Looking at different radio station spin counts, I have noticed several stations that are sister stations in different markets having different spin-counts. What decides that for each individual market? What about recurrents and golds that leave the charts? Are callout scores able to track which markets respond well or not?
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How do stations know when to drop a song?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
At least in the larger markets stations that have individual per-market callout for their specific format, the data is just for that station.
In a group operator's smaller markets, generally they will either do callout with a sample that is split between a group of very similarly behaving markets or they will rotate the markets.
And "callout" is mostly done online now, but recruiting is still commonly done by phone with an invitation and screen prior to sending an email invitation to participate.
Recurrents are determined by callout, but not regularly researched that way. Recurrents and gold are done by AMTs, now mostly done online too.
Participants in current callout and AMTs are selected as both station partisans or partisans of a particular genre of music. The selection of participants is very detailed.
It can be anything. The artist gets caught on TMZ saying something bad, his record gets dropped. Just like that. It can be bad research. It can be that a song has been on the chart too long. Perhaps they need to make room for a hotter song. All kinds of reasons. The main thing is it happens in collaboration with the label's promo team. Perhaps the label is backing off one single, and redirecting its priority to another artist. As I said, it can be anything.
Most commercial stations don't collaborate on most adds and drops with the labels. The labels are, to be polite, pests.
There may be some cooperation based on promotional opportunities, but we generally don't follow the label's playbook. If a song is still testing very high, the new single will just have to wait... or it will get minimal airplay.
My extreme case was at LA's #1 station where a song tested "power" for just over 13 months. In the meantime, we did not cut it from power rotation and did not look for a new song by the same artist, despite the record promoter's push.
In another case, same market, the first single from a big artist was not liked by the PD. She selected a different cut. The label had a fit, even calling the manager. It turned out to be the group's biggest hit ever, but the label's promo staff did not like it and had an ego issue in flipping to a different cut.
In any case, I think tall_guy was specifically looking at how research determines play, exclusive of outside influences.
I'll mention again the phone message of the PD of Power in LA when it was the top young adult station "Hi, you've reached the Program Director of Power 106. If you are promoting a record, you can hang up now". In the lobby there was a box for new releases. Promoters could meet with the PD one day a week for 15 minutes.
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I think that tall_guy was referring to single stations in a format in each market.
Everything is weighed... streaming listening / viewing, national charts, airplay monitors and our own proprietary research with our own listeners.
Maybe. They're salesmen. They call you once a week to bring you up to date on song activity in various online sites, as justification for the station increasing spins. If the station drops a song without explanation, the label calls to ask why. So yes there is a role for the label in the process. These decisions are not made by "golden gut." Meanwhile if the station is holding its annual listener appreciation concert, the first person the station calls is the label promo guy.
Here's some insight into how music decisions get made at TikTok:
www.bloomberg.com
How TikTok Chooses Which Songs Go Viral
The app’s hits seem to emerge organically, but the success of artists like Megan Thee Stallion reveals a highly managed curation process.
www.bloomberg.com
I once worked with a PD who was a master at getting stuff paid for by the record reps. In a few cases they'd promote a crap song, the PD knew it, the MD knew it and most likely the record rep knew it was bad, but they wanted to be able to advertise in Billboard and industry publications that the song or CD was getting heavy play on at least a handful of stations. The CHR FM I worked for was #1 in the smaller market it was located in and had a 50kW signal with penetration into a nearby large market, the station didn't have a lot of cash to spend, so the amount of stuff they got various record reps to supply us with was impressive at times - New jingle packages from Century 21, a "Voice of God" V/O talent to do a bunch of ongoing work for station imaging, an ACN package to provide comedy bits for the morning show, tons of giveaways and prizes with the station's logo on them, supplying artists with current hits for things like listener appreciation parties, etc.
Some of the jocks weren't happy with some of the music that was on the log for them to play or how often they were being told to air it, and they felt we were playing some songs for the wrong reasons and it was bordering on "payola", but at the same time, that small-market station had the sound of a major market player with similar format and their logo was seemingly everywhere.
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Interesting topic. I programmed contemporary radio from 1990 to 2014. Yes, there was a form of indirect payola that went on, but it was hush hush and usually didn’t involve cash, which of course was illegal. However the substitute for cash was help with station promotions, usually by providing an up and coming artist with generous airplay. Then there were free trips for PD’s and MD’s to radio conventions and fancy dinners. Yes, a few stations forbid this, but most looked the other way. I always enjoyed the “L” category in Selector. Some may also know this as the “lunar” category because the song was only played in the middle of the night. Surprising how many record companies would actually accept that if they could get the “add”!
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In my case, I've only had to drop one musician, since signing on. I was a big fan of Hawk Nelson and played their music in heavy rotation. After their lead singer parted ways with Christianity, I dropped them from my mix. For a few days, I was heartbroken because of it. 
I didn't want to axe them but had no choice.
Dan <><
P.S. My musical mix is very eclectic. I don't follow after some top 10 playlist. I play what I can get my hands on and add it when I'm able to. A good bit of the songs played feature singers, songwriters, styles and performances that the big boy styled Christian radio stations don't cater to at all or haven't been heard from in years.
I didn't want to axe them but had no choice.Dan <><
P.S. My musical mix is very eclectic. I don't follow after some top 10 playlist. I play what I can get my hands on and add it when I'm able to. A good bit of the songs played feature singers, songwriters, styles and performances that the big boy styled Christian radio stations don't cater to at all or haven't been heard from in years.
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