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iHeartMedia clusters that have zero local personalities

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Well, less than 500 songs are still high. I think most successful variety and/or oldie stations are about at 300. This has been proven to work for most. Yes you can go higher and rotate certain titles, but 300 is the simple equation for success. This works for a general audience which is most important. Radioaholics, as I call them, loves to hear the bottom half of the top 40. But rarely creates rating success.
 
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seatownmedia said:
Well, less than 500 songs are still high.
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No, it's not for that sort of format. There are many gold based formats that have between 400 and 600 songs in rotation and as many as 200 more rotating in and out.
seatownmedia said:
I think most successful variety and/or oldie stations are about at 300.
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No, they are in the 500 to 600 range. 300 is around the average for a traditional AC station.
seatownmedia said:
This has been proven to work for most. Yes you can go higher and rotate certain titles, but 300 is the simple equation for success. This works for a general audience which is most important.
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Every format is different. Markets that have lots and lots of "imports" (not native residents) will have slightly less. So look for Phoenix or Nashville to be a bit lower, with Buffalo or Grand Rapids or Milwaukee to be higher.
 
seatownmedia said:
Further, “Jack” stations do not play everything. They are highly researched like everyone else. Don’t ever believe radio station slogans!
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"Mile wide, inch deep" is an apt description of the typical "Jack" playlist. Just because you might play one Clash track, one ABBA track, one Weeknd track and one Garth Brooks track doesn't make your station a virtual encyclopedia of popular music of the last five decades.
 
seatownmedia said:
Well, less than 500 songs are still high. I think most successful variety and/or oldie stations are about at 300. This has been proven to work for most. Yes you can go higher and rotate certain titles, but 300 is the simple equation for success. This works for a general audience which is most important. Radioaholics, as I call them, loves to hear the bottom half of the top 40. But rarely creates rating success.
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Last 30 days for these stations:
KRTH: 584 different songs played at least one time.
WCBS: 592 different songs.
WOGL: 457 songs.
KONO: 626 different ones.

Data from Mediabase.
 
Ok, fair enough. Perhaps things have changed since I retired about 7 years ago. But back then tight playlists were common, especially with classic hits. As in most classic hits with about 300 titles. If it has changed I stand corrected.
 
seatownmedia said:
Ok, fair enough. Perhaps things have changed since I retired about 7 years ago. But back then tight playlists were common, especially with classic hits. As in most classic hits with about 300 titles. If it has changed I stand corrected.
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It varies. Sometimes it can be as small as 300. Sometimes as many as 600.

It's like fishing. You cast out, and then reel it in. Nothing stays the same.
 
vw86 said:
This will blow your mind. Some of the locally programmed Jack (and other Variety Hits) stations have a playlist not much bigger than KRTH. Many of them are spinning less than 500 songs.
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My guess is that frequency of rotation is totally different. KRTH might spin 500 songs, but some get 13 spins a week and some get 2.
 
WERT (standards) isn't as bad about repeating songs as KTUC but it just played "Have You Never Been Mellow" two hours after playing it earlier. In the middle there is the sound of a cell phone getting a text. I wonder what caused that?

A low-power station run by a church I listened to on the way to the beach used to play the same songs in the same order every Monday (or so it seemed because those Mondays were a year apart) and there was a sneeze during one of those songs.
 
Regarding Iheart clusters: Obviously related to this expanding business practice, Iheart is abandoning clusters of studios in many markets if favor of much smaller (presumably cheaper) real estate situations. Why keep a facility with 6, 8, 10 or more control rooms or studios when at most in a market only one station has a (semi) live morning show and all the others are voice tracked from somebody's bedroom? All you need is a mail drop and a POSH EXECUTIVE SUITE for the Yummy / Market VICE PRESIDENT.
As referenced in another thread on this site, most Iheart clusters now don't even have a RECEPTIONIST.

