Okay, this is weird. "Doctor My Eyes" by Jackson Browne in 1996? This is the same station that played "Hot Toddy" (not sure if it was the Ralph Flanagan version because the DJ didn't say) and "Would I Love You" by Patti Page. And there were several others that stood out as songs I didn't think I would hear on ABM.
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AM Only/America's Best Music airchecks
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Not saying this is the case here but some stations would swap out songs during local options to nudge the playlist in a certain direction: more standards, more soft rock, or more country, for example.
I did notice that song ended abruptly.
I know I am answering a very old post, but...
Stations like WNAM can't afford research. They are a high-band AM and average under 15th in market #139. The cost of their own music test is likely greater than a whole month's billing.
What stations like that usually do is get the playlists of bigger, researched stations. A few do it on their own, using Whitburn books and "I love that song" as their criteria.
Before signing off, WNAM was connected to Westwood One's satellite format 24/7. I know the WW1 formats used to do research, but I can't say if that has been cost-cut or not.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
These days, you can't find a station in a market past #35 to #40 that does its own research. And for some formats, it's even a shorter drive down the list; for example, in the Classic Hits format you hit the first non-researching station in market #3 (WLS-FM).
In the major and medium markets, Mediabase will usually trade access by stations for running a couple of minutes of national advertising daily in middays. All of those stations also automatically become reporting stations, so if you put together a portfolio of stations that you know still do research that will guide you in determining your own power rotations.
Using the Whitburn books is a policy fraught with peril, if you are programming a gold-based format. It has been proven time and again that chart position as a current does not necessarily make a song viable with today's audiences. And unless a PD has a real talent for determining what the audience wants to hear (in which case they certainly aren't stuck in market #137) there's a real risk of driving listeners away instead of attracting them.
I play a lot of songs that I am neutral about. There are also a lot of personal favorites that I wouldn't dare play. But the decisions of what songs "fit" are always going to be format-based.
And I sincerely doubt that WNAM ever could afford actual research.
I worked with a PD who did exactly that with Whitburn books. It was an older niche format and there was little, if any, research available for it.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Some PDs can do that, especially with niche formats. What I am saying is trying to program a mainstream format using the chart positions when the songs were current runs a significant risk of including titles that will cause listeners to change stations.
A good PD can take research -- whether locally generated or Mediabase -- and use that in making the judgement calls on borderline titles. But, to use your example, that research is simply not available for niche formats, so those become the exception.
WNAM certainly would have to have done it sans research, if they did indeed make any local music decisions.
I remember "Feels So Good". I don't know that the song was on ABM. But they played the song right before the top of the hour once when doing some sort of local promotion with the rest of the time.
When the station was local (I assume) there was a list of songs just played. I never turned it on that early. But I remember "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which surely is too loud for a standards format, if for no other reason the screaming of Bonnie Tyler as opposed to singing. The sound effects were similar to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" which was on Stardust.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Honest question, Chimp: Stations program based on what they feel the market wants. On what basis do you feel qualified to make statements like "surely is too loud" if they decide a song fits the sound they want to air?
I have seen no evidence that you have any experience as a program director, which is okay if you are going to comment as a listener, but I have noted a gradual increase in your choice of words sounding more like "I know better than they do" ... which is a surefire way to get yourself ignored. Or even tossed.
And, for the record (and speaking as someone with decades of programming experience), I find your characterization of Bonnie Tyler as "screaming" to be offensive.
Nevertheless, that's a song that will make me change the station. I have the right to my opinion of what I am willing to listen to.
I keep adding songs to that list I sent you.
There are so many good songs being played in these airchecks that I hadn't thought about in a while. There are others that should have been there to begin with and I don't know why they weren't.
I'm hearing songs I never heard before in my life.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Good. I don't want you as a listener anyway. You are an "outlier" and I program to people who will be receptive to our advertisers' messages.
And outliers do not have the right to criticize my programming.
I'd say that the outliers do have the right to criticize. You have no obligation to listen to that criticism, or to act on it if you do listen.
