.
Skunk Radio Productions Legit Companies House Page
One of the main things that makes SRL London look legitimate, is that they are a fully registered company on companies house, and have been since December 2012.
This means that they are registered as a private limited company in the UK, and can be openly found on the gov.uk website.
Being registered as a limited company and having their information on file for the public to see, as well as presenting a valid telephone number on their website, makes them seem far more legitimate.
This is because, if they were a scam, they could easily be found and prosecuted by anyone that had fallen for it, providing some evidence that SRL Networks is not a scam – just an incredibly poor service.
A scammer would 100% not want their information to be linked to companies house page, where they could easily be found.
Spotify Playlists
SRL Networks appears to have a list of Spotify playlists they use to promote their artists. These playlists have monthly listeners, and a decent number of followers – not the kind that will get you thousands of plays, but they are at least legitimate.
The playlists are consistently updated with new music and it seems like it’s active.
Radio Live Stream
SRL Networks also have a constant live stream on Twitch and Mixcloud. It seems like their pretty active on both platforms. They have a few plays but don’t have many followers on either of the platforms.
SRL also have a Soundcloud page where they repost their auditions, and this is also very active. They get around 300-500 plays per song on their channel.
Verdict – Is Skunk Radio Live Legit?
So, is SRL Networks a scam?
It does scream scam from a mile away, but we don’t think it is a scam. With the active social profiles and Companies House page on gov.uk, they seem pretty legitimate. They’re not stealing your savings or swindling you out of your money – they’re just providing an absolutely awful service that you would never want to use.
Is it worth the money? 100% no. Is it a scam by definition? Probably not.
The claims of large social media reach seem to be based on real results they have achieved. They’ll also promote your music to a wider audience. It just won’t be very good.
definitely is a scam i have purchased for promo pack they asked me to buy ticket but they never did anything. i have lost my money