WROR Boston Only Plays Two Black Artists--Michael Jackson and Prince

[Gregg.]

It's hard to argue with whatever formula WROR uses as a Classic Hits station. It's usually Boston's #2 or #3 station, behind Top 40 WXKS-FM and sometimes behind co-owned AC WMJX. But WROR's format is overwhelmingly white.

It uses the slogan "The 80s and more!" Apparently the only African-American artists who had mainstream hits in that decade were Michael Jackson and Prince. Looking at the "Recently Played" page, which goes back 18 hours, we only see their songs between Noon on Wed. 10/16 and 6pm on Tues. 10/15...

6:41 pm Prince--1999
7:31 pm Michael Jackson---Billie Jean
12:26 am Prince--Little Red Corvette
1:45 am Michael Jackson--Smooth Criminal
2:11 am Prince--Raspberry Beret
3:45 am Prince--When Doves Cry
4:34 am Michael Jackson--Beat It
7:06 am Michael Jackson--Wanna Be Starting Something
9:58 am Prince--1999 (second spin)
10:49 am Michael Jackson--Man in The Mirror

Sorry to Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Janet Jackson and Tina Turner. You just didn't have big enough hits in the 1980s that people in Boston still want to hear. It has nothing to do with race. Over 18 hours, WROR could only find 10 songs by two African-American artists that its listeners like.

How should I put this? Whitney, Stevie, Lionel, Janet and Tina just didn't sell enough records or have enough popularity.

 

[TheBigA]

Not sure that they base what they play on the number of hits or how big those hits were at the time. There are some stations in the format that don't play Michael or Prince either.

 

[davideduardo]

I
Sorry to Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Janet Jackson and Tina Turner. You just didn't have big enough hits in the 1980s that people in Boston still want to hear. It has nothing to do with race. Over 18 hours, WROR could only find 10 songs by two African-American artists that its listeners like.

How should I put this? Whitney, Stevie, Lionel, Janet and Tina just didn't sell enough records or have enough popularity.

A few days ago, there were posts about another station that "should have been playing" Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.

In both this case and that one, I suspect the answer lies in what the target listeners of a station want to hear on the radio today. It does not matter how big a hit a song may have been 35 or 40 years ago, but rather the present day appeal.

 

[QED]

You just didn't have big

They had "Big" hits. Just don't want to hear them. The music biz is full of troubled artists. So it isn't that either. Years ago I predicted the switch to '80's formats. It wasn't hard. Eventually it will grow old but right now target groups love it.
Even though J&H were very much part of it I just don't see them as being play-list inclusions but maybe that's me.

 

[Radio 1992]

I think programmers would be amazed at what the audience is looking for if they tried something other than what a research panel says. I can tell you that it's pretty amazing to see and hear what can happen when you give listeners the attention they are actually looking for instead of dismissing what they say when it doesn't fit the "formula"

 

[TheBigA]

I think programmers would be amazed at what the audience is looking for if they tried something other than what a research panel says.

Just so you know, the "research panel" is made up of people in the audience. So they're the same thing.

However, how would you feel if WROR played currents or played music from other formats? Maybe throw in some Garth Brooks or Ice T? They had hits too, and they certainly wouldn't fit the formula.

 

[CTListener]

I think programmers would be amazed at what the audience is looking for if they tried something other than what a research panel says.

Isn't most, if not all, research done by asking actual people who listen or might be interested in listening to a certain format what they like? Maybe Bostonians -- white, 35-54 Bostonians, anyway -- don't care if they ever hear Janet Jackson again. Is WROR supposed to force-feed them r&b when they've told the researchers it's not their cup of tea? WROR would just lose those listeners to WZLX if it went ahead and added "Private Dancer" or "She Works Hard For The Money" and the like to its playlist. Would some other station want to add that stuff? Nope, a lot of that stuff is nearly 40 years old and its fans will be non-people to advertisers in a few years, so no one is going to flip a current-heavy station to pop classic hits, and WMJX isn't going to be adding any more aging titles than it already has.

