Most radio stations, at least in the Eastern and Central time zones seem to be just staying away from anything April Fool's this year so far just mentioning the day in passing, and more focused on it being Opening Day in Baseball. One exception is over at WBEN-FM. Their tag line for the day is "Playing The Most Music Ever". They are pulling the claim off by slightly increasing the playback speed of both the music and DJ Voice Tracks, and every song ID on the RDS, and website playlist starts with the word "Faster"
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Clever 4/1 Stunting in Philly
- Thread starter CaliRadioFan
- Start date
I get what they're trying to do, but even something like this could be a gamble and turn listeners away.
Although I did like last year when they went all-Weird Al all morning. Unique enough to draw attention AND get people to listen. But this? Ehhhh.
And two years ago it was TV themes. They’ll be fine.
I really enjoyed the TV themes stunt. And that was something people probably stayed tuned in for (at least for a while). If I weren't "one of us" radio geeks, I am sure what they're doing today would really turn me off--and I in turn would turn them off. But if I were a regular listener of BEN-FM, I would forget it by tomorrow and return to my usual listening habits. This wouldn't turn me off of them forever. And in fact, I would probably mentally register that they are the only station on the dial that even pretends to be fun.
I truly gave it my best shot today but my tolerance was all but exhausted after about 3 minutes... A+ for creativity in 2021 but that was certainly a strange way to celebrate April Fools Day and I would concur with radiodx10 regarding annihilating the TSL albeit for just a day. LESS of that would have BeEN so much MORE!
I tuned in that morning and noticed right away the music was playing too fast. I thought their automation system was broken, until I heard the ID explaining it and the "Faster" in the RDS song title. I can imagine doing a trick like this on maybe a few songs here and there, but to have the entire station do it all day long on April 1st was way, way too much and a major tune-out.
They survived all Weird Al. All TV themes. They’ll be fine.
Why wouldn't they?
Beats me. People think these April Fool’s jokes are problematic?
I felt that the TV themes and the Weird Al morning were good to grab attention, and to get people to listen. It's novel for a day and could make TSL spike.
The "play songs faster" stunt just seemed like a stunt that people would tune in, get annoyed by (or think something was wrong, not paying attention to the day) and tune out.
I'm not against radio April fools jokes, just against poorly thought out ones.
I didn’t like it myself. Hated Weird Al. Was moderately amused by the themes. But me not liking it doesn’t mean it’s poorly thought out (or the converse), or that because my TSL tanked for a few hours that it was the prevailing reaction. That’s all.
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