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Program Director and Music Director
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
More often than not, yes. The MD will typically focus on things like scheduling the logs, loading in music, talking with record reps. The PD will typically have final say on adds/conversions on the playlist.
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So does the PD determine the actual songs which make the playlist and the overall "sound."
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My experience has always been that the two of them work together, and most of the decisions regarding adds, categories, and flow are made together. I've worked at a few stations that made the PD and MD the same person, but usually, if titles were combined, the MD was also the APD. Duties of the APD varied as assigned, but the APD was often the person who dealt with the part-timers and the weekend schedule. Weekends were a major pain due to unreliable employees and new employees not understanding the equipment. Most PD's didn’t want to deal with that when they did so much else at the station.
I never could understand it, but finding reliable part-time employees was always difficult. My phone rang frequently on weekends with a PD or APD calling me asking if I could help because a part-timer or two didn’t show up. Because I had an engineering degree, I was also frequently the person weekenders would call with technical questions. Weekends were always busy, though many companies have since nuked the weekend staff, and, even with a regular job during the week, I was a frequent point of contact all weekend long. One time, I took a weekend off, and my phone rang at my hotel room in Memphis about 6:00 AM on a Sunday morning. It was a weekender needing help after the public affairs programming didn’t load. He overheard me telling a co-worker where I was staying, looked it up, called the front desk, and asked for me.
The distinction is almost irrelevant now because the roles are largely obsolete. By that I mean there aren't a ton of stations which have both a PD and MD today.
The MD is always a junior role to the PD, so the PD always had the final say when they choose to do so. The PD can split their duties with the MD however they decide. As mentioned above, the MD usually got the duty of dealing with record label sales reps and doing some grunt work with generating the music logs, whether or not the PD wished to review and adjust them.
When I worked weekends back in the late 90s, I always preferred the morning shift because it was least likely to interfere with my weekend social activities. But when you're looking for work, you take the shift that is offered.
The MD is always a junior role to the PD, so the PD always had the final say when they choose to do so. The PD can split their duties with the MD however they decide. As mentioned above, the MD usually got the duty of dealing with record label sales reps and doing some grunt work with generating the music logs, whether or not the PD wished to review and adjust them.
I don't think there's a mystery there. Being a weekend jock wasn't a great job. It didn't pay enough to support yourself, so most had to juggle multiple jobs. In many cases weekend jocks were looking for new full-time work in other markets. If they found it, there was an incentive for them to get to their new job quickly. If that meant skipping a shift to pack the UHaul, so be it.
When I worked weekends back in the late 90s, I always preferred the morning shift because it was least likely to interfere with my weekend social activities. But when you're looking for work, you take the shift that is offered.
I worked at one station where, while we had local DJS.. the music logs came from westwood one, we had very similar to identical logs to the WW1 mainstream network. So I guess westwood one was our MD.
Most small places I've worked the PD was also the MD.
My title here is PD but as the only full time employee, i';m also MD
Most small places I've worked the PD was also the MD.
My title here is PD but as the only full time employee, i';m also MD
I'm sure it came down to money and the hours. Plus, no radio station where I ever worked had a shortage of people wanting to work there. The laws of probability say you're going to get a lot of bad applicants when you get a large volume.
Having said that, I remember how hard I busted my tail and how long I waited for that first opportunity. I had so many false starts, so many people saying I missed my opportunity by not getting an internship in college, and so many tapes and resumes disappearing into the void that I wasn't about to waste that break when I finally got it. I've never been able to comprehend how many people don't understand how lucky they are to just get an offer to walk through those doors. When I got that call back from the radio station asking me for an interview and landed that job, it didn't seem real. I thought, for sure, when I was to show up and fill out the paperwork with the HR director, I'd find the appointment was canceled and be told not to come back. When the HR director and I filled out the I-9 and W-2 paperwork, I was ready for my car not to start on my first day. When I finally walked into that studio and began my shift, I couldn't believe I wasn't waking up in my bed and finding out it was just an amazing dream.
Music Directors were necessary in the days when record labels were putting out hundreds of new releases a week and enthusiastically promoting stations. In the days before e-mail, that meant phone calls, and that could be very time-consuming.