 

[Gregg.]

So the consensus is that it is not odd that WROR plays only two African-American artists? It plays their music fairly regularly, but no other black pop star works? WCBS-FM NYC, WLS-FM Chicago and WOGL Philadelphia play a range of African-American artists. Yes, it's only a couple of times per hour, but you can hear How Will I Know? by Whitney Houston and Part Time Lover by Stevie Wonder. It isn't just limited to Prince and Michael Jackson.

When people try to say, "Hey, that's how the testing turned out" I say WHAT gets tested and what DOESN'T is part of the process. If you, as a program director, really believe the audience can't handle Billy Ocean or Kool & The Gang, you're just not going to waste time testing their songs. You don't want to add them.

I understand the argument that for white male listeners who grew up with AOR stations, it would be a turn off to hear much black music. Yes, I think that's true. Certainly WCBS-FM, WLS-FM and WOGL limit their non-rock songs to only a few per hour.

Does WROR thinks it's too dangerous to play a black woman... that's a double whammy? Only a few white women get into the playlist (Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Pat Benatar, Madonna and not much more) and only two black men do?

But if a white male listener is so anti-pop and so anti-dance, why are they listening to WROR in the first place? I see some not-so-hard male acts in this playlist.... Human League, Hall & Oates, Flock of Seagulls, Huey Lewis, even You Spin Me Round Like A Record by Dead or Alive and Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood were played in the last few hours, a couple of disco classics. But Bad Girls and What's Love Got to Do with It don't make the cut?

 

[davideduardo]

Isn't most, if not all, research done by asking actual people who listen or might be interested in listening to a certain format what they like? Maybe Bostonians -- white, 35-54 Bostonians, anyway -- don't care if they ever hear Janet Jackson again. Is WROR supposed to force-feed them r&b when they've told the researchers it's not their cup of tea? WROR would just lose those listeners to WZLX if it went ahead and added "Private Dancer" or "She Works Hard For The Money" and the like to its playlist. Would some other station want to add that stuff? Nope, a lot of that stuff is nearly 40 years old and its fans will be non-people to advertisers in a few years, so no one is going to flip a current-heavy station to pop classic hits, and WMJX isn't going to be adding any more aging titles than it already has.

Research is done by having a targeted group of listeners who represent the demographics the station wants and who like the station and/or like the kind of music the station plays. Those people are invited, with an incentive, to listen to around 500 to 600 hooks of songs that might be playable, and each person scores them.

For a group owned station, the national PD or format chief may provide input on suggested songs to test, based on a combination of market demographics, target demos and the results of tests in other markets.

Usually several hundred songs that are not being played will get tested. Some are ones that were burnt from past play, but which may have rested enough to be playable. Some may be "younger" songs that will help the station stay in demo if they pass. Others may be "what if?" songs tested because they were used on TV, in a movie, etc. A lot of work goes into making the test list.

A station may or may not put ethnic quotas on recruiting. For an established station, the quotas might represent the actual audience composition of the station.

Often respondents are recruited by having them hear a "pod" of 5 or 6 hooks of the station, and if they say they would "listen a lot" to a station playing that "kind" of music, then they are asked what stations they listen to and how much per day or week. If they are moderate to heavy listeners, they are then asked age, gender (by observation) and such. At each "gate" the recruiter will stop, thank and dismiss if the required response is not met.

So each song has been played, in hook form (about 8" seconds long) and scored by each respondent. It's not about the artists, it is about each individual song.

It's not unusual for half the songs a station tests to turn out to be unplayable. I just worked on the planning and implementation of a test where, of 650 songs, just under 300 passed and will get airplay. That is typical for a station targeting 18-34 or 25-44. An older target station will likely have a higher percentage of "pass" songs.

Many tests are done online (but with traditional recruiting) but here are some pictures of a real music test done in a hotel meeting room: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm

 

[CTListener]

Research is done by having a targeted group of listeners who represent the demographics the station wants and who like the station and/or like the kind of music the station plays. Those people are invited, with an incentive, to listen to around 500 to 600 hooks of songs that might be playable, and each person scores them.

