Songs You Remember And Like But Never Get Played

[TheBigA]

Find me a radio station with a signal I can pick up near where I live that has a big playlist of music I like (and I have broad and eclectic tastes) and that doesn't bore me playing the same old songs over and over and over and over until I want to puke, and I'll praise it.

Not our problem. Not our job.

A restaurant specializes in a certain cuisine. You don't happen to like it. You should not expect that restaurant to change their menu to suit you. Especially when the restaurant appears to be doing well without your business. If ALL the restaurants in town don't suite you, perhaps your standards are too high, or perhaps you need to move. But to expect businesses to suit a very narrow and specific need is expecting way too much.

 

[ok walters]

Find me a radio station with a signal I can pick up near where I live that has a big playlist of music I like (and I have broad and eclectic tastes) and that doesn't bore me playing the same old songs over and over and over and over until I want to puke, and I'll praise it.

If that station with a "big playlist" of "broad and eclectic" music actually existed, the call letters would be WNFL - We're Not For Long. You and Fire should buy a station and show us how it is done - funny thing is there is no way the two of you could come up with a playlist that you both agree on.

 

[Avid Listener]

I gotta agree with Oldies on this. I know of not one of my contemporaries who listens to "new" music. And not only do most not listen, they also express an extreme dislike for "that modern noise" (mostly because it isn't music).

I used to think the same thing, until I found venues for discovering newly recorded music that the suits refused to play on the radio. There are some extraordinarily good artists out there making great sounding music. Some of it would have fit into the rotation of radio stations playing "currents" back in the 70's 80's, or 90's. Some of it is great stuff unlike anything I ever heard on the radio, but it dominates my MP3 player. Just minutes ago, I was watching a Heart concert on the Palladium network. It ended a few minutes before the half-hour, so they filled the time with a video from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. It was great! It was newly recorded, old-fashioned 70's/80's hard rock. It was a perfect companion to the Heart concert show.

When other people hear my MP3 collection, invariably they hear songs they've never heard but really like. I'm constantly giving friends mix-CDs of new stuff. That's how I discovered that people the age of my children (and grandson!) enjoy the sound of "classic" rock, and often prefer it to the new stuff you so correctly describe as "noise".

At the same time, my 89 year old mother was a major Rod Stewart fan even before he did his collection of old-school standards!

 

[oldies76]

And the truth is it doesn't matter how many songs we play...it will never be enough, and you'll always find something to complain about.

Respectfully, you are mistaken. All I have asked is for the TESTED songs to be mixed with LOST HITS (about 2-3 per hour) and some nice, real specialty weekends. If radio would do that, I'd be satisfied. KRTH did this in the 80's, it can be done AGAIN!

I complain about redundancies and stupidity.

 

[oldies76]

I just laugh. 244 million people can't be that wrong.

244 million people have their own INDIVIDUAL favorite songs, that they like. Line each person up side by side and ask them individually what their top 10 songs are. They will ALL give you different answers. I don't give a rat's --- what the research says, it's wholeheartedly flawed.

Yes, some of those lists will be different and some similar, none or a miniscule number will match.

That's the problem...YOU guys think that every single person living, that listens to classic hits radio, all like and all listen to the same 400 songs over and over again. Many people are sick of it, they are tired of it, but CANNOT express their frustrations, because their are no known resources for them to do this. Only music tests and forums like this are their only avenues. And how many people of the 244 million participate in a music test??, less than .000001 of that population.

Change your ways, for the sake of radio.

 

[oldies76]

.

When other people hear my MP3 collection, invariably they hear songs they've never heard but really like.

Exactly!

 

[oldies76]

If that station with a "big playlist" of "broad and eclectic" music actually existed, the call letters would be WNFL - We're Not For Long. You and Fire should buy a station and show us how it is done - funny thing is there is no way the two of you could come up with a playlist that you both agree on.

You're being negative.

No, Firepoint, Avid and myself would have a station that would provide the greatest hits of rock and roll.....all of them!

And the listeners would be happy to hear the real hits of rock and roll again....and best of all, requests will be taken the right way. The weekends would be filled with real themes, not the fake ones provided today, which are reworks of weekly playlists to make the weekend sound legit.

Walters.....YOU have no idea. Hint: Please listen to a small market / town station instead of the junk provided in a major city.

 

[oldies76]

Not our problem. Not our job.

Your job has been to bore the hell out of the listening public for the past 20 years!

If you listened to KRTH in the 80's, you would know what the heck I'm talking about, but you don't.

 

[TheBigA]

I complain about redundancies and stupidity.

And so that leaves the door open for you to always find something to complain about, as I said.

Some stations do specialty weekends. There are quite a few specialty syndicated shows that cater to classic hits stations that also run on weekends. So it's being done. Maybe not in your area, but it's being done.

The concept of the classic hits format makes it completely inconsistent to mix in several "lost hits" per hour on weekdays. That's simply not the format. It's like McDonalds mixing in a few fried okra chips with their French fries. Some small stations might do it in fringe time, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[TheBigA]

Your job has been to bore the hell out of the listening public for the past 20 years!

