Do You Really Care About Radio?

[davideduardo]

Exactly. Those of us who programmed in the 70s know that "turntable hits" (songs that got requests but not much in sales) outnumbered true hits by a significant margin. And the Billboard charts counted wholesale, not retail sales. If the record companies could convince stores the new Band X single was a smash, a million copies could ship over the first few weeks. Billboard wasn't counting when 975,000 of them got shipped back 90 days later.

Or... the retail record shops, which tended to be Ma & Pa operations back in the 60's, that were "incentivized" by the record label to report big sales for stiffs in exchange for discounted or free product when the labels and distributors discovered the store was on the big Top 40 station's store call list.

Research is a much better indicator of what songs are popular with today's listener than the charts were for listeners back then.

Ask anyone who has been involved with a lot of callout on currents... there are seldom more than about 15 hits... sometimes less. Yes, there are recurrents which are hits that need to be slowed down, and some recent adds that are not yet at the spin count needed for callout to be meaningful. But real hits... under 20 songs.

Almost any song that did not make it to about 12th (such as those that got to 15th and slid back down) was not a big enough song to even consider today... unless it was a movie theme, big cut off an album that sold big but where not all cuts were promoted by the label, etc. But as a rule, #20 as a peak is synonymous with "stiff."

 

[davideduardo]

(Buzz Bennett's rule that there are only 7 real hits at any given time, which is why his stations dropped to 20-22 record lists).

Yeah, that fits with what I was posting while you were making this comment.

There are under 20 hits... and maybe 5 to 7 powers at any given time. The powers would play about twice as often as the next 5 to 7, and then the last third would get even fewer plays.

15 to 17 hits, of which a third to a half are powers, and 4 to 5 recent adds = 22 songs.

Th-th-th-thats all, folks!

 

[davideduardo]

It's why stations eventually replaced their own full chart countdown with things like "The Telephone Top 10" (that day or week's most requested songs).

Stations as far back as the 60's knew this...

In the late 60's, my Top 40 station did the "5 plus 7" of the day... we were "Channel 57" at 570 AM then. That was the 7 true power hits, plus the 5 up-and-comers of the week; listeners could "vote" for the ones they liked or disliked (sort of a "make it or break it") to get involvement and to put variety in the power list, which could be the same for weeks on end.

We did door to door polling of listeners, too. One question we liked to ask every year or so was "how often would you like to hear your favorite songs?" And the answer was something like "every hour" in over half the responses, followed by the very similar "every time I turn on the radio."

 

[oldies76]

Nope. They're what are called mid-chart stiffs. There's a huge difference in the sales, assuming you have an honest count (see post above for disclaimer on the unreliability of chart numbers), between a #1 record (especially one that stays there for multiple weeks) and a record that only makes it to #5. There's a bigger gap down at #10.

You know, many #1's and #2's are not even played today....Look at 1970-1979 #1 songs, the majority of those are not even played anymore. Sure some of those are slower, AC types.

Take the #1's from 1977, looking at that list and 28 songs reached the top that year. Maybe 20 or 21 are not played regularly, if at all.....that's what I'm most concerned about.

So I'll assume you'll call most #1 songs, stiffs too.

 

[michael hagerty]

Exactly. Those of us who programmed in the 70s know that "turntable hits" (songs that got requests but not much in sales) outnumbered true hits by a significant margin. And the Billboard charts counted wholesale, not retail sales. If the record companies could convince stores the new Band X single was a smash, a million copies could ship over the first few weeks. Billboard wasn't counting when 975,000 of them got shipped back 90 days later.

Or... the retail record shops, which tended to be Ma & Pa operations back in the 60's, that were "incentivized" by the record label to report big sales for stiffs in exchange for discounted or free product when the labels and distributors discovered the store was on the big Top 40 station's store call list.

And don't forget the direct approach. If selling 100 copies of a given single one week would get a record into the Top 10 in a certain market, that was a $100 investment to the local promo guy ($53 where I bought my singles). Just round up some friends and co-workers and buy those records.

The gutsy ones (and guts were a requirement for a record promoter) would put the $100 on their expense account as entertainment, so the label really was buying its own records without knowing it.

 

[davideduardo]

So I'll assume you'll call most #1 songs, stiffs too.

A lot of them just don't qualify as hits today. Therefore, today, they are stiffs.

"You Light Up My Life" and "The Morning After" come instantly to mind.

Not only were those songs really AC songs (and dayparted on many CHR's) but they don't fit the desirable "happy" mood of classic hits stations.

Manilow, Carpenters, etc., etc.

 

[michael hagerty]

Nope. They're what are called mid-chart stiffs. There's a huge difference in the sales, assuming you have an honest count (see post above for disclaimer on the unreliability of chart numbers), between a #1 record (especially one that stays there for multiple weeks) and a record that only makes it to #5. There's a bigger gap down at #10.

You know, many #1's and #2's are not even played today....Look at 1970-1979 #1 songs, the majority of those are not even played anymore. Sure some of those are slower, AC types.

