Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[Biondi4Mayor]

David, Biondi wants to make a federal case over my having typed "Classic Hits" when I meant "Classic Rock" or vice-versa...and, apparently my reference to your earlier KLOS/KSWD 60/40 gender split.

Why don't we have a yawning emoticon?

Hardly. I didn't understand why David showed me "personally" by quoting those statistics, when it was regarding a comment you made. This is not related at all to your mistake earlier (that was cleared up, and wasn't "jabbing" you but meant to clear up a misunderstanding), it's about how little the comment advanced anything in my direction, and still shows what you said to be misleading (in that Classic Hits being more male sided in reality).

But go ahead and run to back-up for support. And BTW, it's a good thing we don't have that yawning emoticon cause I would have filled up the other 3,4,5 (however many) threads filled with your comments with yawn after yawn.

 

[firepoint525]

You thus make things unlistenable for a larger percentage of the audience than you would normally risk. And at twice an hour, you've done it 48 times a day, 336 times in a week....17,250 times in a year.

This assumes that a station plays music 24/7. Using your logic, you have just made a case for dropping those morning show bozos, like Bob and Tom, who laugh at their own jokes. You have also made a case for dropping any sports programming, because I am a music fan, so I will tune out any time that I hear sports. You have also made a case for dropping specialty programming, even at oddball hours, so those are fightin' words with me! Those are the only times all week when we can get away from the same ole same ole. And you have also made a case for dropping public affairs programming, which is usually buried at REALLY odd hours, because we must not risk losing listeners over that! (Next time you have insomnia (on Sunday morning anyway, tune in to your local station at 4:30 on Sunday morning to hear these programs.) No gripes about that, but I would hate to be the news director, producing these programs, only to be intentionally putting these programs on the air at a time when as few listeners as possible will hear them. Yeah, I know, it's FCC requirements, and some of these programs are probably very good and informative, but it is not "appointment radio" for me, or for anyone else that I know.

 

[oldies76]

You thus make things unlistenable for a larger percentage of the audience than you would normally risk. And at twice an hour, you've done it 48 times a day, 336 times in a week....17,250 times in a year.

And the overplayed, tested varieties (at 12 songs an hour without a lost hits feature) would have been repeated a staggering 288 a day, 2016 a week and 105,120 times a year!

 

[michael hagerty]

You thus make things unlistenable for a larger percentage of the audience than you would normally risk. And at twice an hour, you've done it 48 times a day, 336 times in a week....17,250 times in a year.

And the overplayed, tested varieties (at 12 songs an hour without a lost hits feature) would have been repeated a staggering 288 a day, 2016 a week and 105,120 times a year!

Divided by an 800 song playlist.......

But seriously, the fact is the audience hears the station differently from how you hear it. Their usage patterns and expectations are different. To them, the songs aren't overplayed.

 

[davideduardo]

It's claimed that when testing is performed over and over monthly with supposedly different groups of people, that the results are generally the same (based on similiar songs being presented) so the assumption is that the "results" are replicated over and over again, for the entire listening audience. This basically means that the entire listening audience for a station like KRTH will for the most part, approve of the same songs being presented with little room for deviation.

I just don't buy that.

Nobody has said that testing is done monthly, anywhere. There is no station that could afford that. Again, a 1200 song test for a gold based station costs around $50 thousand, and 12 of them would be a staggering $600,000 dollars.

A few stations may test 3 or even four times a year, but the standard for gold based formats is twice a year if you can afford it. That is when you start seeing differences in score from the previous test and that translates into changes in rotations and in whether to add, drop or keep playing.

What I did mention is the costly procedure of replication, where ONE TIME you test a huge sample and then, using random numbers, draw smaller subsets. You compare the results and when they deviate beyond acceptable margins, the sample is too small.

So, let's say, you test 400 people. You draw a set of 200 and a second, unduplicated set. If they are the same, you can say that 200 is just as good as 400. To be sure, you use the same random selection to create two different sets of 200... still the same? No need to test 400.

Then you divide, at random, the sample into 3 sets. If the results are the same, then you don't need more than 120 people to get the right results.

Then you go to 4 sets of 100 and, voilá, you get the same results from each of the 4. Why sample 130 when 100 will do. At the end, you find that around 80 people will yield results that don't significantly change if doubled, quadrupled, and on. So, because of external factors like weather and traffic and such, we go for about 100 people a test.

It's been working that way for about 3 decades or so, with no changes.

Because this is a business, you test no more people than needed and only as frequently as needed.

