oldies76 said:
Variety is composed of playing songs each listener loves, not playing lots of secondary and unfamiliar songs. Repeating the feature can only be, in the long run, detrimental to the image they need, which is staying away from the 60s and putting up a stone wall against the 50s.
How do you know what songs people love or don't love?
Stations test far more songs than the ones they play. Many times more, in fact. Every time we test, we test lots of "what if" songs. Songs that may have been burnt out in the recent past, or songs that might have changed positively their appeal over time. In one case, I know of a station with a list of about 900 songs that has tested over 4,000 songs over the last few years.
So stations that diligently track all the music that might fit on the station, over time, test everything that has even the most remote chance of being of use.
This is the point that you have a hard time understanding. Besides the tested songs, how do you know what other cuts, OTHER listeners like?
When songs are tested, a cross section of the audience and the potential audience is recruited, and that group judges each song... sometimes as many as 1500 songs in one test! It's very clear which songs work and which don't.
While the A to Z is aired, surely others will hear these "secondary" songs and like them..because they grew up with them. You cannot assume that these "secondary" songs or stiffs as you call them, aren't liked by others..that is wrong for you to say.
If we have already tested them, we already know.
And a song that is so negative as to endanger half the audience when it is played is a stiff.
They may have not tested to be on the "regular rotation", but they are still enjoyed otherwise by most, because they are rarely aired songs during regular rotation and "new" again to them.
If the songs don't belong in regular rotation, that means they are highly negative. Stations put in regular rotation every song they can find that is neutral to poistive with little negative scoring. The ones that have high negatives don't get played because the listners say, " when I hear that song, I turn down the volume or tune out."
People like changes..not stagnation.
Actually, people like consitency and a station that fulfils expectations every time they tune in. They change stations when they don't find what they came for. But of course I have talked with directly or indirectly hundreds of thousands of listeners, and you have not.
For example, when you ask people how often they want to hear their favorite songs, the answer in about 95% of the times is "every hour." And the stations that play the fewest songs tend to be the ones with the highest perception of variety.
I really wish you would understand that...That's a listeners perspective!
No, it is your perception of what listeners want, made without talking to lots of listeners.
By the way..it's not detrimental to their image..why would they take such risk if it was. Major market stations know what's right to do and what not to do. That's why the PD's make the bucks to do what is right, not do what is wrong!
Any PD who has not made a mistake is lying. And most of us have been fired at least once as we learned our craft... the most often cause is thinking listeners want more songs and /or more new music.
