playlist length for 50s/60s format

[ok walters]

I have seen this debated ad nausem, but I would be interested to see what the board thinks. I have had music research people and PDs say 1000 songs max - but the "right" songs, which does makes some sense. The opinion from these people is you are only as good as your worst song, and that a researched proven list is better than a massive library of everything. Then the DJs and music fans say "play everything" and "there can never be too big a library". I would think the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but closer to the PDs than the DJs. We play this format, with a little 70's sprinkled in, and have about a 1200 song library of top hits now. The DJ says it is no where near enough - but that is what I would expect him to say.

 

[oldies76]

Oh let's see......ad nausem is right.

Personally, every song that charted high (1-20 give or take) should be available to play. In that era, there were spoken word, many standards and instrumentals and novelties and obviously you'd want to take a look at those and be wise on airing these along with the regular rock and roll music (surf, girl groups, doo wop, psychedelic, motown..etc..). Many are keepers and some are not.

Mix up the power songs with the rest and feature a "lost hit" (a song that's rarely heard today or not in regular rotation) or two every hour to spice things up...heck that's what I'd do. It's a wonderful era with beautiful and memorable music. Enjoy!

 

[davideduardo]

I have seen this debated ad nausem, but I would be interested to see what the board thinks. I have had music research people and PDs say 1000 songs max - but the "right" songs, which does makes some sense. The opinion from these people is you are only as good as your worst song, and that a researched proven list is better than a massive library of everything. Then the DJs and music fans say "play everything" and "there can never be too big a library". I would think the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but closer to the PDs than the DJs. We play this format, with a little 70's sprinkled in, and have about a 1200 song library of top hits now. The DJ says it is no where near enough - but that is what I would expect him to say.

In this debate, the only thing that matters is what the consensus of listeners wants.

And that means playing as many songs as possible, stopping only when some songs are disliked enough by some group within your target audience so as to make them "tune out" when they are heard.

So you get feedback on ever song you might play... maybe on thousands of them over a period of time. You play the ones that everyone either loves, likes or is, at minimum, neutral towards. You discard the polarizing ones, the ones nobody loves, the ones everyone dislikes.

And what you hear on Classic Hits stations across the country is the product, in some form, of this process. And the song count in the library tends to be in the 700 song range, give or take a hundred or so. A "harder" classic rocker like the Inland Empire's KOLA will be around 600 because they don't play the pop and AC leaning ballads. One like WCBS may be broader because of the tastes of its market and the tradition of the station itself. Others, like KRTH, may be influenced by radically changed ethnic composition figures for their market.

But the on-air jock's opinion is that of one person... who has to listen to the same music for 30 or so hours a week... which is 8 to 10 times the average weekly listening time of listeners to the station. Of course their opinion will be jaded, stilted and just simply wrong.

And "programmers and researchers" don't determine playlist size... listeners do.

 

[davideduardo]

Oh let's see......ad nausem is right.

Mix up the power songs with the rest and feature a "lost hit" (a song that's rarely heard today or not in regular rotation) or two every hour to spice things up...

Now there is a great PPM formula: play a song that will drive away a quarter or so of your listeners every half hour!

That's like sticking a pin into your eye to see if the pin is sharp.

 

[allenv]

This has been debated until I'm ready to stick a pin in my or somebody's eye for sure..I stopped joining in on the conversation because if you don't buy all this research talk word for word you're wrong...It comes down to this..If a station is making money with 300 songs great..if its 1500 and making money wonderful....Every market..every station...every audience is a little different and there are alot of ways to fail and alot of ways to be successful and because of that fact it is never just black and white..If my station is making money then my way is the right way...The is no debating that research...

 

[landtuna]

Now there is a great PPM formula: play a song that will drive away a quarter or so of your listeners every half hour!

That's like sticking a pin into your eye to see if the pin is sharp.

"Lost hits" are not necessarily PPM killers. Just like all other songs it depends upon whether or not today's listeners dislike the song enough to hit the preset. Personally, my tastes are just jaded enough that I appreciate hearing most of these because they don't get played enough in normal rotation. There must be other listeners like me.

