Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[oldies76]

No, David...MacArthur Park stopped getting airplay in Los Angeles long before Pico & Alvarado got really grim. It's another one of those songs that didn't make it to the recurrent or gold libraries, but pretty much faded away as soon as its chart run was over.

Does the disco version even get airplay in L.A.? I can understand the 7 minute Harris version.

 

[michael hagerty]

As Michael explained, because the song is so long it likely did not get tested.

Time length should not be an issue at all. "Hey Jude" (7:11) and "American Pie" (8:33) are aired.
But yes, the classical nature of the song is what's keeping it off the air. But heck, that's what radio edits are for.

As I once said on another thread, the effective length for "Hey Jude" is about six and a half minutes. After that, it has faded down to the point that you must move on to your next song, or you will have dead-air, and that is a definite tune-out among listeners. (Even on my Beatles 1 CD, the time set aside for "Hey Jude" on that track is just a second or two over seven minutes. Then it goes on to "Get Back."

If you begin a 7-second fade when Paul starts screaming you can get out in 5.

 

[michael hagerty]

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (LP cut)
Eight Days A Week (#1)
I Want To Hold Your Hand (#1)
A Hard Day's Night (#1)
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You (B-side #95)
She's A Woman (#4...technically B-Side to the #1 "I Feel Fine", but at #4, I count it as a two-sided hit, not a B-side)
I Saw Her Standing There (B-side to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" #14)
Help! (#1)
Day Tripper (#5...technically the B-side to "We Can Work It Out", but again, at #5, I count it as a two-sided hit)
Please Please Me (#3)
I'll Follow The Sun (LP cut)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (LP cut)
All My Loving (#45)

Not bad, but I would certainly be left hungry for their later hits. Where is "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," or even "Yesterday"?

This is what they played in one day...Monday, January 21.

 

[CTListener]

It occurred to me that for several of my formative years, there was only one Top 40 station available. This means that I was not in the habit of changing stations, when something I wasn't crazy about came on because whatever it was, it had to be better than any alternative! As a result, I sat through things like "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" and gained SOME appreciation for just about anything that was targeted at me.

When I started listening a lot to Boston Top 40 radio, in the summer of 1966, there were two: WBZ and WMEX. I liked the DJs on WBZ (especially Ron Landry and Bruce Bradley) much more than Arnie Ginsburg and the 'MEX "Good Guys," so I put up with "Born a Woman" and other MOR so I could hear "Psychotic Reaction." That's the X factor in radio listening back then; the DJs had real personality and were allowed to let it come through. Likewise, when WRKO switched to Top 40 in the spring of 1967 and WBZ switched to "chicken rock" and MOR, I gave WRKO a listen and became a fan of its DJ lineup as well. There was very little difference in what 'RKO and 'MEX were playing (except for the Drake-Chenault-pushed non-hits at 'RKO like "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" -- which I hated -- and "Here's to You" -- which I liked), and both were on songs that I didn't like, but I hardly ever pushed the button because I liked the total WRKO package -- music (at least the songs I liked), DJs and presentation.

These days, radio is nearly 100 percent about the music because there are very few personalities on the air; it's all very, very tight and everybody's doing the same thing: from introducing the sponsored traffic reports to making snarky remarks about politics to reporting the sam celebrity "news" that the other stations are reporting, to cracking jokes from the same hack-written jokebook. Nobody's going to become brand-loyal to something like that, so it's no wonder that people push the button every time something unfamiliar or personally disliked comes on.

 

[michael hagerty]

These days, radio is nearly 100 percent about the music because there are very few personalities on the air; it's all very, very tight and everybody's doing the same thing: from introducing the sponsored traffic reports to making snarky remarks about politics to reporting the sam celebrity "news" that the other stations are reporting, to cracking jokes from the same hack-written jokebook. Nobody's going to become brand-loyal to something like that, so it's no wonder that people push the button every time something unfamiliar or personally disliked comes on.

Bingo. But...and this is critical...even back in the day, the majority of listeners didn't have that kind of loyalty. That's why stations had relatively short runs at the top or even in a certain format (back to my hometown...KFWB #1 for five years, changed format in 10...KRLA #1 for 2 years, changed format in 11...KHJ #1 for 4 years, changed format in 15), and why the next winner almost always talked less and had a smaller library than the previous one.

Why?

I hated the idea when it was first explained to me as a young programmer in the 70s, but to most people, radio is an appliance, a device...and people who tune to music stations expect music, in the same way they expect water when they turn on a faucet.

If choices are limited, they accept compromises, but the one closest to delivering on expectations wins. And when choices expand, if the new choice has fewer compromises (less talk, no news, more music), the new choice wins.

That was true 45 years ago (and is why Drake beat his predecessors only to lose to something tighter...the Q format in some markets, ABC's "Rock 'n' Stereo in others) in 6 or 7 years.

