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Aug. 2025 6+

The very first station I programmed, in the late 1970s, was very successful as one of the early A/Cs.

In 1981, new owners came in from an out-of-state market and installed the format they had done in their previous market, with lots of hoopla and promotion.

It failed so badly, they went Chapter 7 in less than 18 months. They never did understand their mistake, and everyone involved literally never worked in the business again.

Still want to armchair quarterback on a basis of "it worked in another market"?
 
FWIW, I noticed yesterday that B98.5 (paging Caller10) has changed its tagline from "80s, 90s, and now" to "90s, 2K, and today".

They had already gone light on 80s before...skimming their last songs played it looks like the 80s are now completely gone. There seemed to be a decent number of more-recent covers of 80s songs (e.g., "Fast Car" by Luke Combs), but that's it.
 
K.M. Richards said:
The very first station I programmed, in the late 1970s, was very successful as one of the early A/Cs.

In 1981, new owners came in from an out-of-state market and installed the format they had done in their previous market, with lots of hoopla and promotion.

It failed so badly, they went Chapter 7 in less than 18 months. They never did understand their mistake, and everyone involved literally never worked in the business again.

Still want to armchair quarterback on a basis of "it worked in another market"?
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This is why I subscribe to Sirius/XM. I have held out hope far too long that someone would bring Atlanta a station to my liking, but now that I'm 54, I realize they don't want my ears or my money anyway.

So now they don't get either, unless there's breaking local news, then it's 95.5 WSB. For a minute.
 
MrRadio said:
I realize they don't want my ears or my money anyway.
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Keep in mind it's not personal, it's business. The radio stations LOVE you. Most of the people who work there are about your age, and share your interests. The problem is their advertisers want younger people. But if radio had a way of making money from people in their 50s, they'd play all of your favorite music and enjoy every minute of it. If they could charge you directly for their station, things would be different. On the other hand, Sirius music channels aren't advertiser supported. The listeners pay for the service. That's why they can play all eras of music without concern for demographics.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind it's not personal, it's business. The radio stations LOVE you. Most of the people who work there are about your age, and share your interests. The problem is their advertisers want younger people. But if radio had a way of making money from people in their 50s, they'd play all of your favorite music and enjoy every minute of it. If they could charge you directly for their station, things would be different. On the other hand, Sirius music channels aren't advertiser supported. The listeners pay for the service. That's why they can play all eras of music without concern for demographics.
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What I can't figure out is, how am I so different? My money spends the same. I buy stuff. BIG stuff. Cars, houses, pools, etc. Plus groceries, amusement park tickets, concerts, movies. I shop at Christmas. I like restaurants.

To me, the programmers are either lazy or not very bright, otherwise they would have figured out how to sell to people like me.

But then, I'm just a dumb listener, too. And obviously expendable.
 
MrRadio said:
What I can't figure out is, how am I so different? My money spends the same. I buy stuff. BIG stuff. Cars, houses, pools, etc.
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The advertisers for those products advertise on TV, not radio. They feel it's more efficient. They have lots of data on it.

On the other hand, we have documented evidence that there are a lot of people your age that listen to current music. They listen to it on broadcast radio, and they attend concerts by current artists.

MrRadio said:
To me, the programmers are either lazy or not very bright, otherwise they would have figured out how to sell to people like me.
Click to expand...

The programmers aren't the ones doing the selling. The programmers are mostly around your age. But the advertisers have other plans. If there was a way to send you a bill, then your money would work. But this indirect system is where the problem is.
 
K.M. Richards said:
WSRV is classified as a Classic Rock station and I just looked at their music logs from last week on Mediabase. That classification fits what they are doing ... hit rock songs from the 70's and 80's and occasionally the 90's. The only Alternative songs I see on there are ones that crossed over big to CHR as currents.
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That has me at a real disadvantage, because in order to know what songs crossed over into CHR territory in the 1990s, I'd have had to have a CHR station to listen to. And Atlanta didn't have a CHR for most of the 1990s. which is another issue entirely, and so completely sad and lame and oh-so-Atlanta.
 
TheBigA said:
The programmers aren't the ones doing the selling. The programmers are mostly around your age. But the advertisers have other plans. If there was a way to send you a bill, then your money would work. But this indirect system is where the problem is.
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I'm going to add something I have said for a couple of decades now. If the advertisers -- especially the agencies -- would suddenly "see the light" hand want to buy formats that appeal to older demographics, we in programming would be ready to do it in a heartbeat.

I could easily program a 60s-70s based Oldies format. Or a Classic Rock with a somewhat deeper playlist. Or even a soft AC focused on 70's and 80's crossovers and 90's smooth Urban. Oh, wait ... I already do that for one of my client stations!

I program 80's as my showcase format because it attracts a sales-friendly audience (hell, in Albuquerque they've gotten sales from local advertisers because they listen to the station and it's their personal favorite). Since most of my active years on the air and hands-on programming were in that decade, I know that music better than a lot of people. It's a happy mix of my personal tastes aligning with the needs of the stations right now.

