Songwriters & Musicians & Demographics

[kfbkfb]

IIRC, in an interview with Jay Leno after he left the NBC Tonight Show, he said one challenge for him was being asked by NBC to add something to the Tonight show for some small/obscure demographic group (since NBC owned the Tonight show, they had all the demographic info to share).

AFAIK, demographic info obtained by Radio stations is only used for selecting existing songs to try to appeal to their desired demographic groups, the demographic info is not shared with songwriters & musicians.

If the demographic info was shared with songwriters & musicians (such as - a certain demo liked the rhyming of a mispronounced word with a correctly pronounced word - a different demo liked the synthesizer musical interlude - yet another demo liked the use of a violin etc.), maybe songs could be written/played to appeal more to the Radio station demos (sort of closing the loop, as it is, the songwriters & musicians write what they want and a separate process of classifying the songs is done to help Radio stations).

Since the demographic info obtained for Radio stations is fairly detailed, is sharing the info with songwriters & musicians practical?


Kirk Bayne

 

[TheBigA]

Since the demographic info obtained for Radio stations is fairly detailed, is sharing the info with songwriters & musicians practical?

Is it practical in what way? I'm sure it gets done. Radio PDs and label promo people are pretty tight, and they do share research. Whether that info trickles down to musicians and songwriters is another story. When you say "musicians," do you mean the recording artists? In that case, they're in the meetings with the label promo guys, so they're hearing the conversations. The studio musicians are not in the loop. Neither are the songwriters, unless they also happen to be recording artists. But this is why a lot of studio musicians and songwriters like to get out and play shows, to see who shows up.

The reason why radio stations want demographic data is for advertisers. The record labels and recording artists do sponsorship deals, so the demographic data is useful in that way. It's also helpful to know if an artist needs some reinvention in order to keep their appeal current and growing. But songwriters just write what they write.

 

[davideduardo]

Is it practical in what way? I'm sure it gets done. Radio PDs and label promo people are pretty tight, and they do share research.

The only time a radio station might share a tidbit of research with a record duck is to tell them how badly a song is stiffing. Or, maybe, to tell them that they are not going to add the new release because the prior one is a power and outscoring every other song on the playlist.

Whether that info trickles down to musicians and songwriters is another story.

There is nothing in radio research that would help musicians, other than knowing that a song is working or not.

The reason why radio stations want demographic data is for advertisers.

In house station research, such as perceptuals and music tests, are never shared with outsiders. In fact, many of us have staff that is party to research of that kind sign nondisclosure agreements.

Nielsen research does not say anything about songs or music, so that is of no help to labels other than knowing how important getting adds on a station might be.

The record labels and recording artists do sponsorship deals, so the demographic data is useful in that way. It's also helpful to know if an artist needs some reinvention in order to keep their appeal current and growing. But songwriters just write what they write.

But ratings data does not include anything perceptual that would help labels or artists.

In other words, there is no radio station internal research that would be shared with record labels and absolutely nothing in Nielsen that would be of benefit.

 

[davideduardo]

AFAIK, demographic info obtained by Radio stations is only used for selecting existing songs to try to appeal to their desired demographic groups, the demographic info is not shared with songwriters & musicians.

The demographic data stations get is from Nielsen and it is quantitative numerical data about listening. It has nothing about music.

Ratings show what stations are listened to and for how long. They tell, for each station, what ages and genders and ethnicities listen. While there are lots of additional details, that is the big picture.

Stations do music research separately and confidentially to find out what to keep playing and what to drop and how much to play each song. They also find out about the appeal of talent and other qualitative things. They find out how their station is perceived compared to competitors.

If the demographic info was shared with songwriters & musicians (such as - a certain demo liked the rhyming of a mispronounced word with a correctly pronounced word - a different demo liked the synthesizer musical interlude - yet another demo liked the use of a violin etc.), maybe songs could be written/played to appeal more to the Radio station demos (sort of closing the loop, as it is, the songwriters & musicians write what they want and a separate process of classifying the songs is done to help Radio stations).

Radio music research does not analyze each song that way. Primary listeners hear 10" or so of a song and they score it based on hearing the hook. That is all the time needed, and playing any more bores the participant. There is no discussion of the song.

Today, testing of music is done online mostly and recruited participants hear, automatically, the song pieces and then select a score. As soon as they do, they get to hear another song. In two hours, they might hear 500 song pieces and score them. There is no time for analysis.