A station may or may not put ethnic quotas on recruiting. For an established station, the quotas might represent the actual audience composition of the station.

Often respondents are recruited by having them hear a "pod" of 5 or 6 hooks of the station, and if they say they would "listen a lot" to a station playing that "kind" of music, then they are asked what stations they listen to and how much per day or week. If they are moderate to heavy listeners, they are then asked age, gender (by observation) and such. At each "gate" the recruiter will stop, thank and dismiss if the required response is not met.

So each song has been played, in hook form (about 8" seconds long) and scored by each respondent. It's not about the artists, it is about each individual song

But doesn't it often work out that way? If you play the hooks from Boston's "More Than a Feeling" and "Peace of Mind" and get positive responses from a respondent, isn't it extremely likely that the same respondent will have the opposite reaction to Tina Turner's "Private Dancer" and "We Don't Need Another Hero"?

 

[TheBigA]

WCBS-FM NYC, WLS-FM Chicago and WOGL Philadelphia play a range of African-American artists.

You realize those are three very different cities, with different demographics, and different radio competitors involved. If you want a national feed where the same artists are played in every city, you should subscribe to Sirius.

Where do you get the idea that a certain artist is "too dangerous?" It's just personal taste. Is it too dangerous to play Darius Rucker on WKLB? Obviously not. It sounds like you would like to impose your own personal taste on others. I'm sure everyone would like to do that, but that's not the real world.

 

[davideduardo]

But doesn't it often work out that way? If you play the hooks from Boston's "More Than a Feeling" and "Peace of Mind" and get positive responses from a respondent, isn't it extremely likely that the same respondent will have the opposite reaction to Tina Turner's "Private Dancer" and "We Don't Need Another Hero"?

Depends on the market.

Very often we see markets with large ethnic populations leaning rhythmic even on stations that principally get non-ethnic listening.

In the more diverse markets, it's likely that the top 40 stations of "back in the day" played a lot more rhythmic material. So people living there will have had greater exposure to those songs and, probably, want to hear more of them.

I come from a background of markets like LA, Miami, San Juan over the last 50 years and I'd love to hear the Boston cuts and the Tina cuts on the same station. But someone from Fargo or Billings or Wichita might not.

 

[Gregg.]

I figured I'd look at two other large markets in northern cities that have fairly low minority populations. KQQL is tied for #2 in Minneapolis, KJR-FM is #4 in Seattle, similar to WROR, #3 in Boston.

At first, KQQL, over the last 10 hours, follows the same pattern as WROR, only Michael Jackson and Prince. For most of the day it was Jackson (Black or White, Wanna Be Starting Something, Billy Jean, Thriller) and Prince (When Doves Cry, Little Red Corvette, I Would Die for U, Purple Rain) and a duet with Prince & Sheena Easton (U Got The Look). But if you go back to this morning, you see an assortment of African-American artists, Deniece Williams (Let's Hear It for The Boy), Whitney Houston (I Want to Dance with Somebody) and Billy Ocean (Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car). And sure enough, KQQL also spins You Spin Me Round Like A Record. (I think that's a cool song, but how does it go over with middle aged white guys who grew up with AOR music?)

And in Seattle, KJR-FM was quite amazing. Not only did the station play a large assortment of African-American artists, it even aired 1960s hits from Aretha Franklin (Respect) and Otis Redding (Dock of the Bay). For that matter, I saw one Beatles song (Get Back). You don't see Classic Hits stations go back that far. KJR-FM had a few Michael Jackson (Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean) and Prince (1999, When Doves Cry) songs. But it also had a long list of other artists. Tina Turner, Kool & The Gang, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant and I Can See Clearly Now, not Johnny Nash's version but Jimmy Cliff's cover.

So again, how can these songs all test well for KJR-FM but WROR only can play Michael Jackson and Prince? Something else is going on here.

 

[CTListener]

I figured I'd look at two other large markets in northern cities that have fairly low minority populations, KQQL Minneapols and KJR-FM Seattle.