The problem with most classic hits and oldies outlets now is the rotation size is too small. Just playing the hits of a 20-30 year period does not begin to cover all the significant music. It is because of this I listen primarily to my own library which does contain these lost hits among many others that weren't necessarily the biggies of their era. Unlike days of old it isn't necessary to depend upon OTA radio to provide the music of my life.

 

[davideduardo]

This has been debated until I'm ready to stick a pin in my or somebody's eye for sure..I stopped joining in on the conversation because if you don't buy all this research talk word for word you're wrong...It comes down to this..If a station is making money with 300 songs great..if its 1500 and making money wonderful....Every market..every station...every audience is a little different and there are alot of ways to fail and alot of ways to be successful and because of that fact it is never just black and white..If my station is making money then my way is the right way...The is no debating that research...

Your view: "I know what the listeners want and I'm going to do it my way".

Correct view: Find out what the listeners want, and give it to them as closely to what they asked for as possible.

 

[davideduardo]

"Lost hits" are not necessarily PPM killers.

In nearly all cases they are. If a song were widely acceptable, and possessed of some degree of passion by part of the audience, it would be be in the library already. I don't know of stations that purposely don't play songs listeners in their target like.

Just like all other songs it depends upon whether or not today's listeners dislike the song enough to hit the preset. Personally, my tastes are just jaded enough that I appreciate hearing most of these because they don't get played enough in normal rotation. There must be other listeners like me.

But, because you are an analytical listener (or you likely would not be on this board), you are not typical. Stations do know the songs that will cause audience loss or, in toto, make the station less attractive

The problem with most classic hits and oldies outlets now is the rotation size is too small. Just playing the hits of a 20-30 year period does not begin to cover all the significant music.

Except for the notable, and somewhat niche, exceptions such as Jack and its clones, most stations find that a narrower range is going to get good results. A CHR, due to the age of the target of 18-34 and 18-44 women, will likely concentrate on a range as narrow as 5 to 6 years. A Hot AC may expand that to a decade. Only those formats that appeal to average ages of 35 and above can even use a 20-year wide window.

The reason, of course, is that competitively stations that are too broad get eaten, bit by bit, by stations that do a better job of appealing to the subsets. The classic example of this was the WRBQ - Power Pig battle in Tampa a little over 20 years ago: WRBQ was too broad, and was decimated by a divide and conquer tactic at the Pig (and I pick this example because it is pre-streaming, pre web, pre MP3 and a pure radio battle).

 

[landtuna]

In nearly all cases they are. If a song were widely acceptable, and possessed of some degree of passion by part of the audience, it would be be in the library already. I don't know of stations that purposely don't play songs listeners in their target like.

The sheer numbers of songs since 1956 don't allow lessor knowns to be played if the station has a 700-800 song rotation. And even with that number it doesn't take much attention to notice the rotation is every 3 days. I love listening to a particular classic hits station but their rotation isn't very large (normal, perhaps for this genre) so I have to take a break from it every week or so and go listen to something else that isn't so constrained. I don't consider myself any different than an ordinary listener, perhaps a bit more tolerant of songs not my favorite, but otherwise just like other people.

The last station I listened to OTA that had this variety was KOY and they have now flipped to a non music format. Fortunately, I still have my personal library to fall back upon and it looks like that might be a permanent replacement for radio altogether. Too bad too, because the one thing my library can't duplicate are the on-air personalities that make listening more enjoyable.

 

[davideduardo]

The sheer numbers of songs since 1956 don't allow lessor knowns to be played if the station has a 700-800 song rotation. And even with that number it doesn't take much attention to notice the rotation is every 3 days. I love listening to a particular classic hits station but their rotation isn't very large (normal, perhaps for this genre) so I have to take a break from it every week or so and go listen to something else that isn't so constrained. .

Whoa! You have put the cart before the horse, and are telling the horse to walk backwards.