Especially in markets where the labels had promo reps or where the promo reps could visit on a regular/semi-regular basis, dealing with the record people and listening to the music could pretty much be a fulltime job.
Major market MDs often had one day of the week set aside for phone calls and another for in-person visits.
Especially in markets where the labels had promo reps or where the promo reps could visit on a regular/semi-regular basis, dealing with the record people and listening to the music could pretty much be a fulltime job.
Major market MDs often had one day of the week set aside for phone calls and another for in-person visits.
They still do. It's required in order for their station to remain a chart reporter. Not as many "in person visits" anymore.
Every Mediabase reporter lists either an MD or APD name with a phone number to take calls.
Every station is a little... or a lot... different. There is no "Title Police".
In many cases, there is no Music Director. I only once had one when I was PD, and my PDs never had one when I was a GM.
The principal use of a Music Director is to keep the record ducks away from the PD.
My favorite phone message was that from Jimmy Steal when he was PD of Power in LA: "This is Jimmy Steale, Music Director at Power 106. If you are a record promoter, you can hang up now. Otherwise, leave a message after the tone..."
Often, the job is dealing with record promoters, getting any industry reports on a song, checking streaming data and getting ready to conference with the PD (or a music committee if there is one) to go over internal current research, decide on song moves and select potential adds.
The one time I had a Music Director was when I was programming WERC, a hot AC AM in Birmingham and its CHR FM. We were reporters to Gavin and Hamilton and FMQB, so we got lots of calls. We restricted them as much as we could, but back in the 1970's it was hard to do as there were so many independent labels.
As a very early (1972) FM CHR, we got lots of label interest. We were up against a very established AM CHR, WSGN, with a good morning guy named Rick Dees, so we were careful in our adds. We leaned more "rock" in our flavor of CHR, so we left "The Morning After" to the AM and looked at the Allman Brothers for new adds.
It was a shorter drive from Macon, so we got lots of visits from Capricorn.
That is why we relied on Gavin, R&R, Hamilton and all the other tip sheets. That showed us quite a bit about what songs were getting action, so we were left with just the ones that came that week. Often, we'd select those last minute songs based on how famous the artist was. Big artists won over secondary ones, and secondaries won over unknowns. On those, we'd wait for the more adventurous stations or smaller market stations with no competitor to make adds and then listen again.
In some cases, it was just one morning or afternoon. There is very little a record promoter can do for you in making a music add decision.
One station that was a competitor in Quito (where there were over 30 full signal local stations) did what today we would call "the morning show" or what the Brits better call "Breakfast Show".
That station made most of its money selling greetings and messages. Birthday wishes, Saint's day greetings, wedding anniversaries, etc. And messages to people who did not have phones (80% of the population) about things such as a family member arriving by bus to a distant "suburb". Or the status of a someone in the hospital whose friends and relatives had no other way of knowing.
Between that and songs, he'd add his own comments. And his signature was his name, Numa Pompilio Castro and the additional "announcer, janitor, doorman, manager and owner".
These days those titles have been renamed. There would be a President in some big city and the country would be divided up with Vice President of music, Assistant Vice President of music and then each market would have market President of music and several Vice Presidents. Their jobs would be to just pass along the Playlist from the President in the big city with orders as to when to play each song, of course, determined by high class research and development. Each one of these people would be paid seven figures per year no matter how much revenue is down and every few months use the company jet to travel to Europe or the Far East for a mandatory meeting.
That's not always how the music works. We can see it very clearly documented in Mediabase. Only a fraction of the radio stations are owned by big companies, and even those big company stations create local playlists for their currents-based stations, as required by Mediabase. Mediabase is a service that's mainly paid for by the record labels so they can track what's being played.
The title isn't always "president" but often is something like format captain. He might hold weekly music conference calls with the stations in the format, and they talk about the trends they're seeing and compare research and stories among each other. Then each station posts its playlist on Mediabase. There might be similarities, but there are also differences, even within companies. That's why I said earlier in this thread "it depends."
There is no probably no better example of "a lot different" than WABC vs... well, everybody else back in the days when they played music. There's much more to the story, but you can gain a small bit of insight from the following quote from an article by former assistant PD Glenn Morgan on the hiring of George Michael: