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Holiday weekend playlists

M

Mediafrog+

Interesting to hear a station expand its playlist on a long holiday weekend. On 95.7 The Spot today I’m hearing a lot of tunes that normally don’t get any airplay. Actually quite refreshing! They’ve done this in the past as well.

Curious how this is accomplished with toady’s automated playouts. I know songs can be tagged for light rotation or occasional/rare airplay, or are just buried away on the music server...are there programming tools that allow these to bubble to the top on special occasions?
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Interesting to hear a station expand its playlist on a long holiday weekend. On 95.7 The Spot today I’m hearing a lot of tunes that normally don’t get any airplay. Actually quite refreshing! They’ve done this in the past as well.

Curious how this is accomplished with toady’s automated playouts. I know songs can be tagged for light rotation or occasional/rare airplay, or are just buried away on the music server...are there programming tools that allow these to bubble to the top on special occasions?
Click to expand...

Playout is automated, but generally, playlist generation is not completely automated. PD/MD still has to generate the playlist, then go through and make changes wherever they see fit.
 
tb_ said:
Playout is automated, but generally, playlist generation is not completely automated. PD/MD still has to generate the playlist, then go through and make changes wherever they see fit.
Click to expand...

I don't know of any situation where actual commercial AM or FM radio playlists are "automated". Stations do not run typical personal music device playlist shufflers and players... they use very sophisticated and expensive products that can schedule based on all kinds of rules like rest, horizontal and vertical rotation, artist separation, test scores, burn, tempo, texture, category and such.

A log is generated with all the rules in effect, but it takes considerable work at a good station to edit and polish the log for the best flow and feel.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Interesting to hear a station expand its playlist on a long holiday weekend. On 95.7 The Spot today I’m hearing a lot of tunes that normally don’t get any airplay. Actually quite refreshing! They’ve done this in the past as well.

Curious how this is accomplished with toady’s automated playouts. I know songs can be tagged for light rotation or occasional/rare airplay, or are just buried away on the music server...are there programming tools that allow these to bubble to the top on special occasions?
Click to expand...

All it takes is the assignment of a separate clock grid with different clocks to a special weekend or day or even daypart. The clocks can call songs in a "special only" category, slowing the rotation of the higher rotation songs at the same time to give the illusion of greater variety. It takes about a minute or two to switch clocks before doing a log, and then to switch back after the grid is no longer wanted.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The clocks can call songs in a "special only" category, slowing the rotation of the higher rotation songs at the same time to give the illusion of greater variety.
Click to expand...

However, I'm still not convinced this is a holiday weekend "special," since it's not identified as such. It could also be a slight format adjustment that will continue after Monday. If you're going to make a change for a holiday weekend, you might as well promote it as such, in order to derive any benefit from it. Some stations will do a Memorial Day 500 or similar thing. Not this station.
 
TheBigA said:
However, I'm still not convinced this is a holiday weekend "special," since it's not identified as such. It could also be a slight format adjustment that will continue after Monday. If you're going to make a change for a holiday weekend, you might as well promote it as such, in order to derive any benefit from it. Some stations will do a Memorial Day 500 or similar thing. Not this station.
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Will it be even worth taking the time to convince you that it is?
 
staggmovie said:
Will it be even worth taking the time to convince you that it is?
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If there are no promotional announcements or liners, we have to conclude that this is not a "special".

As I said, many things could be happening. My usual practice was to release songs that cycled in and out of play (Music Master and Selector can do this easily) and let nearly all the tested library play over a long weekend.

The reasoning is that listening patterns are very irregular on holiday weekends so you want to give an ilusion of playing all the good songs P1s expect you to play. I also have done this in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day when patterns are also broken and tune-in is less from habit.

In Hispanic markets, I've sometimes done this during Easter Week, too. In Puerto Rico, I did a variation of this during periods of hurricane warnings and hurricane alerts when people were listening differently. It does not hurt, as the songs are all tested. It just broadens up the playlist with the use of songs that were on "rest" jumping back in.
 
DavidEduardo said:


If there are no promotional announcements or liners, we have to conclude that this is not a "special".

As I said, many things could be happening. My usual practice was to release songs that cycled in and out of play (Music Master and Selector can do this easily) and let nearly all the tested library play over a long weekend.

The reasoning is that listening patterns are very irregular on holiday weekends so you want to give an ilusion of playing all the good songs P1s expect you to play. I also have done this in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day when patterns are also broken and tune-in is less from habit.

In Hispanic markets, I've sometimes done this during Easter Week, too. In Puerto Rico, I did a variation of this during periods of hurricane warnings and hurricane alerts when people were listening differently. It does not hurt, as the songs are all tested. It just broadens up the playlist with the use of songs that were on "rest" jumping back in.
Click to expand...

I ma sure to them it might be a special
 
staggmovie said:
I ma sure to them it might be a special
Click to expand...

If it were a "special" it would be promoted. It's just a small tweak of the rotations and rest patterns.
 
staggmovie said:
In less you have listened to the station how do you know if they have prompted it
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I listened. It's the sister station to my favorite station, The Bull 100.3.
 
ksradiogeek said:
Have to ask, seeing the majority of your posts: is antagonizing people all you do on here? Seems like you just start doubting and arguments on here for no reason.
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It is a fair question to as, the answer is no there are plenty of times when I make a post about new stories that has to do with Chicago radio, but there are times that doubts have to take over
 
DavidEduardo said:
As I said, many things could be happening. My usual practice was to release songs that cycled in and out of play (Music Master and Selector can do this easily) and let nearly all the tested library play over a long weekend.
Click to expand...

I didn't think my playlist observation in the original post would cause such a stir. But I think David Eduardo is right; this is just a case of the station letting a number of songs that are usually buried on the music server get some exposure to give a feeling of variety when listening patterns are different.

The Spot has done this in the past, without any special promotion. Savvy listeners will notice the additional songs, while the large majority of the audience won't perceive any difference.

I am quite sure that tomorrow 5/28 the playlist will be back to normal.
 
This is a station that prides itself on the size of its playlist. I heard a liner where they said "We'd like to tell you how many songs we play, but we've lost count." That's not something they only do on the weekends or on holiday weekends. And the adult hits format is designed that way. That's how Jack works.
 
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