The 700 figure is the net result of testing (or copying someone else's test) and finding how many songs are playable.

Given that Classic Hits targets 35-54, we can eliminate all the songs that 35-54's would not like, meaning, today, most of the pre-70 songs and all of the pre-65 songs. Granted, a few older songs will fit due to ongoing exposure to younger people, but the fact is we are dealing mostly with 70's and early to mid-80's songs, with a smattering at the fringes.

If you consider that, on average, there were likely under 50 hits in any given year that were big enough and enduring enough to play today, you see that 700-800 songs is exactly what you would expect to get enough favorable response to play on the radio today.

I don't know any programmers who wouldn't play more cuts if they tested as well as the ones they already play. It makes scheduling easier, and opens the door to even more variety positioners than ever.

If you are a person with some sort of routine, a 3 day turnover on a library is not excessive because you will likely not hear the same song for weeks on end if they are carefully scheduled. Granted, some stations have miserable horizontal and vertical rotations, but the issue is that stations do try to optimize the distribution of songs so that each time they play it is in a different daypart and hour.

People with less of a routine... such as they scary retired seniors... may listen totally at random and hear more repetition. But the word "retiree" in a radio sales meeting is enough to bring tears to the room!

 

[landtuna]

I realize we have beat this topic to death but let me just finish by saying that a person now 45, for instance, isn't going to necessarily dislike popular songs from the late 50's.....or 60's....or early 70's. I keep hearing the assumption that, because a song is not familiar, there is an automatic dislike and that is just not true. While those songs may never be their favorites they will still be popular.

By almost every account those era's were the greatest in terms of experimentation and variety. That is why they are still popular after both earlier and later era's have largely disappeared. The common issue with current music is that it all sounds the same. You cannot say that about the Oldies era. The teens and 20-somethings of today might never have heard of Danny & The Juniors but if you play "At The Hop" at one of their dances they respond. I have seen it happen time after time.

I understand there is a difference between what might work at an old-fashioned sock hop and what drives listeners on OTA radio but my point is simply that if you don't play it, it can't be liked or disliked and I really doubt any of the surveys are trying to test the limits as financially there is nothing to gain.

Last week the lone remaining single screen drive-in theater in Arizona closed for good. They could have picked any movie from the past 100 years to show but the one they chose? "American Graffiti". Second only perhaps to "Forrest Gump" in terms of soundtrack from the Oldies era it brought in a capacity crowd. The vast majority were from the 35-50 crowd and they brought along their teens, pre-teens and toddlers. The majority of those in attendance were youngsters themselves during the 50's and 60's and couldn't have participated in the activities illustrated on the big screen. But they knew the music (most of them anyway) and it is the music which will live forever. Perhaps though not on OTA radio and that is sad.

 

[landtuna]

But the word "retiree" in a radio sales meeting is enough to bring tears to the room!

I understand what the common image of "retiree" is and like most other stereotypes there was, once, a basis for it. But today's seniors are not necessarily like their ancestors. Unlike my parents generation and the one prior to it seniors today tend to have much more financial independence. They tend to be in better health. Their idea of retirement is not sitting on the porch watching others have all the fun. Go to the better restaurants in the Phoenix metro area on any evening and the gray-haired patrons will vastly outnumber youngsters except in the pick-up joints of East Snottsdale. The cars parked out front are most likely newer and the customers tend to be regulars. Their homes are paid off and their investments are again providing the means for a comfortable living. This is just perhaps the largest, and last, retirement generation to have this level of financial security.

Contrary to popular advertising (and belief) most of us spend money on travel and not walk-in bathtubs. In the past two years I have bought two new vehicles, a luxury sedan and a slightly more modest SUV. I spent just short of $100K on home modernization and upgrades. My wife (and kids most of the time) eat out at least once per week and frequently more than that. In short.....I earned it. I saved it. I invested it. And now I am spending it. I realize I am not the most common of retirees but there are a ton of us and virtually none of us fit the old rocking chair stereotype. As more Boomers age into retirement there will be even more - and a significant number of those are supporting either their parents or their children making them constant customers of all manner of advertised goods instead of just denture adhesive. The smart advertisers are making contact with us. The others tend to ignore us at their financial peril.

