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Fewer cars with AM radios...

boombox4 said:
I've never yet met a person who told me "I love hearing Kokomo / Free Bird / Hotel California being played several times every day!" But the research apparently speaks differently.
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Because normal people don't think or talk that way. And the research doesn't say a sentence to that effect either. They're most likely not hearing any songs several times a day because they don't listen that long (assuming the rotations are being managed...and if not, that's an isolated and different issue). If they do listen so much, or on such unusual patterns as to hear the multiple plays, they're also outliers. Much of the time, the radio/music is background noise amidst a million other things. Work, chores, driving to work or the kids to some activity or another, or grocery shopping or whatever. No one, except maybe a few people on boards like this with too much time on their hands, sits there and tracks the songs they hear or even more comically, analyzes hours of past playlist data (assuming it isn't your job, to be clear).
 
And yet radio people ponder "flow" to the extent that they develop software to help them with it. If a station is playing consensus positive-testing music, what does it matter to the average, non-geek listener whether playing Consensus Hit A and Consensus Hit B back-to-back is a brilliant segue or a train wreck? One would think such distinctions only exist in the minds of those who are paid to believe they exist and act on that belief, not in the minds of people working in an office or driving their cars, who are thinking about everything else but song transitions, right? What they're hearing are a couple of songs they like from a playlist made up of songs they like. Whether "Hotel California" is playing after "Smooth Operator" should be irrelevant.
 
CTListener said:
And yet radio people ponder "flow" to the extent that they develop software to help them with it. If a station is playing consensus positive-testing music, what does it matter to the average, non-geek listener whether playing Consensus Hit A and Consensus Hit B back-to-back is a brilliant segue or a train wreck? One would think such distinctions only exist in the minds of those who are paid to believe they exist and act on that belief, not in the minds of people working in an office or driving their cars, who are thinking about everything else but song transitions, right? What they're hearing are a couple of songs they like from a playlist made up of songs they like. Whether "Hotel California" is playing after "Smooth Operator" should be irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Which would make perfect sense if humans didn’t have a subconscious and couldn’t be irritated by things they can’t quite put their finger on.

But they do and they can.
 
KyleAndMelissa22 said:
There is one AM station in Spartanburg SC,
WASC 1530 that plays R&B hits, yes I wish they were on FM or can get an FM translator, but that still wouldn't stop me from listening to them if they have some great stuff on the air.
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Spartanburg has three AMs. Four if you count 950. There is one on 1400 AM which doesn't seem to simulcast anything but does have a translator. Maybe 910 AM has moved somewhere else, though I imagine 910 and 950 have their towers there.
 
CTListener said:
And yet radio people ponder "flow" to the extent that they develop software to help them with it. If a station is playing consensus positive-testing music, what does it matter to the average, non-geek listener whether playing Consensus Hit A and Consensus Hit B back-to-back is a brilliant segue or a train wreck? One would think such distinctions only exist in the minds of those who are paid to believe they exist and act on that belief, not in the minds of people working in an office or driving their cars, who are thinking about everything else but song transitions, right? What they're hearing are a couple of songs they like from a playlist made up of songs they like. Whether "Hotel California" is playing after "Smooth Operator" should be irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Yet stations have proven with research that flows that produce the perception of "variety" do much better than random flows that are not curated. Things like the age of a song, the vocal style, the tempo, groups / men / women and lots of other things can make a segue or a set or an hour perceived to be better than just the same songs dumped onto the air.

At one of the most successful stations ever, KOST, PD Jhani Kaye would listen to a cassette of the tail together with one of the tip of two songs to see if they sounded right together. That was the era when the station had huge ratings and very long TSL. He did that for every segue he had any doubts about... every day!
 
DavidEduardo said:
Yet stations have proven with research that flows that produce the perception of "variety" do much better than random flows that are not curated. Things like the age of a song, the vocal style, the tempo, groups / men / women and lots of other things can make a segue or a set or an hour perceived to be better than just the same songs dumped onto the air.

