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Does anyone besides me think AC today is a joke?

semoochie said:
That used to be not such a bad idea when FM didn't really enter the picture because there were far fewer competitive signals. In Portland OR, for about half of the 1960s, all viable signals were some kind of MOR(KOIN was actually CBS block programming, left over from pre-television.)except KWJJ which switched from MOR to Country in 1965 and KISN, the local Top 40 outlet. By the way, it occurred to me that some people may have grown up entirely on just one Top 40 station and since in those days, they really played all popular genres that it might be possible that not being able to change stations, when an unliked song played,(We couldn't even tune out the commerials!)might have a wider appreciation for music. This could be at least part of the reason that some on this board steadfastly cling to the idea of large playlists.
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That's perhaps the best point made in this entire multi-year-long set of threads about playlist length and variety on classic hits / oldies stations.

My early adolescent experience with Top 40 was in a former Top 10 market in the era when FM had no impact or audience. There were 8 stations, including one daytimer. At any given moment, 3 were MOR variants, 3 were Top 40 variants and two, including the daytimer, were r&b stations.

The Top 40's played everything from Dean Martin, Dominico Modugno and Dave "Baby" Cortez to Frankie Avalon, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. I despised the former and loved (most of) the latter. So, given several Top 40's to chose from, I would tune out "Mac the Knife" and look for something more "hip" on one of the other stations. But when I couldn't immediately switch the dial, I got exposed to "Happy Organ" and "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu" and did, as you say, develop a liking for some and a tolerance for others.

Today, that market has about 20 different formats or variants, as well as all market's exposure to satellite and new media music sources. One can indulge a niche preference much more easily and avoid exposure to less preferred genres.

Again, great point.

I do, based on your observation, wonder when listeners began to be much more focused on one kind of music and less exposed to others. I would guess that it started with Motown, and enhanced by the British Invasion which were points when the MOR and "throwback" genres tended to be eliminated from Top 40. Of course, the beginning of real fragmentation was the time of the FCC's mandate to end most AM/FM simulcasts in 1967. But anyone growing up in the late 50's and early to mid 60's did get the cross-genre exposure you mention.

Good stuff to think about!
 
DavidEduardo said:
I do, based on your observation, wonder when listeners began to be much more focused on one kind of music and less exposed to others.
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To take it a step further, the children of boomers, AKA Gen Y, didn't have this experience. So they are less focused on one kind of music, and see music less by genre and more by application. Because we're now programming more towards Gen Y, it's likely that radio formats will become less focused around genre, and more around application (such as party music, office music, romantic music, etc). This began a few years ago with Mix AC formats, but I'm expecting it to become more prevalent, getting into other formats. Some country stations are already experimenting with it. As I've said in other threads, younger country fans have demonstrated knowledge and love of non-country music, while their grandparents and some of their parents generally didn't listen to non-country music.
 
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K.M. Richards said:
Music Lover (and spouse) obviously have a romanticized memory of the past which is not consistent with what the facts show as the actual history.
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Hi. I'm Music Lover's 8-year-old daughter. Mommy and Daddy's information about consolidation being bad is because they are die-hard, bleeding-heart liberals and they read liberal political news sites, which criticizes media consolidation.

Here are a couple of articles as an example:

http://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/telecom_dereg/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/26/414572/-Why-Media-Consolidation-Matters
 
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TheBigA said:
To take it a step further, the children of boomers, AKA Gen Y, didn't have this experience. So they are less focused on one kind of music, and see music less by genre and more by application. Because we're now programming more towards Gen Y, it's likely that radio formats will become less focused around genre, and more around application (such as party music, office music, romantic music, etc). This began a few years ago with Mix AC formats, but I'm expecting it to become more prevalent, getting into other formats. Some country stations are already experimenting with it. As I've said in other threads, younger country fans have demonstrated knowledge and love of non-country music, while their grandparents and some of their parents generally didn't listen to non-country music.
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This is also a very interesting and thought-provoking point.

We are seeing in PPM that the Gen Y listeners tend to use multiple dissimilar stations in significant amounts, while boomers tended to use several stations of the same flavor.

Another way of looking at it is by mood. Using your terms, "party mood" or "romantic mood". So for stations, if a song fits a mood, it belongs on the format irrespective of genre.

This is, in a way, a full circle: in the 80's and 90's, older (35-54) country listeners tended to be most attracted to the oldies stations as a second choice. Obviously we could discuss the crossover in sound and such, but what I see today is that the new country formats based on currents and throwbacks are driven by the same "feel" as the CHR's and, particularly Hot AC stations of today.
 
Music Lover said:
Hi. I'm Music Lover's 8-year-old daughter. Mommy and Daddy's information about consolidation being bad is because they are die-hard, bleeding-heart liberals and they read liberal political news sites, which criticizes media consolidation.