Wishing it weren't true gets you nowhere. Playing to what a minority of the audience wants will get you a minority of the audience. Winning stations understand how the majority uses radio, find a profitable niche in which to fit, research the expectations of the available audience for that niche, and relentlessly deliver exactly that.

A minority within the minority go online and say the system is broken and someone needs to help these poor bastards see the light by playing a stiff or two an hour..."What could it hurt?".

Meantime, even in market #233, where I would have argued you could relax a bit, tighter gets you from a 4.2 to an 11.0 in one year.

 

[oldies76]

A minority within the minority go online and say the system is broken and someone needs to help these poor bastards see the light by playing a stiff or two an hour..."What could it hurt?".

A minority within a minority?

Do you really think it's just a few on this board that disagree with you?? 99.99% will never go on boards like this and make their points known, but I can 110% guarantee you that others in every radio market in the USA will realize the short-comings of radio today.

Your methods may the correct way for what you do, but for the listeners who want their music, their lost hits, it's a whole other enchilada.

One song per hour will not hurt. You are taking it to upper most limits here. Many smaller market stations will supposedly "take the risk" and personally feel that they are satisfying their listeners, not strangling them.

Major market stations may have higher ratings, due to tighter playlists, but that does not eliminate complaints of lack of songs and repetition. So really, it goes both ways.

 

[OldNumber7]

A minority within the minority go online and say the system is broken and someone needs to help these poor bastards see the light by playing a stiff or two an hour..."What could it hurt?".

A minority within a minority?

Do you really think it's just a few on this board that disagree with you?? 99.99% will never go on boards like this and make their points known, but I can 110% guarantee you that others in every radio market in the USA will realize the short-comings of radio today.

Your methods may the correct way for what you do, but for the listeners who want their music, their lost hits, it's a whole other enchilada.

One song per hour will not hurt. You are taking it to upper most limits here. Many smaller market stations will supposedly "take the risk" and personally feel that they are satisfying their listeners, not strangling them.

Major market stations may have higher ratings, due to tighter playlists, but that does not eliminate complaints of lack of songs and repetition. So really, it goes both ways.

People who post on this board are NOT typical radio listeners. For that very reason, they can't speak for the masses who seldom give radio much more thought than turning it on and vaguely thinking "Is this something I like?" Some smaller market stations can get away with fatter playlists for the reason that they aren't in the competitive situation that bigger market stations face. That said, the general rules for how deep a playlist ought to go don't vary much from market to market. Listener behavior is listener behavior. A 30 minute commute in NYC is the same as a 30 minute commute in Podunk.

 

[michael hagerty]

A minority within the minority go online and say the system is broken and someone needs to help these poor bastards see the light by playing a stiff or two an hour..."What could it hurt?".

A minority within a minority?

Do you really think it's just a few on this board that disagree with you?? 99.99% will never go on boards like this and make their points known, but I can 110% guarantee you that others in every radio market in the USA will realize the short-comings of radio today.

Exactly. A minority (the .01% that you say will go on boards like this and make their points known) within a minority (those whose tolerance for deviation from expectation exceed that of the majority of listeners).

 

[michael hagerty]

Some smaller market stations can get away with fatter playlists for the reason that they aren't in the competitive situation that bigger market stations face.

I would have agreed with that until last night, when I saw the ratings in Joplin, MO, one of the smallest Arbitron markets in America (#233). KJMK, which one of the posters on this board says has a very tight playlist, went from a 4.2 and 6th place (out of 7 stations) a year ago as an AC station to an 11.0 and 3rd place as Classic Hits.

I think you really can only get away with ignoring those basic traits of the majority of listeners if you are in an unrated market. And getting away with it still means you're not identifying and delivering on the expectations of the majority of your listeners, which is actually doubly dangerous when you're flying blind as to how that's affecting your listenership.

Unless you're the only station in town, there's always the chance that a new or existing competitor will come at you head-on, but do it right.

 

[michael hagerty]

Duplicate post deleted.

 

[firepoint525]

As I once said on another thread, the effective length for "Hey Jude" is about six and a half minutes. After that, it has faded down to the point that you must move on to your next song, or you will have dead-air, and that is a definite tune-out among listeners.

That's for sure...I think the max you can really hear on the 45 is up to 7:06 or 7:08 and by that time, you've raised your volume to try to hear the last few seconds....it's really faded...Wonder why Apple Records decided on the 7:11 time in the first place? Interesting!

One thing that I very quickly learned after I got into radio is that the pre-printed times on the 45s were typically 10-15 seconds or so LONGER than the actual playing time of the song. This is particularly true of the ones with the fadeout ending. (I discovered this at the SECOND station that I worked for, because the first one was such a joke that they owed money to the network, and weren't even allowed to carry network news! :)

Similar story with CDs. The posted time is the time of the actual track, not necessarily that of the song that occupies that track.

