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CHRs That Are Struggling In The Ratings

A better, non-radio example would be working at a pizza place selling only pineapple pizza and Sprite. Salt Lake City favors pineapple pizza and Sprite heavily, they just love the damn stuff, about 80% of the city is all they buy. But there's still a 20% left. Some want more popular flavors, like pepperoni, cheese, sausage, and some people would like more popular drinks like Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, iced tea, water, most of these people being new people to your shop or move in-s to SLC...The better option is to serve just a bit of the other types of pizzas and the other drinks, while still serving mostly pepperoni and Sprite, instead of JUST serving pepperoni and Sprite. Selling those other types of pizzas and drinks will build up the small portion of people liking them and since they are popular, they will attract newer audiences, yet you still sell pineapple and Sprite so your old customers stay with you.

Now replace pineapple pizza and Sprite with favored tracks, and replace the other pizza flavors and drinks with huge tracks that do mediocre overall in the market.
 
When did radio stations start playing hits for the chart?

Shouldn't they play hits for their city?

If a song in the top 10 national chart doesn't test in your city, DO NOT PLAY IT!
 
hair said:
When did radio stations start playing hits for the chart?

Shouldn't they play hits for their city?

If a song in the top 10 national chart doesn't test in your city, DO NOT PLAY IT!
Click to expand...

That is a very broad and generalized statement, much like most of your posts. So you are saying that it is a good idea no absolutely never play top songs on a stations because a majority of your old audiences dislikes it? Have you considered the new audience that likes the song? Have you considered the few people that do like it and would like to hear it every once in awhile? The whole message is this: If your audience hates a huge hit, don't play it often, not don't play it. Keep it in the top 30-40. Go to a few station playlists and look in their top 30-40, you might see a few top hits in their for that reason.
 
Even more examples, again for reasons stated earlier.

KHKS Dallas -- Wait for You #34
KRBE Houston -- Buy U A Drank #32, Thnks Fr Th Mmrs #35
KIIS Los Angeles -- Makes Me Wonder #20, Girlfriend #25
KDWB Minneapolis -- Thnks Fr Th Mmrs #23, Girlfriend #39
KZZP Phoenix -- Thnks Fr Th Mmrs #25
KDND Sacremento -- Party Like A Rockstar #27, Before He Cheats #21
KHTS San Diego -- Hey There Delilah #22, Thnks Fr Th Mmrs #23
KRQQ Tucson -- Home #22, Makes Me Wonder #24
 
KHKS - Probably not testing well for them.
KRBE - Drank - Doesn't fit their Jan Jefferies philosophy.
KIIS - Doesn't fit their 40% hispanic market make up. Yes, 40%.. check it yourself.
KDWB - Girlfriend, already a recurrent, probably 1000 spins.
KZZP - Prob not testing well in their market.
KDND - Doesn't fit their sound, prob waiting for callout.
KHTS - Similar to KIIS, lots of hispanic make up, doesn't fit.
KRQQ - They aren't very rock leaning anyway.

Plus, I am more worried about keeping my P1's around, if the P2's come and go, so what.

Do you even know what a P1 is?
 
hair said:
KHKS - Probably not testing well for them.
KRBE - Drank - Doesn't fit their Jan Jefferies philosophy.
KIIS - Doesn't fit their 40% hispanic market make up. Yes, 40%.. check it yourself.
KDWB - Girlfriend, already a recurrent, probably 1000 spins.
KZZP - Prob not testing well in their market.
KDND - Doesn't fit their sound, prob waiting for callout.
KHTS - Similar to KIIS, lots of hispanic make up, doesn't fit.
KRQQ - They aren't very rock leaning anyway.

Plus, I am more worried about keeping my P1's around, if the P2's come and go, so what.

Do you even know what a P1 is?
Click to expand...

You just listed for all stations they don't test well, yet they put them in rotation to trigger new listeners to the market and cache as many listeners as possible, so what is the argument? Aside from KRBE, all of these stations do well, especially for the markets they rest in. And Girlfriend is #9, not a recurrent, and all of those I listed as Girlfriend were not drastic falls, they stated mostly neutral in that charting area. These tracks aren't played extravagantly, maybe twice to three times a day at best--again only in the playlist for new audiences to listen and notice they play the hits. That's what local flavored stations and Rhythmic leaning stations do.
 