 

[davideduardo]

So? You're quotoing me as if you're "showing" me something - I didn't bring up the demos. Tell that to Hagerty, as that seems to be another slight contradiction in facts here.

I'm showing you the real average percentages, not opinion and supposition.

 

[davideduardo]

Totally with you, oldies -- There is no way that listener likes and dislikes are anywhere near as cut and dried as has been implied. First, there is no way they could test half of the music from 1964-89 that deserves to be tested.

First, most stations in the format test over 1000 titles each time they test. Several hundred are "what if" songs. You test the library, you test songs you might play if they test.

Over the years, thousands of songs get tested.

If you test a mid-60's song, and it does not pass several times, then you don't test it again unless it shows up in a movie or something. So songs like "Honey" and "Ballad of the Green Berets" and "yummy Yummy" and hundreds more like them are proven to be perennial stiffs for airplay today, and discarded.

So just about everything has been tested. And bigger companies do testing in many markets... perhaps a few songs show up unexpectedly well and the titles are retested in other markets to see if they might work.

And, as the target audience changes, newer songs are constantly being tested to see if they fit, using both scores and complex factor and cluster analysis.

Second, there is no way they could ever sample more than 1% of a local listening audience.

There is no need to. Arbitron uses 3000 in-tab meters to measure 10 million people in LA and their listening to over 120 stations that show in the LA book. So a station, focusing on its own specific audience and target, needs less than 100 scientifically selected people to determine what to play and what not to play.

I would like to know the methodology of how this is done, how results are tabulated, analyzed and applied. This playlist straitjacket with no wiggle room is of the industry's own making and was not foisted upon them by listeners.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm shows how a test is done. There is no straitjacket. Listeners are repeatedly asked to tell stations what they want to hear on the radio today, and stations do just that.

 

[RIN3GUY]

So just what are these music testing companies, and how many of them are there? I want to apply to work for them! Their scientific theories and methodologies may need to be scrutinized, questioned and reevaluated, and I wonder if there is variation between the way different companies conduct testing and tabulate the results they hand over to stations.

For example, how much of an unfamiliar song gets heard when it is tested? And just how long would it take for a group of people to test 1200 songs if there are a couple hundred or more that because of lack of airplay exposure they are unfamiliar with?? Dismissing or downgrading a song simply because it is initially unfamiliar is an unacceptable way to conduct a test, IMO. Every song has to be new and untried sometime, particularly with younger audiences.

Oops, "One Way or Another" just came on KJMK again, and it's in my craw. Gotta go turn the radio back OFF!

 

[michael hagerty]

So just what are these music testing companies, and how many of them are there? I want to apply to work for them! Their scientific theories and methodologies may need to be scrutinized, questioned and reevaluated, and I wonder if there is variation between the way different companies conduct testing and tabulate the results they hand over to stations.

For example, how much of an unfamiliar song gets heard when it is tested? And just how long would it take for a group of people to test 1200 songs if there are a couple hundred or more that because of lack of airplay exposure they are unfamiliar with?? Dismissing or downgrading a song simply because it is initially unfamiliar is an unacceptable way to conduct a test, IMO. Every song has to be new and untried sometime, particularly with younger audiences.

Oops, "One Way or Another" just came on KJMK again, and it's in my craw. Gotta go turn the radio back OFF!

1. What are your educational and work experience qualifications to be employed by, much less reevaluate the methodologies of these companies?

2. David gave us the complete answer to your entire second paragraph a month or so ago. It may even be in this thread.

3. The average age of a test participant for Classic Hits is 45. They're not oblivious to the music.

 

[RIN3GUY]

I will search for David's answer; it must have gotten by me. I'm a teacher with a Bachelor's degree in English Ed and an Associate's in Psych. I have also taken several business and communications classes and am studying for my Master's. I listened to WLS daily during their best years, and put my musical knowledge and familiarity with Whitman's books up against those of any DJ or PD, particularly some of our local ones who can't even pronounce some artists' names correctly, or spell them right on their website playlist.

 

[davideduardo]

So just what are these music testing companies, and how many of them are there? I want to apply to work for them! Their scientific theories and methodologies may need to be scrutinized, questioned and reevaluated, and I wonder if there is variation between the way different companies conduct testing and tabulate the results they hand over to stations.

There are several dozen companies that do this kind of testing for radio stations; they also do perceptual testing, format searches, talent one-on-ones, focus groups, etc. Some also do "call-out" research on currents (although the use of phones is being changed for outbound recruited web-based testing).