As I age and talk with my peers one thing stands out and that is, we really don't change all that much. That old guy or gal in the mirror is just a face with "experience" written all over it. What excited us about life back then still does and although we are not as fast as once we were we still get there. While there will always be a market for geriatric products and services it does not include the vast majority of those we call seniors or retirees. We may be older but we still make up a sizeable crowd at the baseball game......right after I take my medicine.

 

[davideduardo]

I realize we have beat this topic to death but let me just finish by saying that a person now 45, for instance, isn't going to necessarily dislike popular songs from the late 50's.....or 60's....or early 70's. I keep hearing the assumption that, because a song is not familiar, there is an automatic dislike and that is just not true. While those songs may never be their favorites they will still be popular.

At best, 99% of that kind of song score neutral. You just don't get many "I like it a lot" or "it's one of my favorites" on songs that predate a person's musical taste formation years. And you also don't get a lot of people saying, "I listen to Q-102 because they play lots of songs I barely tolerate".

By almost every account those era's were the greatest in terms of experimentation and variety.

Mostly that opinion is held by people in their late 50's and older. They like what they grew up on; it's the sound track of their lives.

That is why they are still popular after both earlier and later era's have largely disappeared.

Big Band / standards have mostly disappeared because the fans have died. Same will happen with 50's and early to mid 60's music.

The common issue with current music is that it all sounds the same.

That's not true. While in the 50's and 60's Top 40 played lots of MOR songs... holdovers from the past like Dean Martin and Perry Como and such... and country crossovers with a twang and even Percy Faith. Today, CHR has much more compatible rhythmic, rock leaning, dance, slow jam and pop elements and loads of variety. You go from Pitbull to Rihanna to Adele and there is a lot of music that is vastly superior to anything from the 50's and 60's.

The teens and 20-somethings of today might never have heard of Danny & The Juniors but if you play "At The Hop" at one of their dances they respond. I have seen it happen time after time.

I've seen teens be wowed by a couple dancing a classic tango (that's why you see tango and rhumba and such on the TV dance shows) but I don't think it means that any CHR station from Z-100 on down is going to be adding a tango anytime soon. What people do at parties is not normal radio behaviour.

but my point is simply that if you don't play it, it can't be liked or disliked and I really doubt any of the surveys are trying to test the limits as financially there is nothing to gain.

Actually, there is considerable gain in developing a unique sound. Jack did it with a wide library and many PDs wish they could broaden their lists if their target is over 35. But they are limited by the realities of what listeners tell stations they do and don't want to hear. For every song that is on the air that does test well, there are a half dozen or more that didn't test... and can't be played.

Last week the lone remaining single screen drive-in theater in Arizona closed for good. They could have picked any movie from the past 100 years to show but the one they chose? "American Graffiti". Second only perhaps to "Forrest Gump" in terms of soundtrack from the Oldies era it brought in a capacity crowd.

A crowd of, well, at least a couple of hundred in a market of what? Four million?

And Graffiti is the quintessential movie of drive-in-movie-malt-shop-car-hop-cruising times gone by. I could not think of a better choice if I tried, as it is so obvious.

 

[davideduardo]

I understand what the common image of "retiree" is and like most other stereotypes there was, once, a basis for it. But today's seniors are not necessarily like their ancestors. .

But at an ad agency, the idea that a station appeals to the Sun City and Siezure World crowd will get you knocked off the buy faster than the dust moves ahead of a monsoon storm!

The reason is that agency accounts specify the target demo, and an agency that spends money outside the demo can lose the account during a client audit. Advertisers have done research on the return on investment for different demos and don't find that there is any value in advertising to seniors because the cost is greater than the profit in many cases.