Recent abandonments along these lines include Lexington, KY and Dayton, OH. Cincinnati is rumored to be soon.
 
seatownmedia said:
Further, “Jack” stations do not play everything. They are highly researched like everyone else. Don’t ever believe radio station slogans!
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I work for one that does. We dont call it Jack, its locally programmed.. its labeled by the industry as AC but its what I call AC Variety... but we play country, some rock, some pop, some alt-ish things and alot of other stuff from all kinds of genres...... while its not random... it is a big playlist with some rules and requriements to even make it into automation to be scheduled, @seatownmedia
 
OLDRFGUY said:
Regarding Iheart clusters: Obviously related to this expanding business practice, Iheart is abandoning clusters of studios in many markets if favor of much smaller (presumably cheaper) real estate situations.
Click to expand...

There's no money to be made abandoning buildings. Unless you're talking about rentals. What we've seen is they're SELLING properties. This ties in with the article I linked here earlier with this strategy as explained by Bob Pittman:

www.insideradio.com

iHeartMedia Outlines Blueprint For A ‘New Work Environment.’

As more employees return to the workplace after COVID forced millions to work from home, different corporate approaches are emerging. For its part, iHeartMedia now views the office as a
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

“We will never ‘return to the office’ as we all knew it; instead, we’ll be returning to a ‘New Work Environment,’” the execs say in their joint memo. That takes into consideration what they’ve learned in the past year and a half, “from new skills and new ways of working to maximizing our technology to enable us to communicate, innovate and work together as a team.”

“Although we’ll start as a hybrid of working from home and some use of the office, we know it will evolve as we learn together,” the memo says. “We should all think about the office as a productivity tool, vs. that more rigid ‘home base’ we’ve been used to – and the office will always be open for your use.”
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This is not unique to iHeart. A lot of broadcasters are working from home offices that were set up during the pandemic.

OLDRFGUY said:
As referenced in another thread on this site, most Iheart clusters now don't even have a RECEPTIONIST.
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I don't know about you but I haven't seen a receptionist in an office building in years. More likely a security guard. But what would a receptionist do? Answer a land line phone? How 20th century.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
I work for one that does. We dont call it Jack, its locally programmed.. its labeled by the industry as AC but its what I call AC Variety... but we play country, some rock, some pop, some alt-ish things and alot of other stuff from all kinds of genres...... while its not random... it is a big playlist with some rules and requriements to even make it into automation to be scheduled, @seatownmedia
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That is fair. Some may be true variety, but most run a good list of songs of proven research success.
 
TheBigA said:
There's no money to be made abandoning buildings. Unless you're talking about rentals. What we've seen is they're SELLING properties. This ties in with the article I linked here earlier with this strategy as explained by Bob Pittman:

www.insideradio.com

iHeartMedia Outlines Blueprint For A ‘New Work Environment.’

As more employees return to the workplace after COVID forced millions to work from home, different corporate approaches are emerging. For its part, iHeartMedia now views the office as a
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com



This is not unique to iHeart. A lot of broadcasters are working from home offices that were set up during the pandemic.



I don't know about you but I haven't seen a receptionist in an office building in years. More likely a security guard. But what would a receptionist do? Answer a land line phone? How 20th century.
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From what I could find, iHeart did not own the 101 Pine St. facility in Dayton's Oregon District, which still holds Wiley's Comedy Club. A company called Laff LTD recently sold the building to Dave Chappelle's Iron Table Holdings. iHeart moved to smaller digs in the Arcade, with only one live and one production studio. WMMX's morning show and WTUE's afternoon show are the only live shows originating from there. I imagine cheaper rent would be the reason.
 
Kelly A said:
'KGOT-snow?' 'KGOT-mosquitoes?' 'KGOT-mud?' 'KGOT earthquakes?'
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All four. I experienced more earthquakes in two years than 31 in Seattle. But KGOT was a terrific station. Though today mostly syndicated.

I don’t want to blow my own horn (wish I could ha ha) but we brought KGOT to record high ratings. Number one for two years. Not that I had too much to do with it, we had tremendous morning talent and little serious competition.
 
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seatownmedia said:
I also worked in Alaska at KGOT Anchorage. 96-98. We were number one in the market with a top40 format. Loved the experience, hated the weather. Moved back to lower 48 after two years.
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the opposite for me

i cant stand summer in most places in the lower 48.. ill suffer through our winter for the summers we get in the interior.

plus, @seatownmedia .. the DXing here both AM and SW is AMAZING!
 
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