Since the demographic info obtained for Radio stations is fairly detailed, is sharing the info with songwriters & musicians practical?

Station song research is not about "demographics". It is about what our listeners or our format type's listeners like and don't like. We only select people who use our station or a direct competitor in a narrow range of ages. The data is about "us" and for "us".

None of it would be of any use by labels, artist or composers, but mostly it is highly confidential and would never be shared.

Of course, the last thing you would do as station management would be to let a record promoter know you were doing a music test. At the top 15 market station I managed and consulted for 25 years and which was overwhelmingly #1, in the PD's office was a sign that said, "The record promoter is not your friend. The record promoter will do you harm."

 

[Kelly A]

Since the demographic info obtained for Radio stations is fairly detailed, is sharing the info with songwriters & musicians practical?

As David mentioned; any demographic data relates to the number of listeners (Cumulative), and how long they listen (Time Spent Listening). There's no tracking of individual songs. Research like that is up to the station.

 

[davideduardo]

As David mentioned; any demographic data relates to the number of listeners (Cumulative), and how long they listen (Time Spent Listening). There's no tracking of individual songs. Research like that is up to the station.

And music monitoring services like BDS can tell you which songs were played, but not why.

 

[Greg Strickland]

Professional songwriters are aware of demographics and audiences. If they are also the performing artist of their songs, they may believe an audience will find them and love them for who they are. If they are not already a star, this is rare, but it does happen.

Most of the time professional songwriters are very focused on achieving or maintaining income, are seeking a hit, and are definitely thinking about how a song will be received. There are exceptions, such as if the songwriter is doing it for personal interest or love of music and words, I think these would be songwriters with day-jobs or financial security.

At the sound recording stage, producers, managers, friends, business partners, sound engineers, other musicians and songwriters, and record companies will express opinions or use their position to result in a change to the song. Many of today's hit songs have a number of people with songwriting credit. In this case the song automatically has been deliberated by a number of people who are or have awareness of different demos and audiences. If a song sounds and feels like a hit everybody wants a piece of that writing credit pie, and that in itself is an indication of demographic and market appeal of a creation.

Like other things involving talent and art, there are lots of people out there who are simply horrible creators. There are probably 5,000 people out there trying to write the next "Margaritaville" and most of the results are lame.

Interestingly, the "I want to escape" demo of Margaritaville might have been superseded by the "it's all about me" demo. But we'll leave that up to the songwriters and the audience.

 

[TheBigA]

In other words, there is no radio station internal research that would be shared with record labels and absolutely nothing in Nielsen that would be of benefit.

I've attended music seminars where radio station and Nielsen reps have been present to explain the process and share the methodology and the data. It happens.

 

[Phil Harmonic]

I remember when Madonna called and asked about the reports of heavy sales of her latest tune, at Miami/Ft Lauderdale record stores.

 

[davideduardo]

I've attended music seminars where radio station and Nielsen reps have been present to explain the process and share the methodology and the data. It happens.

I've never been to a seminar, conference or whatever as an attendee or panelist where anything not common knowledge has been revealed.

In the area of proprietary radio station research, companies like Coleman and Edison today and dating back to The Research Group in the 80's will be represented in those conferences. They tell you enough to make you consider buying their services, but not enough to do it yourself.

Nielsen (and Arbitron before it) is totally open on its methodology. Part of that openness goes back to the congressional investigations of ratings back in the earlier 60's and part has to do with what is today the MRC which "grades" media research for the benefit of the advertisers and agencies that are its principal supporters.

For example, we know exactly how Nielsen recruits diary and PPM participants, right down to the forms they use. We get full data on sample or panel composition and weighting. We know the who*, what, when, where and why of each measured listener.

Proprietary research, done by stations themselves and usually via an outside specialized research company, is steel-vault-protected confidential material. Nobody would share in a meeting attended by competitors details about weaknesses

* "Who" in the sense that we know the statistics. Names are confidential in PPM to avoid the potential for stations contacting panelists who can now be participants for over 2 years. "Where" is down to the ZIP code level, not specific addresses. "Why" is generally a perceptual question, and ratings are quantitative research... but we can extrapolate lot's of "why" data from listening patterns, such as "no listening after 9 AM" which translates to be that the person got to work and turned the car radio off.

 

[TheBigA]

I've never been to a seminar, conference or whatever as an attendee or panelist where anything not common knowledge has been revealed.

Nowhere in this thread has anyone asked for or given proprietary research. Everybody, as in radio, records, and artists, has money to do their own research to get whatever information they feel will benefit them.