 

[oldies76]

If you are a person with some sort of routine, a 3 day turnover on a library is not excessive because you will likely not hear the same song for weeks on end if they are carefully scheduled. Granted, some stations have miserable horizontal and vertical rotations, but the issue is that stations do try to optimize the distribution of songs so that each time they play it is in a different daypart and hour.

But.....it's still the same music and people will figure out, that's the ONLY music you play. And seriously, playing one or two "lost hits" per hour, should not make that much of a difference, based on your theory above. And even so, we're talking "lost hits" that are rarely played today, but were big hits in their days. Many, many songs qualify under that heading.

I'm not saying play a "lost hit" that charted #49. There are many #1's that don't get played today, not to mention top 10's.

In reality, any song played today (whether a lost hit or a well-tested power song, can cause some tuneout). Everyone has their own favorites and many of those are not what radio plays today.

This topic has dragged on David, but it's a hot debate in 2013.

 

[oldies76]

You go from Pitbull to Rihanna to Adele and there is a lot of music that is vastly superior to anything from the 50's and 60's.

Respectfully, you are wrong here....It's not superior at all to the 50's or 60's music. It's a different era all together and cannot be compared to older music.

The 50's were great, the 60's were great, so were the 70's, the 80's...the music of 2013 is good with itself. It's not better than the music of 1968 or 1957. Each era had it's own up's and downs accordingly. As much as I like "Blurred Lines" and "Get Lucky", I would never say it's better than Bill Haley, Elvis, the Supremes, Beatles, the Stones, Dean Martin or heck even Kyu Sakamoto!

 

[allenv]

Your view: "I know what the listeners want and I'm going to do it my way".

Correct view: Find out what the listeners want, and give it to them as closely to what they asked for as possible.

I rest my case...What can I say...Thanks for showing me the light SuperDave...Now back to regularly scheduled programming already in progress..

 

[TheFonz]

I understand what the common image of "retiree" is and like most other stereotypes there was, once, a basis for it. But today's seniors are not necessarily like their ancestors. Unlike my parents generation and the one prior to it seniors today tend to have much more financial independence. They tend to be in better health. Their idea of retirement is not sitting on the porch watching others have all the fun. Go to the better restaurants in the Phoenix metro area on any evening and the gray-haired patrons will vastly outnumber youngsters except in the pick-up joints of East Snottsdale. The cars parked out front are most likely newer and the customers tend to be regulars. Their homes are paid off and their investments are again providing the means for a comfortable living. This is just perhaps the largest, and last, retirement generation to have this level of financial security.

Contrary to popular advertising (and belief) most of us spend money on travel and not walk-in bathtubs. In the past two years I have bought two new vehicles, a luxury sedan and a slightly more modest SUV. I spent just short of $100K on home modernization and upgrades. My wife (and kids most of the time) eat out at least once per week and frequently more than that. In short.....I earned it. I saved it. I invested it. And now I am spending it. I realize I am not the most common of retirees but there are a ton of us and virtually none of us fit the old rocking chair stereotype. As more Boomers age into retirement there will be even more - and a significant number of those are supporting either their parents or their children making them constant customers of all manner of advertised goods instead of just denture adhesive. The smart advertisers are making contact with us. The others tend to ignore us at their financial peril.

As I age and talk with my peers one thing stands out and that is, we really don't change all that much. That old guy or gal in the mirror is just a face with "experience" written all over it. What excited us about life back then still does and although we are not as fast as once we were we still get there. While there will always be a market for geriatric products and services it does not include the vast majority of those we call seniors or retirees. We may be older but we still make up a sizeable crowd at the baseball game......right after I take my medicine.

As you said, this group is financially secure. They don't need (or want) to hear their music on commercial radio. They can afford to buy satellite radio.

 

[landtuna]

You just don't get many "I like it a lot" or "it's one of my favorites" on songs that predate a person's musical taste formation years. And you also don't get a lot of people saying, "I listen to Q-102 because they play lots of songs I barely tolerate".