At first, KQQL, over the last 10 hours, follows the same pattern as WROR, only Michael Jackson and Prince. For most of the day it was Jackson (Black or White, Wanna Be Starting Something, Billy Jean, Thriller) and Prince (When Doves Cry, Little Red Corvette, I Would Die for U, Purple Rain) and a duet with Prince & Sheena Easton (U Got The Look). But if you go back to this morning, you see an assortment of African-American artists, Deniece Williams (Let's Hear It for The Boy), Whitney Houston (I Want to Dance with Somebody) and Billy Ocean (Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car). And sure enough, KQQL also spins You Spin Me Round Like A Record. (I think that's a cool song, but how does it go over with middle aged white guys who grew up with AOR music?)

And in Seattle, KJR-FM was quite amazing. Not only did the station play a large assortment of African-American artists, it even aired 1960s hits from Aretha Franklin (Respect) and Otis Redding (Dock of the Bay). For that matter, I saw one Beatles song (Get Back). You don't see Classic Hits stations go back that far. KJR-FM had a few Michael Jackson (Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean) and Prince (1999, When Doves Cry) songs. But it also had a long list of other artists. Tina Turner, Kool & The Gang, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant and I Can See Clearly Now, not Johnny Nash's version but Jimmy Cliff's cover.

So again, how can these songs all test well for KJR-FM but WROR only can play Michael Jackson and Prince? Something else is going on here.

WROR had the same musical focus when WODS was still doing classic hits, and playing a lot of African-American r&b and pop from the '60s through '80s. After WODS flipped to CHR (Amp), there was speculation on this board that WROR might alter its playlist to attract WODS's disenfranchised listeners. It didn't, and its ratings (and presumably billing) haven't suffered a bit. I can only assume that the listeners who were enjoying soul and disco hits of the past as part of the WODS format were mostly too old (or too downscale economically) for WROR to want to take on. The current music mix continues to serve WROR well. No conspiracy here, I'm afraid. The folks in charge have looked at what happened at WODS and concluded that there's no way to take that music on without hurting the bottom line. WROR most likely isn't even testing Deniece Williams or Kool and the Gang because they know the response they'd get.

 

[davideduardo]

So again, how can these songs all test well for KJR-FM but WROR only can play Michael Jackson and Prince? Something else is going on here.

Different music tests in different markets. Different competitive array. Different market mood and feel.

For example: A market without a rhythmic AC will likely find the nucleus of potential listeners for a classic hits station to be greater with some rhythmic material than a classic hits station in a market with a rhythmic AC covering that portion of the music spectrum.

KJR is obviously targeting broader and older than WROR. KJR is 14th in 18-34, while WROR is 7th. The median age for KJR is older. WROR has been, on average, #1 or #2 for much of this year. KJR is around 7th or 8th.

Conclusion: KJR is not doing as good a job as WROR.

Also, KJR has a slightly deeper library than WROR, too (about 15% larger) so that may explain some of the difference.

 

[Radio 1992]

Just so you know, the "research panel" is made up of people in the audience. So they're the same thing.

However, how would you feel if WROR played currents or played music from other formats? Maybe throw in some Garth Brooks or Ice T? They had hits too, and they certainly wouldn't fit the formula.

Thank you, yes i know that. My point is that the research panel misses alot of things. First, it tells the story of a few people in a certain mood for that instance. The next day, these same people might be in a different mood looking for something else, but within the boundaries of the format. Test "Don't Stop Believing", then test it a year later after you have played it for them over and over again until they can't stand it anymore. There are so many other factors that come into play here. The research should be used as a guideline, not as a be all end all when it comes to what should be spun or not. You can pick a format and play music that fits without suggesting that Garth Brooks or Ice-T get spun because they "Had Hits". Billy Joel has many hits, so why, on a classic hits station, limit that to 3 songs?

Often times, in a research panel, the songs are limited anyway, because it cost more to test more songs. The music test already starts out as being watered down before it even starts.