The listening public loves what I do. That's why I still have a job. So you're wrong. It's not the 80s anymore. Lots of things have changed.

 

[oldies76]

And so that leaves the door open for you to always find something to complain about, as I said.

If radio satisified me, like KRTH did in the 80's, I would not be complaining, simple.

 

[TheBigA]

If radio satisified me, like KRTH did in the 80's, I would not be complaining, simple.

As I said, it's not the 80s. You're a lot older, in case you haven't noticed. That changed things.

 

[davideduardo]

If that station with a "big playlist" of "broad and eclectic" music actually existed, the call letters would be WNFL - We're Not For Long. You and Fire should buy a station and show us how it is done - funny thing is there is no way the two of you could come up with a playlist that you both agree on.

Yep. Every time I have seen a station with either a deep list in a focused format or a list that tries to cover too broad a demo, it failed. Miserably.

The one time I fell into the "more is better" pit, it almost killed the station I was responsible for. As I was the owner, I simply cut my losses and moved on. But I never fell for the "too much repetition" myth ever again... and that happened when I was about 19!

But I rejoice when a competitor goes down that road.

 

[oldies76]

I hope the line for that sameness isn't too long though - it usually is because most people don't have a problem with it.

If people in coastal Southern California had days upon days of 90+ degree heat, people would complain and would want the nice, cooling effect of the sea breeze to cool things off to normal. People get tired of the same thing over and over again, especially if it provides discomfort. People dislike heavy traffic on the freeways. They live with it, since there is no other alternative, but they DISLIKE it.

Same with radio, playing the same songs everyday, every week, listeners get TIRED (repeat.....T I R E D) of it.

Research is not a perfect medium either.

Human nature.

You logic makes absolutely NO sense. Zilch!

 

[oldies76]

Yep. Every time I have seen a station with either a deep list in a focused format or a list that tries to cover too broad a demo, it failed. Miserably.

Please tell that to Bob Hamilton and the other folks at WCBS

But I rejoice when a competitor goes down that road.

Be careful what you wish and hope for. Rejoicing at lost jobs......wow!

 

[davideduardo]

There are so many things wrong with radio today that several very thick books could be written. I don't know that I could rank all of them, but on any such list compiled I'd put over-reliance on flawed measuring of ratings as a sign of success.

The reason why ratings are done is to establish a metric for pricing of radio advertising. The principal users of ratings, the ad agencies, accept a certain margin of error because their preference is for frequent reports and no cost to them. Stations accept a sample that is small because they can not afford a larger one. The margins of error are generally totally acceptable within the context of ad sales and the methodology is totally supervised by the MRC, an association concerned with sampling techniques working mostly on behalf of the advertisers who use ratings to invest billions every year.

Regarding huge numbers of people having a station on as background noise to be ignored as "success" definitely belongs on the list. Once advertisers realize that subliminal exposure isn't as good as having customers actually paying attention to their commercials, high-ratings background noise stations are done.

I was on a committee put together by Arbitron that included agency people and some representatives from ad agencies and buyers. The objective was to establish an engagement metric. Agencies did not want an additional metric, and stations did not want an addition reason for agencies to hammer price. Nothing came of it. Advertisers know that not everyone is listening intently to their spot each time it airs. On TV, they go to the bathroom. In radio, they are not paying attention. Yet the returns on investing in radio advertising are significant enough for about $15 billion to be poured into the medium each year.

So, yeah, some stations are more foreground than others. But advertisers use stations of all kinds to extend the reach of each campaign and they know that each environment is different. If they are satisfied with the ROI, then the system works.

 

[TheBigA]

Same with radio, playing the same songs everyday, every week, listeners get TIRED (repeat.....T I R E D) of it.

Only a very small percentage of people listen all day, every day. So the number of people getting tired is very small.

Advertisers know this, and that's why they repeat their spots so often. You think songs are being repeated? You should see the statistics of how often spots get repeated. Geico shows up several times an hour, every hour, every day. Far more repetitious than any song. And Geico pays every time their ad runs. If repetition was a problem, they'd be stupid to pay for it.

 

[landtuna]

If you read the rest of the post, we were talking about new country music. Not rap or pop. And the most recent survey supports what I'm saying:

"A further breakdown shows that 48 percent of those who like country music are male and 52 percent are female. The age brackets are interesting, as 13 percent are in the 18-24 age range; 17 percent, 25-34; 18 percent, 35-44; 20 percent, 45-54; and 16 percent each in the 44-64 and 65-plus."

There is no such thing as "new" Country music. Only new performers. Take anyone who has not ever listened to Country and play them a few songs from each decade then try to let them guess which came when. Won't happen. It's all Pablum. It works because males are used to a certain sound and Country keeps producing that sound. Females like to listen and imagine the singer's butt cheeks. Just look at the foolishness that takes place at any Country concert and you have your answer.

 

[TheBigA]

There is no such thing as "new" Country music. Only new performers.

Whatever...it's recent music. Not from the 60s and 70s, and people your age are listening to it.

 

[R_F_Burns]

Country music today is nothing more than pop music with banjos and fiddles.