 

[firepoint525]

As Michael explained, because the song is so long it likely did not get tested.

Time length should not be an issue at all. "Hey Jude" (7:11) and "American Pie" (8:33) are aired.
But yes, the classical nature of the song is what's keeping it off the air. But heck, that's what radio edits are for.

As I once said on another thread, the effective length for "Hey Jude" is about six and a half minutes. After that, it has faded down to the point that you must move on to your next song, or you will have dead-air, and that is a definite tune-out among listeners. (Even on my Beatles 1 CD, the time set aside for "Hey Jude" on that track is just a second or two over seven minutes. Then it goes on to "Get Back."

If you begin a 7-second fade when Paul starts screaming you can get out in 5.

The LP of the Beatles' American #1 hits (which came out in '82, I think) has a five-minute or so edit of "Hey Jude," presumably so that they could fit it in with the 19 other #1s on just one record. (The CD (2000) of course did not have that limitation, and even included the UK #1s.)

I don't have that LP, so I don't know exactly when the fade begins. I'm guessing that "Hey Jude," in addition to being a "bathroom song," was also especially popular for back-timing into the network news at the top of the hour! ;D

 

[firepoint525]

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (LP cut)
Eight Days A Week (#1)
I Want To Hold Your Hand (#1)
A Hard Day's Night (#1)
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You (B-side #95)
She's A Woman (#4...technically B-Side to the #1 "I Feel Fine", but at #4, I count it as a two-sided hit, not a B-side)
I Saw Her Standing There (B-side to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" #14)
Help! (#1)
Day Tripper (#5...technically the B-side to "We Can Work It Out", but again, at #5, I count it as a two-sided hit)
Please Please Me (#3)
I'll Follow The Sun (LP cut)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (LP cut)
All My Loving (#45)

Not bad, but I would certainly be left hungry for their later hits. Where is "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," or even "Yesterday"?

This is what they played in one day...Monday, January 21.

I couldn't help but notice that they "skewed old," in that they did not play anything after 1967, but I suppose I should be glad that they did not play "Twist and Shout." I would think that the older songs (especially) are aging out of the demo, but maybe you can throw out the rule book where the Beatles are concerned.

As for "Sgt. Pepper's...," I am guessing that they must also play its companion track "With a Little Help From My Friends." Together, those two represent about a five-minute airtime commitment. (The station that I grew up with played a cool cross-fade of "Sgt. Pepper's..." and "Sgt. Pepper's reprise." The latter is sometimes played along with "A Day in the Life," if it is still played anywhere at all. (I believe "Sgt. Pepper's" came out as a single in 1978, after that "movie" came out, but I don't know how it did on the charts. Even in the UK, it was only #63.)

 

[CTListener]

Some smaller market stations can get away with fatter playlists for the reason that they aren't in the competitive situation that bigger market stations face.

I would have agreed with that until last night, when I saw the ratings in Joplin, MO, one of the smallest Arbitron markets in America (#233). KJMK, which one of the posters on this board says has a very tight playlist, went from a 4.2 and 6th place (out of 7 stations) a year ago as an AC station to an 11.0 and 3rd place as Classic Hits.

I think you really can only get away with ignoring those basic traits of the majority of listeners if you are in an unrated market. And getting away with it still means you're not identifying and delivering on the expectations of the majority of your listeners, which is actually doubly dangerous when you're flying blind as to how that's affecting your listenership.

Unless you're the only station in town, there's always the chance that a new or existing competitor will come at you head-on, but do it right.

Right. Nobody's going to challenge WLNG in eastern Long Island with a tight-playlist classic hits format because there's no potential reward for doing so. You might attract listeners who are already switching the station when a chart stiff or a long, gabby, echo-chamber-ridden batch of live-read ads and PSA comes on, but that's really not going to hurt WLNG, which will retain its ultra-loyal cores of listeners and advertisers. Face it, the population of eastern LI is on the older side and a lot of them may actually be too wealthy for mainstream national advertisers to try to sell to. You're not going to sell Wendy's value menu or Bud Light to folks in the Hamptons, so why try? And then there's the fact that a significant portion of the population is seasonal -- more trouble for advertisers.

 

[davideduardo]

Wasn't that movie -- dubbed in Spanish -- a hit in Latin America, too, or didn't it cross over?

Sidebar: Theatricals in Latin America are not dubbed, they are subtitled. Only on TV are they dubbed.

 

[davideduardo]

Right. Nobody's going to challenge WLNG in eastern Long Island with a tight-playlist classic hits format because there's no potential reward for doing so.

Particularly so, since WLNG is more of a community station than an oldies station. Lost dog reports and swap shop type features sustained it since it went on as a 500 watt daytimer on 1600 in the 60's.