 

[TheBigA]

So again, how can these songs all test well for KJR-FM but WROR only can play Michael Jackson and Prince? Something else is going on here.

You're just looking at song lists and nothing else. You're not comparing demographics, in-market competition, or heritage. A radio station is not just an ad hoc list of songs.

 

[TheBigA]

First, it tells the story of a few people in a certain mood for that instance. The next day, these same people might be in a different mood looking for something else, but within the boundaries of the format.

That's why people have personal music devices, so they can hear exactly what they want when they want to hear it.

Radio is not a personal music device. It plays consensus songs for mass audiences, and does a good job of it. Especially in this particular case.

 

[davideduardo]

WROR most likely isn't even testing Deniece Williams or Kool and the Gang because they know the response they'd get.

Or they test their songs and also songs like those to see if there is any change.

The fact is that there are a number of rock leaning classic hits stations. Even in 65% ethnic Riverside / San Berdoo (51% Hispanic, 7% each Asian and Black), KOLA only goes a tiny bit further than WROR.... a few Whitney songs, a couple of Commodores and Lionel songs, but no Billy Ocean. KOLA also has 4 Janets, all in 1 play a week rotation, as is the case with the deeper Michael songs.

And KOLA is #1 in every important sales demo in the IE, and then some. They made the choice as being in between the classic rock stations and the pop leaning ones, with CHR type rock leaning songs with a few power ballads and some rhythmic stuff.

And interestingly, the station has 58% Hispanic listenership... making a point that in many markets there is a less stereotypical behavior by ethnic groups than may be expected. Heck, it even has 4% Black listening!

When KOLA was more pop leaning, they were lagging. The adjustment to rock shot them to the top.

 

[davideduardo]

My point is that the research panel misses alot of things. First, it tells the story of a few people in a certain mood for that instance. The next day, these same people might be in a different mood looking for something else, but within the boundaries of the format. Test "Don't Stop Believing", then test it a year later after you have played it for them over and over again until they can't stand it anymore. There are so many other factors that come into play here. The research should be used as a guideline, not as a be all end all when it comes to what should be spun or not. You can pick a format and play music that fits without suggesting that Garth Brooks or Ice-T get spun because they "Had Hits". Billy Joel has many hits, so why, on a classic hits station, limit that to 3 songs?

How many music tests have you conducted?

I've got some experience, having conducted around 1,000 of them.

Listeners are recruited in advance. They are screened for being regular listeners to "our" station or to other stations that are in the same format. They must listen a minimum number of hours a week / day to our kind of music. They are asked to score songs on how much they would like to hear each song on the radio now. That's why the recruiting cost can range from $150 to nearly $300 per respondent!

We know, because we ask, that the average respondent listens to 4 to 6 stations for music. We ask them to answer yes or no to a list of bigger stations and "other". We know they are mood driven. But within our genre, we want to know what songs are consensus hits today, and which are not.

Replication tests show us that we get the same results on different days and even a few months apart.

Songs don't burn easily in gold rotations. If they do, we rest them between tests, test again. If they don't recover, we don't test them again.

"What if" songs may be tested on several tests. If they stiff always, we do not test again. Songs on the border between good and bad are retested until the distinction is clear. Those may be fill and overnight songs in the meantime.

If a station plays 3 Billy Joel songs, that means the others stiffed. We play songs, not artists.

Where the programming skills come in is interpreting things like factor/cluster analysis and making calls on playability based on whether a song fits our format. And deciding whether some higher scoring songs need to have lighter-than-earned rotations due to their effect on the station sound. Stuff like that...

Often times, in a research panel, the songs are limited anyway, because it cost more to test more songs. The music test already starts out as being watered down before it even starts.

Today most gold based formats, from AC to classic rock to classic hits, the libraries are in the 300 to 400 song size. A typical music test for that sort of station will be around 600 songs.

A current based station will combine callout with music tests, but still test 400 to 600 library and recurrent songs.

In all these cases the station is testing more than double the songs that they will end up playing