I know there's examples of stations that underperformed with large playlists with stiffs. But there's also stations with a limited playlist that plays it overly "safe" that can also underperform (like some alt stations across the country or cumulus pop stations). Can a wider playlist ever help such stations?
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Can expanding a playlist ever help a struggling station?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Likely no. You'll be playing more songs the audience doesn't know and like.
Depends on what you mean by "help a station."
For example, KOAI in Phoenix has a 1000 song playlist. Operationally more than half of those songs only get one spin a week, so truthfully, the station has a more traditional 500 song playlist, which is about average for an oldies station. The station is #3 in the 6+ ratings. However, all of that audience is over 50, and the billings at the station are very weak.
So what that says is giving the impression of a large playlist helped the station in the 6+ numbers. But they don't make money. There's no prize for getting good 6+ numbers.
This is what we see in other formats as well. Larger playlists attract older audiences. So if you want old, expand the playlist.
For example, KOAI in Phoenix has a 1000 song playlist. Operationally more than half of those songs only get one spin a week, so truthfully, the station has a more traditional 500 song playlist, which is about average for an oldies station. The station is #3 in the 6+ ratings. However, all of that audience is over 50, and the billings at the station are very weak.
So what that says is giving the impression of a large playlist helped the station in the 6+ numbers. But they don't make money. There's no prize for getting good 6+ numbers.
This is what we see in other formats as well. Larger playlists attract older audiences. So if you want old, expand the playlist.
Stations like WXRT and BBC Radio 2 have succeeded without repetitive playlists. But you need other elements (personality, imaging, presentation, etc.) to make it a success.
There's a difference between "repetitive" playlists and large playlists. What WXRT does is play a lot of gold once a week. That gives the impression of a large playlist. But their currents playlist is only 25 songs. While that's large for an alternative station, it's small for AAA. They play those currents about 25 times a week, or three times a day. But in between, they play a wide range of gold.
And while the station is #6 this month in 25-54 (up from #10), most of that audience is above 50. So as I said, expand the playlist, and the audience gets older.
I'm sure the answer is yes, stations have improved their ratings by using a larger playlist. I don't know of any examples off the top of my head, though -- I have never tried to count the number of songs in a playlist, even where I've been a DJ.
But we're probably talking about the difference between 325 and 340, not 325 and 550 songs. Stations rotate titles in and out of the library all the time, so it would be difficult to notice that the list got 15 songs longer without insider data.
Specifically referring to the Alt stations, expanding the playlist is very unlikely to be a fix. The biggest problem in the format appears to be a somewhat generational disagreement about what "Alt" is. People in their 20s and people in their late 30s/40s don't seem to share the same preferences.
But we're probably talking about the difference between 325 and 340, not 325 and 550 songs. Stations rotate titles in and out of the library all the time, so it would be difficult to notice that the list got 15 songs longer without insider data.
Specifically referring to the Alt stations, expanding the playlist is very unlikely to be a fix. The biggest problem in the format appears to be a somewhat generational disagreement about what "Alt" is. People in their 20s and people in their late 30s/40s don't seem to share the same preferences.
Funny how “ALT” and “AAA” circa 2022 are considered to be too broad if they have a larger playlist with more unknown music and yet those “younger people” once were more “open minded” about new/unfamiliar music on radio than todays younger people who have a million sources .. vs our 10 and want to hear the same 25 songs.
So you are saying old peoplez like me still got it, but no one wants to sell us nothing from agencies. How messed up is that! LOL.
Hint: local ads/local station geared old succeeds when ya sell ads to l-i-s-t-e-n-e-r-s who wanna remember and see others succeed. That might explain an expanded playlist or two. Especially if the rev isnt coming from nationals.
Corp radio has to go where the money is. And that is a prescribed formula these days.
So you are saying old peoplez like me still got it, but no one wants to sell us nothing from agencies. How messed up is that! LOL.
Hint: local ads/local station geared old succeeds when ya sell ads to l-i-s-t-e-n-e-r-s who wanna remember and see others succeed. That might explain an expanded playlist or two. Especially if the rev isnt coming from nationals.
Corp radio has to go where the money is. And that is a prescribed formula these days.
Here's the difference: Radio stations program 500 songs 24/7. People don't listen to radio 24/7. People don't stream 24/7.
So what we see from streaming charts is that when people stream music on Spotfy or Pandora, they stream their favorite songs usually for an hour or two. How many songs in an hour? 15. That's a pretty small playlist. Attention spans are shorter among younger people. They want their favorites and they don't want to wait. Older people, especially retired people, are listening to radio for longer periods of time. So they notice the repetition that the younger people don't hear.
One other thing I see in steaming charts: Younger people have no trouble listening to the same songs or the same artist over and over. That's why when you look at the streaming charts, you'll see multiple entries in the Top 10 for Harry Styles. They're just wild about Harry.
All that's fine if you want to knock on doors and sell people one to one. There are stations that are doing that, and they're hopefully making enough to pay the bills. But not everyone has that time, and not everyone has hardworking salespeople.
Radio will play whatever makes money. The people I know who program radio stations have huge record collections, and love a wide variety of music. But they all say if they played that music at work, they couldn't afford their car insurance. So that's the situation.
There are a handful of stations that have changed to formats with larger playlists and been successful, but those stations are the exception to the rule. The general rule is to reduce your playlist if you’re struggling.