Despite the "pasteurization" of tastes due to both national TV and, then, the internet, each market has different flavors based on everything from the climate to the median age to the ethnic community sizes. That means that what is great for one market may be inappropriate for others.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I both agree and disagree with you, David. My intent with the statement I made is that once you decide whatever it is I am programming on a station isn't what you want, and you go somewhere else, it's just not right to criticize ad nauseum. I don't mind parting shots, but if you're still badmouthing a station you decided didn't fit your personal tastes -- especially if it turns out to be a mass audience success -- that falls into the category of "sour grapes".
And I prefer sweeter grapes.
I feel obligated to respond here. I said a certain station played ONE SONG I didn't like and I didn't even hear it there, but saw it on the list of last songs played. I just commented on that song because the station gave the impression of being really conservative in its musical selections, and I was disappointed that they chose that song, making it appear they wouldn't really meet my needs. But that never actually happened because all I ever listened to was the satellite format they used most of the time (the subject of this thread), and occasionally a song they inserted so they could have a local contest. And those songs were good. At no time did the station ever not "fit my personal tastes", except when the satellite format added some songs I wished they hadn't played. And if I'm remembering correctly, other people on this site complained about the satellite format. Overall, the satellite format still sounded good. In recent years, I haven't heard those songs that satellite format added, though I found other sources of music online that were better. I admit that the best of those didn't really meet my needs because a lot of songs played there weren't my taste, but that was the decision of someone who decided to play a wide range of songs. The good songs were so good I kept coming back. The bad songs just made me listen to something else for a while. This was the case for several stations. The one station decided not to let people listen outside its area. Another station had so many songs I didn't like (their choice, and they didn't have to make me happy) that the many good songs couldn't get me to come back (but other people on this site thought those good songs were really good). I found other stations that were almost always so good I came back over and over.
I don't think I made any unreasonable statements here. People made programming decisions, and sometimes those decisions didn't make sense to me, and I said something when they didn't, but maybe the people making the programming decisions were not doing anything wrong because they didn't have to satisfy me.
I don't think I made any unreasonable statements here. People made programming decisions, and sometimes those decisions didn't make sense to me, and I said something when they didn't, but maybe the people making the programming decisions were not doing anything wrong because they didn't have to satisfy me.
<...>
Like it or not, as an outlier, you're satisfaction is going to be less and less as you get older.
Your children and *grandchildren* are the ones being marketed to, not you or I or many others on this forum.
Those last five words, Chimp...that's the media business in a single phrase.
Like it or not, as an outlier, you're satisfaction is going to be less and less as you get older.
Your children and *grandchildren* are the ones being marketed to, not you or I or many others on this forum.
I have understood this for a long time, and didn't make it clear to those who were reading my posts. Coming here has taught me a lot about how radio works and what I should do.
My complaints when I started here were the result of having limited options in the car. I bought a car with a cassette player and could have used that. I have a CD player in the car I have now. I don't have the confidence to try doing anything with a phone.
And I didn't have a computer when I started here. I didn't have fast enough Internet to really take advantage of online options, and when I had gone online at the library, anything I listened to sounded like it was under water and I didn't have the desire to try it. But after America's Best Music was only available for me online, I found a station in Portland, Oregon with poor sound quality that my slow Internet could handle, and it sounded good enough.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Well said, and concise to boot.
That is why traditional MOR, Beautiful Music, Oldies, and Standards are either gone or on so few stations anymore that they might as well be. It's also why Classical, with very few exceptions, only exists on non-commercial FMs.
It's why Classic Hits programmers pray to the gods of radio that the 80's continue to resonate with younger listeners, so we don't have to take on the near-impossible task of figuring out which (if any) songs from later decades are mass appeal, since CHR took on narrowcast formats in the 1990s and caused listeners to only consider as favorites the songs that were currents in whatever "flavor" of CHR they listened to back then.
Listeners like the Chimp are essentially doomed. And no amount of complaining or criticizing is going to alter the reality the business is in.