But by the same token it's helpful for those on the music side to understand the rules and restrictions that exist for radio that don't exist for other music platforms. Because a lot of them are hit consistently from the RIAA and MusicFirst that all platforms should be treated the same, and radio stations can't operate that way because of the FCC and Nielsen.

 

[davideduardo]

Nowhere in this thread has anyone asked for or given proprietary research. Everybody, as in radio, records, and artists, has money to do their own research to get whatever information they feel will benefit them.

But by the same token it's helpful for those on the music side to understand the rules and restrictions that exist for radio that don't exist for other music platforms. Because a lot of them are hit consistently from the RIAA and MusicFirst that all platforms should be treated the same, and radio stations can't operate that way because of the FCC and Nielsen.

But the point here was to answer kfbkfb, who asked about radio research that might benefit labels or artists or composers. The simple response is that neither ratings nor internal station research cover anything that might assist in the artistic creative process or the business of marketing songs by labels.

 

[CTListener]

Like other things involving talent and art, there are lots of people out there who are simply horrible creators. There are probably 5,000 people out there trying to write the next "Margaritaville" and most of the results are lame.

They all seem to be pitching their songs to Kenny Chesney, who I believe has recorded at least 1,000 of them.

 

[TheBigA]

But the point here was to answer kfbkfb, who asked about radio research that might benefit labels or artists or composers. The simple response is that neither ratings nor internal station research cover anything that might assist in the artistic creative process or the business of marketing songs by labels.

If the artists or writers are in touch with their audience, they already know who they're singing to.

Especially now with the amount of outreach done with music fans in social media and fan clubs.

BTW a number of music organizations have commissioned their own demographic research and released it to their members.

 

[davideduardo]

If the artists or writers are in touch with their audience, they already know who they're singing to.

Especially now with the amount of outreach done with music fans in social media and fan clubs.

BTW a number of music organizations have commissioned their own demographic research and released it to their members.

This reminds me of when early edit movies and TV were Burked to find audience reaction and even to change edits (movies) or casting and story lines (TV). Some labels tried to do that with songs, and it was a miserable failure.

In radio research, we know that the initial reaction to a song is not the permanent one. It takes, by our experience, about 8 plays for a person to decide if a song is emotionally liked. On initial responses, we get "it sounds OK" a lot, but often that is due to the song sounding a bit like some other song that is a big hit and well liked. But upon more listens, it "does not make it" and stiffs.

So labels got great testing songs based on one play, but they fell flat. And some that tested poorly at the beginning grew on people and became huge hits. Of course, the label folks could not understand... "but we tested it and it was a big hit".

Heck, Picasso and Dalí did not "test" with art buyers initially. It took time.

That is why stations that do "call out" generally don't even test a new song for two weeks or so, and even then the first test is to set a benchmark to see if it grows in the next cycle.

 

[TheBigA]

This reminds me of when early edit movies and TV were Burked to find audience reaction and even to change edits (movies) or casting and story lines (TV). Some labels tried to do that with songs, and it was a miserable failure.

That's not what I'm talking about. The research these groups commission is demographic research, to find out who listens to what, and develop a profile of those listeners. Edison Research is one of the companies that has done the research.

 

[davideduardo]

That's not what I'm talking about. The research these groups commission is demographic research, to find out who listens to what, and develop a profile of those listeners. Edison Research is one of the companies that has done the research.

But that is marketing research, not an attempt to predict hits.

 

[TheBigA]

But that is marketing research, not an attempt to predict hits.

That's correct. That's what the OP was asking about.

 

[davideduardo]

That's correct. That's what the OP was asking about.

I got the impression he was looking at song analysis at the music level: }

"If the demographic info was shared with songwriters & musicians (such as - a certain demo liked the rhyming of a mispronounced word with a correctly pronounced word - a different demo liked the synthesizer musical interlude - yet another demo liked the use of a violin etc.), maybe songs could be written/played to appeal more to the Radio station demos (sort of closing the loop, as it is, the songwriters & musicians write what they want and a separate process of classifying the songs is done to help Radio stations)."

That is something neither ratings nor private station research comes close to covering, since it is of no value to stations and would be enormously expensive as it would have to be done in one-on-one situations as even the influence of one or more "alphas" in a focus group would ruin the experience.

 

[TheBigA]

I got the impression he was looking at song analysis at the music level: }

But as you say, that's not what Nielsen does. So perhaps the OP was operating with a false premise.