Do radio stations do live radio giveaways anymore

[vw86]

I just listened to what ended up as a 3 song set between two stopsets:


*sweep rejoin from spots mentioning 1959*

Lonely Teardrops - Jackie Wilson (1959)

*sweep*

How Do I Make You - Linda Ronstadt (1980)

*sweep with voiceover mentioning the group Bread with a montage of several of their hits, but no Bread song followed it*

Hit The Wall - Gracie Abrams (2026)

*promo for Saturday night syndicated 'Beach Music' show*

back into spots

 

[K.M. Richards]

I wonder what a train wreck 10,000 songs in active rotation is.

I have a better thing to wonder about. Typically, listeners do have favorite songs. The Classic Hits format model is based on finding which of those favorites are in the consensus of the audience as a whole, and then plays those often enough that the typical listener hears their personal favorites often enough to be reassured that the station plays all of their favorites ... even if that is simplistic thinking.

With 10,000 songs in rotation, that's diluting the repeat factor to a point where the listeners will be driven away, because they don't hear their favorites often enough.

David and I have both said this before, but the favorite song of an outlier that peaked at #38 as a current decades ago does not resonate with the average listener. And you cannot make a viable station depending on a bunch of outliers. If anything, their personal tastes are so varied that one's favorite song is another's reason to tune out.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I have a better thing to wonder about. Typically, listeners do have favorite songs. The Classic Hits format model is based on finding which of those favorites are in the consensus of the audience as a whole, and then plays those often enough that the typical listener hears their personal favorites often enough to be reassured that the station plays all of their favorites ... even if that is simplistic thinking.

With 10,000 songs in rotation, that's diluting the repeat factor to a point where the listeners will be driven away, because they don't hear their favorites often enough.

David and I have both said this before, but the favorite song of an outlier that peaked at #38 as a current decades ago does not resonate with the average listener. And you cannot make a viable station depending on a bunch of outliers. If anything, their personal tastes are so varied that one's favorite song is another's reason to tune out.

and listeners... the average listener doesnt wanna hear as much variety as even they think they do.

Play that #38 next to 2 #3's and a #1.. and theyre like .. eww whats that?

 

[vw86]

I stuck around for another handful of songs. The Bread track finally played

*back from spots*

Breathe (2AM) - Anna Nalick (2005)

*dead segue*

Little Jeannie - Elton John (1980)

*promo for the Dave Koz syndicated jazz show that airs Sunday at 8pm*

If - Bread (1971)

*TOH*

Nothing At All - Santana f/ Musiq (2002)

*dead segue*

Lookin' For Love - Johnny Lee (1980)

 

[K.M. Richards]

and listeners... the average listener doesnt wanna hear as much variety as even they think they do.

Play that #38 next to 2 #3's and a #1.. and theyre like .. eww whats that?

@davideduardo has mentioned something in other past threads that I hope he validates here as well.

Numerous focus groups have determined that when listeners say they want "variety", what they really mean is they want to hear their own favorites more often and fewer songs they either dislike or -- as Paul points out -- they don't remember.

I'm sure our two naysayers, if they bother to check what I am doing at KRKE, will immediately point to my hourly Forgotten 45s feature and point out that those songs are -- in their POV -- unfamiliar to the audience as well. Please allow me the indulgence of answering that before they post it.

The F45 library consists of close to 500 songs all by itself. Fewer than 10% of those are in active rotation at any given time, and when active they are scheduled exactly 12 times before being replaced. Once replaced, I track the airplay that they get across 88 Classic Hits stations nationwide, and if a song does not have at least 100 spins to its credit six months after its last active period, I hold it out until it does rather than bring it back into active rotation right away. If it can't get to 100 in another 18 months, it's gone. Which means that every Forgotten 45 is still familiar to the audience ... it just can't justify being played in regular rotation week-in and week-out. I call it "the songs you forgot that you remembered". And it is the limitation on how often they play that makes it attractive to the audience.

So there is a way, with good programming policies, to go deeper. But it still isn't going to include that non-memorable #38 song from 1982 and those songs are never going to be the core of the format.

I will stop here so that @kevtronics and @Theater of My Mind can tell me why they think I'm wrong.

 

[amos1001]

the friend of mine who worked in a hair salon when I worked in radio and swore she heard "Landslide" by the Dixie Chicks on my station every hour at work. That was not possible; it was a four hour rotation.

I had a situation like that. I was in a car-pool to college, the entire trip was about 30 minutes. I asked the group if they liked the music we played (it was a chr format back in the 80s). They all agreed that they did, but we played the same songs at the same time every day. I KNEW this wasn't true, and I was going to PROVE it to them. So, at 7:30 am, Chaka Kahn "Feel For You" played. I told them, keep this in mind, Chaka Kahn at 7:30. Tomorrow moriing at 7:30 Chaka Kahn did NOT play. I nearly broke my arm patting myself on the back. They all said, yeah but the same songs play at the same times. Maybe not this particular time, but they do. Then at 7:45 the next "A" came up in rotation. Three guesses: Chaka Kahn "Feel For You.' They all said, see?? We told you so!
We thought we were so perfect, because we absolutely KNEW we weren't playing the same song at the same time. But we were so wrong. By the following day we had re-done the rotations to look at time period repeats (and to avoid them).

 

[Bongwater]

Chaka Kahn "Feel For You"

"Cha-Cha-Cha-Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan....."

Damn. Now I have that song stuck in my head....

 

[K.M. Richards]

In MusicMaster, that is a Rule Tree setting about "number of other dayparts before repeating" coupled with "offset of hour since last play in the daypart".

@amos1001 makes an excellent point: If you don't set the rules right, you often get a result that will be a negative to your audience.

 

[K.M. Richards]

"Cha-Cha-Cha-Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan....."

Trivia: That intro was provided by Grandmaster Melle Mel of "White Lines" fame. And the song was written by Prince, intended for Patrice Rushen (who turned both it and "I Want To Be Your Lover" down).

 

[amos1001]

In MusicMaster, that is a Rule Tree setting about "number of other dayparts before repeating" coupled with "offset of hour since last play in the daypart".

mid 1980s, small market with no computer music scheduling software. the only music software we had back then were those floppy green record sleeves. i guess by then we weren't using yellow felt glued to the turntable platter, but that was the only other music software.
actually we used the index card system for anything that wasn't a current, and a homemade grid system for currents playback. as limited as that was, it was tons better than just playing the record on the top of the stack. before that, nowhere i had worked ever even considered anything except how often the A's, B's etc turned over. it was as if we thought the audience could only remember the previous few hours, never considering that people have routines they follow mostly every day.

 

[K.M. Richards]

mid 1980s, small market with no computer music scheduling software. the only music software we had back then were those floppy green record sleeves. i guess by then we weren't using yellow felt glued to the turntable platter, but that was the only other music software.
actually we used the index card system for anything that wasn't a current, and a homemade grid system for currents playback. as limited as that was, it was tons better than just playing the record on the top of the stack. before that, nowhere i had worked ever even considered anything except how often the A's, B's etc turned over. it was as if we thought the audience could only remember the previous few hours, never considering that people have routines they follow mostly every day.

I did something similar at the last station I worked for directly, back in 1989. I was APD and MD, and also did mornings.

Index cards for all categories outside of currents. I kept a log of when I played every current in the morning and then used the previous day's log to shuffle the currents so they would then stagger throughout the day from the day before.

The non-computer version of what is now the MusicMaster rule tree.