 

[michael hagerty]

As Michael explained, because the song is so long it likely did not get tested.

Time length should not be an issue at all. "Hey Jude" (7:11) and "American Pie" (8:33) are aired.
But yes, the classical nature of the song is what's keeping it off the air. But heck, that's what radio edits are for.

As I once said on another thread, the effective length for "Hey Jude" is about six and a half minutes. After that, it has faded down to the point that you must move on to your next song, or you will have dead-air, and that is a definite tune-out among listeners. (Even on my Beatles 1 CD, the time set aside for "Hey Jude" on that track is just a second or two over seven minutes. Then it goes on to "Get Back."

If you begin a 7-second fade when Paul starts screaming you can get out in 5.

The LP of the Beatles' American #1 hits (which came out in '82, I think) has a five-minute or so edit of "Hey Jude," presumably so that they could fit it in with the 19 other #1s on just one record. (The CD (2000) of course did not have that limitation, and even included the UK #1s.)

I don't have that LP, so I don't know exactly when the fade begins. I'm guessing that "Hey Jude," in addition to being a "bathroom song," was also especially popular for back-timing into the network news at the top of the hour! ;D

Back timing involves starting the record off the air and fading into it so that the record ends just in time for the legal ID/news open. Usually, it was when you didn't have a record short enough. Back timing "Hey Jude" would then just get you the "Na Na Na" part for 90 seconds or so, making it a bad choice.

By the 70s, few Top 40s allowed the practice. You were expected to think ahead and adjust the length of a live PSA or weather so that coming out of the last stopset of the hour, the songs remaining would take you exactly to where you needed to be.

 

[michael hagerty]

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (LP cut)
Eight Days A Week (#1)
I Want To Hold Your Hand (#1)
A Hard Day's Night (#1)
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You (B-side #95)
She's A Woman (#4...technically B-Side to the #1 "I Feel Fine", but at #4, I count it as a two-sided hit, not a B-side)
I Saw Her Standing There (B-side to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" #14)
Help! (#1)
Day Tripper (#5...technically the B-side to "We Can Work It Out", but again, at #5, I count it as a two-sided hit)
Please Please Me (#3)
I'll Follow The Sun (LP cut)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (LP cut)
All My Loving (#45)

Not bad, but I would certainly be left hungry for their later hits. Where is "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," or even "Yesterday"?

This is what they played in one day...Monday, January 21.

I couldn't help but notice that they "skewed old," in that they did not play anything after 1967, but I suppose I should be glad that they did not play "Twist and Shout." I would think that the older songs (especially) are aging out of the demo, but maybe you can throw out the rule book where the Beatles are concerned.

As for "Sgt. Pepper's...," I am guessing that they must also play its companion track "With a Little Help From My Friends." Together, those two represent about a five-minute airtime commitment. (The station that I grew up with played a cool cross-fade of "Sgt. Pepper's..." and "Sgt. Pepper's reprise." The latter is sometimes played along with "A Day in the Life," if it is still played anywhere at all. (I believe "Sgt. Pepper's" came out as a single in 1978, after that "movie" came out, but I don't know how it did on the charts. Even in the UK, it was only #63.)

I haven't looked at other days of last week yet, but I know they play newer Beatles tracks.

Remember, though, it gets slimmer after '67..."Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" are the '68 singles....a few White Album cuts and possibly something from the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack and that's it for that year.

'69..I don't know if they play "The Ballad of John & Yoko" or not, "Get Back", "Something" and "Come Together" and maybe a couple tracks off "Abbey Road" (certainly "Here Comes The Sun").

After that, it's "Let It Be" and "The Long And Winding Road" and maybe "Across The Universe" or "Two of Us" off the Let It Be soundtrack.

 

[oldies76]

After that, it's "Let It Be" and "The Long And Winding Road" and maybe "Across The Universe" or "Two of Us" off the Let It Be soundtrack.

Have you heard the two lost singles released in 1995/96, "Real Love" & "Free As A Bird" on area stations? Seems like they got more airplay right when they were released then, than nowadays.
They are both good songs!

 

[michael hagerty]

After that, it's "Let It Be" and "The Long And Winding Road" and maybe "Across The Universe" or "Two of Us" off the Let It Be soundtrack.

Have you heard the two lost singles released in 1995/96, "Real Love" & "Free As A Bird" on area stations? Seems like they got more airplay right when they were released then, than nowadays.
They are both good songs!

I haven't heard them on any radio station since they were new.

They weren't so much lost singles as unfinished solo Lennon tracks from 1977 and 1979 that Paul, George and Ringo (with help from Jeff Lynne) fleshed out nearly 20 years later.

I'm a Beatles fan, but was underwhelmed at the time, and couldn't hum a bar of either one if my life depended on it.