When that changes, then and only then will I consider retirement.
 
MrRadio said:
What I can't figure out is, how am I so different?
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The line I have always heard is that the older you get, the less persuaded you are by advertising. This is due to brand habits long having been established, and maturity leading to resistance to popularity/trend/influencer-type pitches.

As department store magnate John Wanamaker said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." On older folks, advertising is more likely in the wasted half.
 
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jabba17 said:
As department store magnate John Wanamaker said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." On older folks, advertising is more likely in the wasted half.
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There's a lot of truth to that, and they're being told that their money can be targeted better online. So that's what they're doing.

This is why broadcasters are redirecting resources from broadcasting to online platforms. That's where the money is.
 
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TheBigA said:
There's a lot of truth to that, and they're being told that their money can be targeted better online. So that's what they're doing.

This is why broadcasters are redirecting resources from broadcasting to online platforms. That's where the money is.
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As someone who planned and bought media for years, I can tell you the reason that big advertisers/agencies generally do not target people older than 54 . . . and it's not because they are set in their ways. It's because the kids have moved out of the home. Households with kids buy more of almost everything, food, furniture, cars, household products, etc. Consumption falls off the cliff after 54. And we used syndicated research to determine that.

As far as small retailers, the conventional wisdom that older folks are less persuadable seems to have made its way into the ether so that may be the reason.
 
@MrRadio when was the last time you bought something because it was advertised on radio? I'm a couple years older than you and I can say it's been at least 20 years for me, if not more. If I heard a guitar shop or a Mercedes dealership say 20% off anything in our inventory if you mention K93, I'd be in there today. That's not how it works. We spend money on bigger things but we don't throw it out the window because a radio DJ says we should. Therefore, they don't play the music we want to hear simply because we say we want to hear it. That's why I listen exclusively to SXM. I pay them to play what I want to hear.
 
Mitch Brewer said:
Therefore, they don't play the music we want to hear simply because we say we want to hear it. That's why I listen exclusively to SXM. I pay them to play what I want to hear.
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I kind of need to throw that back at you to avoid what it sounded like when you said it.

Since you are not the program director at SXM, your choice of words is inaccurate, and to some degree they are still playing the music they think you want to hear.

So you're still at the mercy of a programmer ... but you are paying for it instead of having that hated advertising pay the station bills so you receive it free of charge.

Right?
 
Wrong.
I pay to have access to hundreds of channels on my radio. I set my presets of my favorite channels. If I'm listening to a channel and something comes on that I don't like, I push the next preset and hear something that I do like. True, I don't program what they play, I program what I want to hear.

I don't hate advertising. It pays the bills. A business has to make money or they cease to be a business. If that's your business model then do whatever necessary to get advertisers.
 
Mitch Brewer said:
Wrong.
I pay to have access to hundreds of channels on my radio. I set my presets of my favorite channels. If I'm listening to a channel and something comes on that I don't like, I push the next preset and hear something that I do like. True, I don't program what they play, I program what I want to hear.
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That's still not much different than a non-paying listener to terrestrial radio having presets on their radio for the stations they like.

My comparison is still valid ... the music is not programmed directly by you. There are still programmers involved and what you hear is what they believe you want to hear. The difference is that you are paying directly for the privilege of not hearing commercials, whereas we give you the programming at no charge and the advertisers are paying for it. Either way, you are still selecting what stations you choose to listen to, but have no direct control over the content.

You cannot spin this in your favor. That previous paragraph's validity is solid.
 
Funny, it sure sounds like one.

I said what I said and you then posted a response which started with you telling me that I am wrong and then making no new argument.

I think I will wait for someone in authority to decide if I "misunderstood".
 
K.M. Richards said:
Funny, it sure sounds like one.

I said what I said and you then posted a response which started with you telling me that I am wrong and then making no new argument.

I think I will wait for someone in authority to decide if I "misunderstood".
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I agree. (With you)

When a person listens to any programmed station or satellite channel or stream, they are letting someone else (personally or by some form of AI) tell them what they think they will like. And we know that such is not always true.

In OTA radio and commercial streams, we pay to have someone decide what music we will be offered. We pay by sending money or by listening to advertisements

But the "product" is the same: some form of curated music content that was preselected for you, not by you.
 
Mitch Brewer said:
Therefore, they don't play the music we want to hear simply because we say we want to hear it.
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"We" in OTA radio is a collective, plural "we". Stations use research or even a "sense of the art" to try to determine what you, the listener, wants to hear. We are not as "right" on some songs with each individual listener because even an affinity group "I like country music best" does not like all the same songs and artists.
Mitch Brewer said:
That's why I listen exclusively to SXM. I pay them to play what I want to hear.
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I pay SiriusXM, but none of the channels I listen to matches 100% what I really want to hear. But I don't have to listen to commercials on the music channels, so I pay money for that.

I happen to like country music. The well-researched local country stations play a better mix of music than the equivalent satellite channels, but they run ads. I prefer a few more "duds" off the satellite music list than all the ads on local radio. But my choices are both programmed by someone else.
 


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