The people at those companies are skilled researchers, with knowledge of statistics, polling, etc. They use specialized software like Cornerston's Analyst to tabulate the individual responses, and can produce results sorted, ranked or classified in many ways.

Neither radio stations nor the research companies need "scrutiny" by someone whose first assertion on this thread was that sampling less than 1% of a universe is invalid.

It's sort of like trying to explain that tons of aluminum and plastic should not be able to fly without taking a look at the Bernoulli Effect and the specific properties of the Earth's atmosphere.

For example, how much of an unfamiliar song gets heard when it is tested?

Song hooks are generally about 8 seconds long. When electronic measurement ("dials") are
used, most people enter their score within the first 5 to 6 seconds. If the song is unfamiliar, they indicate (a button on dials, a "tick box" on a paper scored test) that they don't know it; this response is faster and more immediate than the process of deciding how much we like or don't like a familiar song.

And just how long would it take for a group of people to test 1200 songs if there are a couple hundred or more that because of lack of airplay exposure they are unfamiliar with??

Two 2 1/2 hour sessions for an "in person test". A finite number of days is given if web testing is used. On the web, the hooks that can be heard are longer but there as soon as a person votes, it moves on. 5 seconds to 6 seconds is all it takes for most songs. People give unfamiliar songs even less time as they know they don't know the song so the decision is easier than deciding on a 1 to 100 score.

Stations seldom test songs that don't have sufficient airplay. In a gold based format, they would not test an unplayed song, ever. In current based formats, generally enough play so regular listeners to the station would have heard a song 5 to 7 times will start to produce meaningful results.

However, many stations "test" currents by means of Media MOnitors "M Score" which shows how PPM meter panelists react to the song over many plays in different times and dayparts. Negative reaction which does not move towards positives means a song is killed.

Dismissing or downgrading a song simply because it is initially unfamiliar is an unacceptable way to conduct a test, IMO. Every song has to be new and untried sometime, particularly with younger audiences.

We are talking about Classic Hits stations. The keyword is "hits". That means unless a song had, initially and years ago a lot of exposure, it ain't a classic hit.

Those of us in radio know what happens when a station plays loads of unfamiliar or low scoring songs. It's ugly, and people get fired and formats get changed.

 

[davideduardo]

I listened to WLS daily during their best years, and put my musical knowledge and familiarity with Whitman's books up against those of any DJ or PD...

I did not know that Whitman wrote anything about Top 40, although "Leaves of Grass" was certainly a hit...

;D

 

[RIN3GUY]

5 seconds to 6 seconds is all it takes for most songs. People give unfamiliar songs even less time as they know they don't know the song so the decision is easier than deciding on a 1 to 100 score.

Stations seldom test songs that don't have sufficient airplay. In a gold based format, they would not test an unplayed song, ever. In current based formats, generally enough play so regular listeners to the station would have heard a song 5 to 7 times will start to produce meaningful results.

haha yes Whitburn, not Walt Whitman. Result of burning the midnight oil.

Giving less time to unfamiliar songs seems counterintuitive if additional fresh material is truly being sought to replace or augment what is "burning out" or "aging out." Testing just what is currently being played will only reduce the pool of music that is familiar to local listeners because not all currently played songs may remain in listeners' favor. But very little fresh material could ever be introduced to listeners if the selections are dependent solely on them recognizing and liking songs which are seldom or never played locally and from which only the briefest excerpt is heard during testing, especially if it happens to be previously totally unknown to them. The number of lost hits can only continue to grow, and the pool of non-burnout/age-out songs that are well known and continue to test well can only shrink. That kind of restrictive modality can only lead to the ultimate demise of the genre.

 

[davideduardo]

Giving less time to unfamiliar songs seems counterintuitive if additional fresh material is truly being sought to replace or augment what is "burning out" or "aging out." Testing just what is currently being played will only reduce the pool of music that is familiar to local listeners because not all currently played songs may remain in listeners' favor. But very little fresh material could ever be introduced to listeners if the selections are dependent solely on them recognizing and liking songs which are seldom or never played locally and from which only the briefest excerpt is heard during testing, especially if it happens to be previously totally unknown to them. The number of lost hits can only continue to grow, and the pool of non-burnout/age-out songs that are well known and continue to test well can only shrink. That kind of restrictive modality can only lead to the ultimate demise of the genre.

Stations in the Classic Hits category play familiar, well liked hits.

In this format, "hit" means that the song was a big hit "back when" and also is a "hit" today under the radio definition of the word which means "songs I want to hear on the radio".