Here are a couple of articles as an example:

http://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/telecom_dereg/
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Ah, those laughable Salon.com articles about radio. I had forgotten how absurdly wrong they were.

"Nowhere has that consolidation been more acutely felt than in radio — where just two companies, Clear Channel and Infinity, now dominate the nation’s commercial radio stations. "

Let's just look at one quote. It's the foundation for the article and it is totally wrong.

Yes, Clear Channel had over 1000 stations in 2001. And what is now CBS and then called Infinity had a couple of hundred. But that was out of 13,000 stations in the US. And it ignores Cox, Cumulus, Entercom, Salem, SBS, HBC, ABC, Citadel, Radio One, Emmis, Susquehanna, Bonneville, Greater Media, Jefferson Pilot, Beasley, Bonneville and others, down to the single station owners.

This certainly shows that you can find support for even the most bizarre opinion with a simple Google search.
 
Hi. Music Lover's daughter again. Mommy and Daddy also read a variety of music blogs and forums and those blogs and forums also are highly critical of the radio and music industry.

Also, as Daddy said, various people in our community have also influenced our family's criticism of the radio and music industry.

That's all I needed to say on the matter. Goodbye everyone. This is the last post by our family. Mommy has requested for the account to be closed.
 
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Wow....that went off into the Twilight Zone there.

But the "mood" thing is interesting indeed. It seems logical to me, since that's one of the ways I create my playlists on various platforms. Some are decade based, but none are strictly "genre" based.
 
boombox4 said:
One of the consequences of this is that large segments of the public are not going to feel like they're being 'served' -- including large slices of the demographic pie, whether age or culturally based.

I gave up wanting to hear my favorite music on the radio long ago. That's what a CD player or Mp3 player is for. In my metro there are various commercial and non-comm FMs and numerous AMs, many of which play ethnic or other music. There still is variety to listen to. I just don't expect my favorites on there. I try to open my ears a bit instead. But that's just me.
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Exactly!
 
I would think A/C stations evolving is natural. We don't listen to the same music we did when we were teens. We evolve. Music evolves. If radio didn't evolve, then you have a failure to create a profit. I listen to lots of current music today just like I did when I teen. I've gotten older but I don't hold on to my past when it comes to the type of music I played on the radio in the 1970s when my career began.
 
It's funny, at one point I thought "Music Lover" made worthwhile contributions to threads. Guess I was way off on that assessment.
 
eriedj said:
It's funny, at one point I thought "Music Lover" made worthwhile contributions to threads. Guess I was way off on that assessment.
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I like her contributions and I give her and her family and A+ for challenging the sheeple here.
 
Again, I'll say it again - I blacklist almost every top 50 market AC station. Maybe make that top 100. Why do I want to hear the same cookie-cutter 275-300 song playlist as heard in the same market over? There's only enough times I can stand "Roar" and "When I Was Your Man" and "All About That Bass" before I change the channel.
KKRB and KSRW are my friends! As well as KOAI and KQEZ, and any smooth jazz station left (like KOAZ). Any station that still airs rare 1980s and 1990s singles, as well as album cuts, gets an A+ from me. Obviously, all the critics will put down an F for playing "music no one has ever heard of," but the rare singles on KKRB were heard on AC, Hot AC and even CHR in the 1980s and early 1990s. Obviously, 25 years ago people were listening to that.

-crainbebo
 
Over the past weekend, HBO had another of their free preview weekends, which is the only time I get to see any recent movies (the theatre experience has become too much of an assault on my hearing and as a result I don't even pay attention to the trailers on television to note movies I might want to pay-per-view).

But I digress. One of the movies I watched was "X-Men: Days of Future Past", which uses as a plot device sending Wolverine back in time to 1973 to undo the events that started the war against mutants. When he wakes up in 1973, the clock radio is playing Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and my first thought was to change stations.

File that under "a lot of stuff from four decades ago that I wouldn't want to hear again today", to follow in Bob's path.
 
K.M. Richards said:
One of the movies I watched was "X-Men: Days of Future Past", which uses as a plot device sending Wolverine back in time to 1973 to undo the events that started the war against mutants. When he wakes up in 1973, the clock radio is playing Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and my first thought was to change stations.

File that under "a lot of stuff from four decades ago that I wouldn't want to hear again today", to follow in Bob's path.
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One of my favorite soft hits from the 70's.
 
So will "Easy FM" be a satellite service, ala Westwood One's AC format? If they get the word out, I wonder if there will be quite a few affiliates.

-crainbebo
 
Bob Eubanks said:
I listeneted to a lot of stuff a quarter century ago that I wouldn't want to hear again today. :)
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And that's you and KM......but others would. You are expected to come to that conclusion in your field.
 
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