Take the #1's from 1977, looking at that list and 28 songs reached the top that year. Maybe 20 or 21 are not played regularly, if at all.....that's what I'm most concerned about.

So I'll assume you'll call most #1 songs, stiffs too.

No, but now we're back to the difference between what 12-24 year olds wanted to hear 35 years ago and what 35-45 year olds want to hear today.

The list? Here in Phoenix, I don't hear Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr.'s "You Don't Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show)", Leo Sayer's "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing", Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen", Mary MacGregor's "Torn Between Two Lovers", David Soul's "Don't Give Up On Us", Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights", Leo Sayer's "When I Need You", Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now", Alan O'Day's "Undercover Angel", Shaun Cassidy's "Da Doo Ron Ron", Meco's "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band", Barry Manilow's "Looks Like We Made It", Andy Gibb's "I Just Wanna Be Your Everything" or Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life".

I was 21 in 1977. I don't really miss any of those records. A lot of them would cause me to tune out. So why should someone who was between birth and age 10 be expected to care about them now?

By the way, for the purposes of this discussion, I kept my frame of reference to FM stations targeting 25-54 year olds. Most, if not all of those records get play on KOY-AM, which runs a satellite upper-demo oldies format (way upper...a recent ad agency demo breakout shows KOY's median listener age as 79.).

The #1s from 1977 that do get play on FM.. Rod Stewart's "Tonight's The Night" (Classic Rock, Classic Hits & AC), Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and Rose Royce's "Car Wash" (Classic Hits and Old School), Manfred Mann's "Blinded By The Light" and Eagles' "New Kid In Town" (Classic Hits and Classic Rock), Hall & Oates "Rich Girl" (Classic Hits and Old School), ABBA's "Dancing Queen" (Classic Hits and AC), Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" (Old School), Eagles' "Hotel California" (Classic Hits, Classic Rock and AC), Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" (Classic Hits, Old School and AC), KC and the Sunshine Band's "I'm Your Boogie Man" (Classic Hits and Old School), Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" (Classic Hits, Classic Rock and AC), Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" and the Emotions' "Best Of My Love" (Classic Hits and Old School) ...all have demonstrated appeal over years, decades, and now...generations.

 

[TheBigA]

Of those 3245 songs I figure I heard from 1963-1975 I have 2238, but I'm still organizing my over 18000 song inventory.

That's great. Then there's no need for radio to duplicate your own personal music collection. You can hear them any time you want.

 

[TheBigA]

It was a hit, because it was played often, if it reached the top 10-20+ of a chart, it reached #1, it reached #17....they are all hits.

Nope. Just because it was a hit in its time doesn't mean it's still relevant today.

 

[michael hagerty]

It was a hit, because it was played often, if it reached the top 10-20+ of a chart, it reached #1, it reached #17....they are all hits.

Nope. Just because it was a hit in its time doesn't mean it's still relevant today.

Which should be a surprise to no one. 1977 is 35 years ago. It is to now as 1942 was to then. The surprise is that any are still relevant, much less half of that years #1s (by my count).

I was programming to 25-54 year old adults in 1977 and I played exactly zero songs from 1942. In fact, the oldest record I had in the gold library was 21 years old. There weren't many pre-1964...which was only 13 years back.

I broke that rule exactly once, in 1978, when I found you could do a bitchin' segue between Barry Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You" and Gene Kelly's "Singin' In The Rain".

 

[michael hagerty]

And I'm wrong. It was 1980 and the Manilow record was "I Don't Want To Walk Without You". It was a bitchin' segue and the audience probably got it, but there was a lot less to lose in Reno in 1980 than just about anywhere in 2012.

 

[oldies76]

By the way, for the purposes of this discussion, I kept my frame of reference to FM stations targeting 25-54 year olds. Most, if not all of those records get play on KOY-AM, which runs a satellite upper-demo oldies format (way upper...a recent ad agency demo breakout shows KOY's median listener age as 79.)

Well, give them credit, someone's willing to take a "risk" I suppose.

 

[oldies76]

Which should be a surprise to no one. 1977 is 35 years ago. It is to now as 1942 was to then. The surprise is that any are still relevant, much less half of that years #1s (by my count).

I was programming to 25-54 year old adults in 1977 and I played exactly zero songs from 1942.

Amazing...well mixing in early 40's with '77 hits would not fit anyways since they are two distinct music eras. But 1977 music is all part of the rock era, which has lasted 57 years now....
So including '77 music now is hardly a trainwreck as to 1942's "Moonlight Cocktail" after "Hotel California"....

But I do get what you are saying here. Interesting discussion.

 

[michael hagerty]

By the way, for the purposes of this discussion, I kept my frame of reference to FM stations targeting 25-54 year olds. Most, if not all of those records get play on KOY-AM, which runs a satellite upper-demo oldies format (way upper...a recent ad agency demo breakout shows KOY's median listener age as 79.)

Well, give them credit, someone's willing to take a "risk" I suppose.