A couple of exceptions would be Star 94 in Atlanta, which saw an increase in ratings after expanding its playlist and becoming a rhythmic station after its adult-leaning CHR format started to suffer. Star, however, has started declining since it first launched.
The Jack/Bob FM stations also have large playlists. They tend to operate on the theory of getting a large number of people to sample the station, but they don’t generally stay long. It's been a successful formula because the core audience tends to come back frequently.
Never seen it happen with a broad appeal commercial station.
Playlist size is based on music research. Every station decides at what point does a song become too negative with a segment of the audience to even give it light play.
Think of it as grades in school. If a student got passing grades on 5 subjects, but failed one, do you allow them to go to the next grade? Do they do the year over? Do you require summer school to make up the poor grade? Do you ignore the bad grade because you don't want that kid in your class again next year?
And then all the cut-off grades are arbitrary. Is a 60 passing or failing. Should it be a 70 instead?
My point is that there are a lot of songs in a gray zone. You don't want to play too many, so the ones you do play are slowly rotated and maybe rested every so often so a different weak song can play for a while. But for every marginal song you play, you could be playing a song that scored much higher, even if that song plays more often.
Back in the day, the way to beat the leading Top 40 station was to play the Top 30.
My thing is if a song is being played on too many stations whether or not people will put the effort to listen to the station. For example, there's multiple stations around kc that plays I write sins by panic at the disco, but I'm tired of the song, but I'd love to hear a station play something like nine in the afternoon.
If all the radio stations were owned by one company, there would be less duplication of music. Unfortunately the FCC prevents that from happening. However, there are no ownership rules restricting satellite or streaming companies from the number of stations they own. That is part of the injustice of radio ownership rules.
The other thing to point out is that radio stations are more than just music distribution services. So there are other reasons besides certain songs for people to listen to a station. Some stations don't play any music at all.
It does seem like the duplicates hurt some stations more than others though. There's just some stations people turn to hear those songs, while not others (usually the lower rated stations playing a different mix but featuring some ofthe same songs.)
Not necessarily. In my first job with a duopoly operation of five stations in the same market in 1963, two of the stations duplicated about 50% of the songs. It was what each one did not play that the other one did that made them very different with almost no cume duplication.
On the other hand, if you look at the music stations at Sirius, the stations are very distinct in terms of what they play.
Many of them draw arbitrary boundaries based on decades, which by their very existence cause channels to have entirely different playlists despite playing the same musical genre. I'm talking not just about the pop channels that have their decades in their names, but also the urban and country channels. To me, this has always been a frustrating way to program music channels, because there's no reason why '70s and '80s hits by Billy Joel or '80s and '90s hits by Janet Jackson shouldn't be played on one channel, but it's an easy, lazy way to arrange a music library, so I get it.
At least the country channels, except for Y2Kountry ('00s), are multi-decade, although you're still not going to hear Tanya Tucker's '70s and '80s hits on the same channel.
Wasn't that more of a format change (with not just an expansion of the playlist, but removal of non-rhythmic tracks) necessitating a different library that just happened to have more tracks that tested well?
I can think of one example where that worked. KRTH in the mid-2000s when Jay Coffey left and Jhani Kaye took over as PD.
Jay had the library down to 300 tracks and was burning through the entire library in 14 to 15 hours. And that went on for literally years. Burned to a crisp.
Jhani aimed a half-generation younger, did research, found 800 playable tracks and went for it. The numbers went up.
But again---note---Jhani had to adjust the target audience (overdue in KRTH's case) and research. He's such a meticulous programmer that if there were only 400 playable tracks, he'd have gone with 400.
This was not a case of succeeding ONLY by widening the playlist.
What usually changes in a positive direction for a music station requires more than just adjusting the playlist by adding more titles. As David said; before making changes you research the crap out of different titles. Which, of course, costs money.
Next you go all in on promoting the station outside of the station itself. Yes, that costs money too.
May as well add in some contest budget too. That costs even more money.
Now that you've dropped a bunch of money, you pray to get past the 'cume-sample-bounce' and manage to increase your overall TSL.
The problem is; advertisers (you know, the reason you're doing all this in the first place) are simply looking for numbers of impressions within a demographic. Radio and TV are broadcasters, sending ads out into the atmosphere, hoping someone will pay attention. Digital advertising reaches individual persons.
Next you go all in on promoting the station outside of the station itself. Yes, that costs money too.
May as well add in some contest budget too. That costs even more money.
Now that you've dropped a bunch of money, you pray to get past the 'cume-sample-bounce' and manage to increase your overall TSL.
The problem is; advertisers (you know, the reason you're doing all this in the first place) are simply looking for numbers of impressions within a demographic. Radio and TV are broadcasters, sending ads out into the atmosphere, hoping someone will pay attention. Digital advertising reaches individual persons.
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That's not how music scheduling is done today. There's a difference between a playlist and a library. The playlist doesn't stay the same week after week. The playlist is the songs rotated in a given week. At the end of that week, you replace a bunch of those songs with others from the library, and cycle them through for another week. So there's less chance for burnout. You also cycle the songs up and down the playlist in terms of spin numbers. So one week, Fleetwood Mac gets 20 spins a week. Next week, it's Boston. So the number of songs in the playlist doesn't matter, because the songs themselves are always moving either in or out, up or down.
This is why it's important to have currents in a playlist. Currents add change and variety to a playlist, whereas a gold format has to create that change and variety.
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