Not sure if you can make that generalization. I was listening to an oldies station and they went from See You In September to Paint It Black. That was pretty brutal to me. And what do you segue with Louis Armstrong's version of Hello Dolly? Anything's a trainwreck coming out of that. How about Incense & Peppermints?
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Big 98.1
- Thread starter AM/FMRAINMAN
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Not sure if you can make that generalization. I was listening to an oldies station and they went from See You In September to Paint It Black. That was pretty brutal to me. And what do you segue with Louis Armstrong's version of Hello Dolly? Anything's a trainwreck coming out of that. How about Incense & Peppermints?
I wouldn’t say it was my generalization, I was basing it on WOGL’s falling numbers as previously discussed.
If I had to choose a song to follow Hello Dolly, I’d do a double play and follow it with What A Wonderful World. That gives you much more to work with. Incense and Peppermints? That’s a tough one, but I’d probably go with Crazy Elephant or something midtempo from The Mamas & The Papas.
But you're basing it on an average share of 24/7 listening by everyone 6+. Truthfully what does that tell you?
I look at a lot of streaming charts. I can tell you there are a lot of trainwreck segues when people make their own playlists.
There are a lot of factors besides the music or segues that can lead to a drop in ratings.
I’m not disagreeing with what you’re saying at all. In the case of WOGL however, based on this thread alone, it seems they implemented changes, the audience reacted negatively, and the station ditched their changes rather quickly. I remember reading a few pages back that some people here didn’t believe that the station gave it enough time.
"Dolly" is an outlier song to begin with. I can't see it pass in a music test. But if it did and I did not make a texture / sound based decision not to play it anyway, I'd make sure it was surrounded by the most mass appeal mainstream songs I had. I would not shoot down the rescue crew (a big hit) that came to save the mistake of playing Dolly.
Anything that gets away from the "Flower Power" image will work. The ratings-proven rule is that when you play an "outlier" song you need to surround it with core sound cuts.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And then you blamed it on the researchers, with no evidence of what they did or did not do that may or may not have contributed to the situation.
Your backpedal isn't working.
There are some similarities between music and the weather.
Deciphering someone’s tone is difficult online because words alone lack inflection.
Besides, life would be so boring without a little sarcasm from time to time. The comment wasn’t even directed at you.
There’s no backpedal. It was a sarcastic comment that wasn’t even directed at you as I just explained.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
As I said to someone in another thread several days ago, posts on a public message board can be answered by anyone else. There's no such thing as "wasn't directed at you".
Wait, what? Now there’s no such thing as “wasn’t directed at you?” If you didn’t think it was directed at you then why did you feel it was your responsibility to respond with such a long winded and disparaging diatribe about “correcting misconceptions” and “your personal perspective” and you’re so tired of having to explain the difference between researching and consulting to the rest of us who obviously aren’t as brilliant as you, etc. As I said, it’s extremely condescending and you refuse to acknowledge it.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Your statement ...
... is worded in such a way that you think a comment is directed at specific people. The concept of a message board is that all messages are directed at everyone, because anyone can read and reply to it. That's how I could get a "like" on the post you are complaining about.
On that basic definition of a message board, yes ... I can reply to any message without regard for who it was "directed to", because I can read it and I can express my opinion, which includes addressing misconceptions.
As for my "personal perspective", isn't every post here going to come from the poster's personal perspective?
What you call "condescending" has, in numerous other threads, been received with positive responses for clarifying misconceptions. As I said, people outside the business have made presumptions of how the business works and that causes inadvertent misstatements on their part. My personal philosophy is that the more everyone knows about how the business really works, the better the conversations are. (And yes, I am entitled to include my personal feelings that I wish I didn't have to explain as often as I do.)
I am truly sorry that you chose to take my remarks in a negative and hostile way. But your attack on me is not going to change my position about addressing misconceptions about the business I have made a career in for over a half century.
Yes, you are free to comment on any post on a public message board whether or not it was directed to you or anyone else. The reason I said that the comment wasn’t directed at you is because you seemed to take it personally for some reason. Maybe you didn’t, but it came across that way when you said that you’re tired of having to explain yourself and that my personal perspective wasn’t representative of the audience as a whole. Again, I never claimed that it was.
Having been in the business myself, I know about research and consulting to a degree. My comment was meant to be a general light hearted jab at Audacy (and other major conglomerates) who with all of their resources can’t figure out what to do with heritage stations like 98.1. Their sister station, 1210 AM, is a 50,000 watt clear channel powerhouse and no one has EVER really figured out what to do with that, even going back to the days when AM radio listening was much more common than it is today.
I never tried to “attack” you, and I appreciate you saying that you’re sorry I took your comments in a hostile way. Hopefully this will be the end of this but you should post something else at some point today because Andy Travis and ksradiogeek have their fingers on the “like” button.
What average listener ever cared about a station's "heritage," especially after musical tastes -- and formats -- change? I used to listen to "heritage" WBCN in Boston and "heritage" WDRC-FM in Hartford, but when 'BCN was challenged by WCOZ and a tighter AOR format, and when 'DRC dropped oldies/classic hits for classic rock, I stopped listening to them, not thinking for a moment that I was disrespecting those stations' "heritage."
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
How about we agree to disagree on the contentious part, and agree on the industry definitions for the commonly used terminology?
There was one. But Julius isn’t here anymore.
That’s fine. I’ll give your 80’s channel a listen. I’m sure it’ll give me some new analysis and personal perspective.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
He was back recently, but got tossed out again after making exactly one post.
An over-obsessive who harasses those constantly (in and out of Audacy Philadelphia) isn't a regular listener.
Because of an accident. People don't get 332nd chances.
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Great post because you were proven correct regarding negative audience reaction.
Sean Ross has written in some detail recently regarding WOGL's trials and tribulations.
Latest article:
How to Play the 2000s on Classic Hits
In our recent look at “What Classic Hits Added … Then Dropped,” one of the stations that had made a dramatic U-turn was WOGL (Big 98.1) Philadelphia. Nearly a year ago, WOGL went sharply into the early-’00s titles that had been the center of the Throwback Hip-Hop/R&B format. Since then, songs...
radioinsight.com
Prior article:
What Classic Hits Added … Then Dropped
As Classic Hits stations push forward into the ’90s, ’00s, and even 2010s, not every song with which they modernize works on the air, even if it’s a song that likely came on to the station as a result of music testing. Every year, this column reports on “What Classic Hits Stations Added” in the...
radioinsight.com