There's no risk. A 1,000 watt AM station at 1230 on the dial in a metro market of 4.3 million isn't going to get 25-54 listeners playing music. The fact that their median listener age is 79 isn't all that surprising, either. 35 years ago, those people were 44 and heard the songs on AC stations like the ones I programmed.

 

[davideduardo]

There's no risk. A 1,000 watt AM station at 1230 on the dial in a metro market of 4.3 million isn't going to get 25-54 listeners playing music.

And the station typically ranks around 45th in 25-54, which is just above the stations with a 0.0 share.

 

[oldies76]

And the station typically ranks around 45th in 25-54, which is just above the stations with a 0.0 share.

How would KWRP 690 be ranked among the Colorado Springs / Denver market stations? It also plays mainly 60's and 70's classics, part of the I-25 radio network.

 

[PirateJohnny]

Of those 3245 songs I figure I heard from 1963-1975 I have 2238, but I'm still organizing my over 18000 song inventory.

That's great. Then there's no need for radio to duplicate your own personal music collection. You can hear them any time you want.

Only when I'm at home. I'm in my car for about 75-80 minutes a day round trip to work and back home.

I guess one of the big questions (for oldies stations) is: how many songs should a station have in it's library and how often should a song be heard at the same time of the day?

OK, when you (anybody reading this, not just TheBigA) were young and listening to the radio, did you, or your friends, buy and request EVERY song you liked? What, then, really determined the hits back then? I never bought a lot of songs I liked. I never requested a lot of songs I liked. I think songs that are considered "hits" would be different if I and my friends had contributed to the data by buying and requesting songs.

The stations I have listened to in my lifetime that were "current music" stations also played oldies. So someone born in 1973 could have heard songs older than them even though they were listening to a "current music" station. I was born in 1957 and the station I grew up listening to in the late 60s had "Memory Making Weekends" where I heard a lot music from before my time. I still like those songs today.

How many years do people really listen to music stations and how many of those songs do they want to hear from time to time on the radio? In another post in this thread I mention the period from the Beatles/British Invasion to the Disco period, roughly 11 years. Songs from that 11 year period are at the core of my listening preference, and I figure I heard at least 3245 new songs in those 11 years. In my iTunes playlists I have, among others, Pre-Beatles, Beatles to Disco and Post Disco to 1987. Of those 3245 songs I figure I heard from 1963-1975 I have 2238, but I'm still organizing my over 18000 song inventory.

Three things...one from each paragraph above:

1) How did you decide which records you bought and which you didn't? The perception is that songs you'd actually spend money to hear mean more to you than those you'd simply pick up the phone and ask a DJ to play. And either of those mean more than a song for which you'd do neither
(Sales>Jukebox Play>Requests>Inaction).

2) You've just described how today's adults discovered songs they like from the past (plus inclusion in TV shows, commercials and films). Now: How many of those songs from the year before you were born until you began caring about contemporary music did you want to hear on a regular basis when you were in your mid 30s to mid 40s? All of them?

3) 18,000 songs in your library. I'm impressed. But you know, don't you, that that alone takes you out of the "typical" radio listener category?

1) How did I decide? If I had any money. But I wasn't a record buying teen. I was more into model cars. But I liked a lot of songs I heard and I knew I could hear them every night on the radio. I didn't really start buying the music I liked until around 1996, when I was 39.

2) 1957 to 1968? Those were the years I was buying the most music from when I started buying music when I was 39.

3) When I was 39 I started collecting songs for a DJ business, mainly aimed at the classic car crowd. I liked the songs, too, so they were also added to my personal collection. I don't DJ anymore but I'm still buying music like crazy. My sales aren't retro-active to the sales charts from back then, though. I was an AM Top 40 DJ starting in 1975. I switched to FM around 1989 and left the air in 1992. So, yeah, I'm not the typical listener. I should start an online station with my collection...

 

[davideduardo]

And the station typically ranks around 45th in 25-54, which is just above the stations with a 0.0 share.

How would KWRP 690 be ranked among the Colorado Springs / Denver market stations? It also plays mainly 60's and 70's classics, part of the I-25 radio network.

KWRP does not show in the Colorado Springs or the Denver books. It shows at 14th in 25-54 in Pueblo.

 

[LKellerIII]

Of those 3245 songs I figure I heard from 1963-1975 I have 2238, but I'm still organizing my over 18000 song inventory.

That's great. Then there's no need for radio to duplicate your own personal music collection. You can hear them any time you want.

Only when I'm at home. I'm in my car for about 75-80 minutes a day round trip to work and back home.

I believe all new cars sold in the last 2 or 3 years have stereos equipped with MP3 auxiliary inputs. If I were commuting 75 or 80 minutes a day, I would spend the $100 to retrofit my older car. I've always been a fan of radio, but I also like not being at the mercy of radio when I'm travelling by car. I drove from SF to Occidental in northern Sonoma County and back yesterday - iPod all the way...didn't even think about radio.

 

[stewie]

Every time i see a reply to this thread I think, "Of course we care about radio, we're reading a discussion board dedicated to radio".

I think some of the recent posts are a little off track.