It's good that my station doesn't watch the chart anymore like you do. Charts mean nothing now. 10, 15, 20 years ago, maybe. But even though you see Girlfriend as "#9 on the chart" most stations have already put it to a recurrent category.

Will somebody tell these 14 year old kids to stop thinking they know everything about radio? Us professionals actually do. Thus the reason we are employed.

As much fun as this pointless conversation has been, I have a #1 rated Top 40 CHR radio station to program (which is #1 btw, going against everything you listed above). I'm deleting this screen name, but thanks for the realization that there is a reason where you are, and a reason where I am.

The view is nice from up here. Try to make it up here sometime.
 
hair said:
It's good that my station doesn't watch the chart anymore like you do. Charts mean nothing now. 10, 15, 20 years ago, maybe. But even though you see Girlfriend as "#9 on the chart" most stations have already put it to a recurrent category.

Will somebody tell these 14 year old kids to stop thinking they know everything about radio? Us professionals actually do. Thus the reason we are employed.

As much fun as this pointless conversation has been, I have a #1 rated Top 40 CHR radio station to program (which is #1 btw, going against everything you listed above). I'm deleting this screen name, but thanks for the realization that there is a reason where you are, and a reason where I am.

The view is nice from up here. Try to make it up here sometime.
Click to expand...

How adult we are.

Firstly, your station is #3 in a medium market, and KRQQ (one of the best rated CHR's in the US) especially and a few others do better than it. And simply because a few stations have Girlfriend as recurrent (including your playlist FTW) does not make it a recurrent. FYI, the chart is Top 40 stations combined, therefore there are plenty stations that haven't burned with it yet and some are even still getting more requests for it.
 
Hair - just keep doing what you're doing at your station and remember that opinions are like [EDIT]...everybody's got one ;)
I don't know where he gets the notion that most Rhythmics play a bit of Rock as only a handful of them have recently begun playing Maroon 5's hit. The overwhelming majority of Rhythmic CHRs these days play no Pop/Rock hits.
Hair is also right that Avril's "Girlfriend" is no longer a current at some CHRs. Where do you see it on Z-100's list? You can barely find it on Kiss 108's list as well, and so forth.

Looking at the charts for songs to add or reconsider isn't a bad tool, but relying on the national charts (Billboard's Hot 100, Radio & Records CHR/Pop chart) can get you in trouble if you're not careful. Good PDs and MDs will usually know what songs will work well for their station. Hell, I'm not even sure if KIIS-FM Los Angeles ever played Pink's "U & Ur Hand", one of the biggest hits of the year nationally, but no one can argue with the station's success.
I also don't know how anyone can claim KRBE isn't doing well ??? ??? Even with Jeffries "Help", the station's ratings are very stable, the revenue is good, and I think they still have the highest cume in the entire Texas (or possibly the entire South).


[EDIT-profanity]
 
hair said:
When did radio stations start playing hits for the chart?

Shouldn't they play hits for their city?

If a song in the top 10 national chart doesn't test in your city, DO NOT PLAY IT!
Click to expand...

I have to say, that's the first thing I've ever seen you post, "hair," that I actually agree with! Congratulations!

For everyone else, has anyone actually figured out where "hair" is either the PD or GM? I have a suspicion, but I'd love to hear an answer if someone has figured it out. E-mail me off this thread at [email protected].

Thanks.
 
indebiz said:
hair said:
When did radio stations start playing hits for the chart?

Shouldn't they play hits for their city?

If a song in the top 10 national chart doesn't test in your city, DO NOT PLAY IT!
Click to expand...

I have to say, that's the first thing I've ever seen you post, "hair," that I actually agree with! Congratulations!

For everyone else, has anyone actually figured out where "hair" is either the PD or GM? I have a suspicion, but I'd love to hear an answer if someone has figured it out. E-mail me off this thread at [email protected].

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Spongebag...you have mentioned that playing songs that test well locally but not are not national hits hurts bringing in new listeners to a station (KZHT being your example).

It's safe to say that you haven't seen the book for SLC and you don't know where KZHT stands in terms of cume vs. TSL. Let's say the station is dominating the W18 - 34 cume and they have topped out in the market. At that point you say, "what can we do to increase TSL?" You play what your listeners tell you they want to hear, regardless of what the charts say.

Now I am not saying this is the case in SLC, my example was hypothetical. My point is, each station has a mission and a goal and no two stations can accomplish that goal by following the same route because of way too many variables. The market and those listeners is a MAJOR variable and they should impact what you play.
 
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