Songs that were true hits will be remembered even if unheard for decades. Songs that were not hits did not establish likable familiarity back then and are not recognized or are not liked any greater amount today.

The main attraction of a classic hits station is the mood... partisans, in one on one research often say things like "it's the music of the best years in my life".

That means the songs have to be familiar, likable today and compatible with the demo a stations looks for. Specifically, that is 35-54 with most of the audience being 39-54 (we don't look at or "count" the over 55, even if it is half the audience of some classic hits stations).

Classic Hits stations have a never-ending cycle of dropping off the older appealing songs while adding songs that are inviting, particularly to the 35-44 "portal" listeners who have to be invited in. These stations don't look for hidden oldies or lost oldies or forgotten oldies, as none of those get positives, even if you play the whole song. Stations look, each year, for newer songs, such as those from the mid to late 80's, that now fit the demo. And occasionally a song that had a lot of burn on it and which has rested will snap back for a while, but those are few.

 

[semoochie]

There seems to be a contention that Classic Hits is centered on the 45 year old female. This is not AC. My understanding was that Classic Hits skews 45-54. The music is way too old to drag a 35-40 year old from their Katy Perry fix. Let's put our hypothetical listener at age 50, born in 1963 and go from there.

 

[davideduardo]

There seems to be a contention that Classic Hits is centered on the 45 year old female. This is not AC. My understanding was that Classic Hits skews 45-54. The music is way too old to drag a 35-40 year old from their Katy Perry fix. Let's put our hypothetical listener at age 50, born in 1963 and go from there.

The target is 35-54, but the actual delivery is more like 35-64.

In NY, CBS-FM has 25% of its audience in 45-54, about 45% over 55, and the rest under 45. That's 30% under 45.

The median target age for research would likely be about 43. Since the key issue with classic hits is getting people into the format when they reach their late 30's, then such a station would likely research against 37 to 49 year olds, a nice 12-year core leaning towards the young side.

Since the station can't "use" its 55+ numbers for sales, we are effectively dealing with, in standard demos, 35-54. The mid point, as was suggested, is 45.

 

[oldies76]

We are talking about Classic Hits stations. The keyword is "hits". That means unless a song had, initially and years ago a lot of exposure, it ain't a classic hit.

Any song from the "classic hit" era is a classic hit.

"Brown Eyed Girl" is just as classic as "You Light Up My Life"...both are hits, just from two different decades.

Any song from the 1964-1985 period, today, is a classic hit, regardless of exposure then or today. "Can't Get Used To Losing You" by Andy Williams is just as classic as an overplayed Eagles song today.

The only difference today, is that some songs get jammed down our throats while others are still locked away in a vault.

 

[davideduardo]

Any song from the "classic hit" era is a classic hit.

The whole problem of your failure to understand how radio works can, based on your statement above, be reduced to one condition: verb tense.

The correct statement is:

"Any (hit) song from the "classic hit" era was a classic hit."

For radio, the statement is:

"Any classic hit from the past that listeners want to hear on the radio today is part of our playlist."

 

[oldies76]

The correct statement is:

"Any (hit) song from the "classic hit" era was a classic hit."

Wrong.......So if a song was released in 1977, it was a classic in 1977? Was defines your statement.

A hit in 1977, a classic today is the correct statement.

 

[firepoint525]

There seems to be a contention that Classic Hits is centered on the 45 year old female. This is not AC. My understanding was that Classic Hits skews 45-54. The music is way too old to drag a 35-40 year old from their Katy Perry fix. Let's put our hypothetical listener at age 50, born in 1963 and go from there.

You have (nearly) described me. I was born in 1963, and will hit the big 5-0 on my next birthday. And you have seen how they (David and Michael, among others) have tried to marginalize me in this thread as being "too old."

I know what the problem is for my generation. We came of age during disco, and to some extent, radio is still reluctant to play disco. The artists of my generation were (and in some cases, still are) blacklisted. BeeGees, KC & the Sunshine Band, Barry Manilow, and in the '80s, Air Supply. At least the country crossovers are, for the most part, also blacklisted, so maybe there is hope after all.

The rock groups from my day, like Boston, Kansas (it helped to be named for where you were from back then!), Steve Miller Band, and others have held up a bit better.

As I have read it here, about the only difference between classic hits and AC is the absence of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Adele, Kelly Clarkson and others from classic hits. Meanwhile, the AC here still occasionally plays the studio version of "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney (hence my other thread elsewhere on this site) and that one was from 1970, well before the musical awareness of that 45 year-old female. So I'm flummoxed! ???