The target I was shooting for was not to repel a listener but rather to introduce "new" music to those who haven't had the opportunity to hear it before. Not as a solid stream but interspersed, the way they would hear it in a commercial or a movie and wonder the title and artist. If your average listener is to intolerant of music unfamiliar to them as you say then no playlist radio can ever devise would be acceptable.

Mostly that opinion is held by people in their late 50's and older. They like what they grew up on; it's the sound track of their lives.

Disagree. Not only personally but also from what I've read and heard from others. People far younger than myself and trained in the musical arts tend to have this same opinion. The opinion has even bled into the Country genre (not that Country had the same impact back then but I see the comparisons to today's Country). I will admit to being only fleetingly familiar with today's popular music but I share the opinion of many others that there is essentially no significant difference between most popular songs and, aside from electronic assistance, no significant improvement in its presentation. The old song was correct - video killed the radio star.

Big Band / standards have mostly disappeared because the fans have died. Same will happen with 50's and early to mid 60's music.

If you are referring to the WWII age group, yes, those people are largely gone. But the music is still alive. It is alive in people like me and even younger than me. Perhaps not to the extent that it gets played OTA but it lives on nonetheless. Big Band/Swing will continue to represent an era of history just as the 50's, 60's and to a lessor extent the 70's represent their own individual eras. But beyond that BB/Swing is still being performed by half a dozen notable performers and the classic tunes are still being played in ballrooms and on radio.

That's not true. While in the 50's and 60's Top 40 played lots of MOR songs... holdovers from the past like Dean Martin and Perry Como and such... and country crossovers with a twang and even Percy Faith. Today, CHR has much more compatible rhythmic, rock leaning, dance, slow jam and pop elements and loads of variety. You go from Pitbull to Rihanna to Adele and there is a lot of music that is vastly superior to anything from the 50's and 60's.

You are the sole instance I've heard to believe this. With few exceptions the music by the artists you mention is crap. Pure, unadulterated, commercial crap. Before the decade is up their CD's will be in the bargain bucket at the dollar store and their downloaded music will already have disappeared.

I've seen teens be wowed by a couple dancing a classic tango (that's why you see tango and rhumba and such on the TV dance shows) but I don't think it means that any CHR station from Z-100 on down is going to be adding a tango anytime soon. What people do at parties is not normal radio behaviour.

I previously agreed that in a dance environment behavior may be different than a listener to a radio program. But that does not change the fact that, when introduced to the classic Oldies dance tunes, the kids know what to do.

Actually, there is considerable gain in developing a unique sound. Jack did it with a wide library and many PDs wish they could broaden their lists if their target is over 35. But they are limited by the realities of what listeners tell stations they do and don't want to hear. For every song that is on the air that does test well, there are a half dozen or more that didn't test... and can't be played.

I believe you know what you are talking about and you certainly have eons more experience than I do. I will also stipulate that radio is driven by advertisers and it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks as long as they write the checks. Consider though that those same advertisers are going to be the death of OTA radio. It will eventually dissolve into hundreds of little niche groups that will have some form of target advertising. Music radio will be a thing of the past and the only form still remaining will be Classical.

A crowd of, well, at least a couple of hundred in a market of what? Four million?

The market was Globe, AZ - a market of just over 7,000. Some people drove up from Phoenix.

And Graffiti is the quintessential movie of drive-in-movie-malt-shop-car-hop-cruising times gone by. I could not think of a better choice if I tried, as it is so obvious.

My point was that American Graffiti has a soundtrack that very few others have. Not only does it fit the movie itself but also the era in which the movie is set. I wonder how many young people who didn't live through 1964 watched the movie and came away liking the music.

 

[landtuna]

As you said, this group is financially secure. They don't need (or want) to hear their music on commercial radio. They can afford to buy satellite radio.

I can certainly afford to buy sat radio but I don't. I don't listen to sat because it is too narrow. I don't like a solid stream of Doo Wop, Elvis, girl groups or music of just one decade. I like variety and in my experience the sat broadcasters went the opposite way.