At one of the most successful stations ever, KOST, PD Jhani Kaye would listen to a cassette of the tail together with one of the tip of two songs to see if they sounded right together. That was the era when the station had huge ratings and very long TSL. He did that for every segue he had any doubts about... every day!
Click to expand...
And why most successful music PD's avoid inserting 'oh wow' songs into a playlist. Especially during drive times. An 'oh-wow' to one person, likely becomes a-'oh Hell no', to many others.
 
A friend of mine managed several major market FM's. He was a believer in music testing. He pointed out that many would say Free Bird or Stairway To Heaven were their favorite song. But then after a few notes in, they were gone. Music testing tells you what people really want to hear, which is not the same as what they say they want to hear.
 
Harvey_Dogg said:
A friend of mine managed several major market FM's. He was a believer in music testing. He pointed out that many would say Free Bird or Stairway To Heaven were their favorite song. But then after a few notes in, they were gone. Music testing tells you what people really want to hear, which is not the same as what they say they want to hear.
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Exactly.

"Stairway" is an undeniably great song. But from about 1977 to ten years ago, I'd push the button within the first five notes. I didn't think it sucked, I didn't hate it. But I really didn't feel the need to spend seven-plus minutes listening to it again.
 
boombox4 said:
"A lot" is a relative term, and can be any number. One could possibly say that a lot of African Americans in the Seattle region listen to BIN. The estimated cume, acc. to the 6+ ratings, is around 4,000 people over the past month. That's twice as many people as the average attendance to a local WNBA game here.

I suppose it's conceivable that if a person knew a lot of people in the African American community, they might be exposed to at least some of those estimated 4,000 BIN listeners, and get the impression that a lot of people listen. Just as if you're a WNBA sports fan or heavy duty basketball fan here, you might meet a lot of fellow WNBA fans, and get the perception that they are popular.

Talk station KVI 570, in Seattle, is a conservative station that's been on that format since the 1990s. They got a 0.8 in the 6+ ratings the last month. Their estimated cume was 43,900, about the population of a small city (and more than twice the average Seattle Kraken attendance). Now, if all of my circle were conservatives, I'm sure that I'd find some KVI listeners in that circle, just as if my circle were mostly heavy duty sports fans, chances are high I'd meet more than a few who went to a Kraken game.

In my own anecdotal experience, any time I talk to people about radio, they say they hate hearing the same tried and true classic songs over and over again. I've never yet met a person who told me "I love hearing Kokomo / Free Bird / Hotel California being played several times every day!" But the research apparently speaks differently.

Perception always comes into play, doesn't it. I know I've had it. Took me a while to realize that when it comes to preferences in what I hear on the radio, I'm an outlier, as probably a lot of us are here.

PS, this isn't aimed at Continuous Wave. It's just a general observation. There have been threads on this sort of perception thing on RD before -- many of them I've been a part of. I hope his station is doing OK. It's a tough economy now for a lot of stations. I hope he has those younger listeners, too.
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I think I can say unequivocally that every regular contributor on this board is an outlier! In fact, it's possible that just reading this board makes one an outlier!
 
jhimbo said:
Are car manufacturers saving a boatload of money by not including AM. I would think it would be minimal.
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Including AM should be minimal. Dealing with customer complaints about interface, especially that caused by the car's own components, is another matter.
 
wadio said:
Including AM should be minimal. Dealing with customer complaints about interface, especially that caused by the car's own components, is another matter.
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You're right, the radios are all SDR's. The manufacturer turns whatever service on or off in software.
The thing manufacturers/marketer's are worried about is controlling the user experience. Having someone not familiar with AM select it, only to hear a bunch of noise, buzzing, or the typical rancid audio quality of AM, could be considered an inferior customer experience to be avoided.
 
wadio said:
Including AM should be minimal. Dealing with customer complaints about interface, especially that caused by the car's own components, is another matter.
Click to expand...
More than that it clutters the display.
 
I meant interference, not interface, but you got the point. A few years ago a dealer spent quite some time trying to track down a high-pitched noise on the AM band of my under-warranty used car when I stepped on the breaks. They never did. That was when I subscribed to SiriusXM and figured out how to stream broadcast radio through Bluetooth.
 
WHB 810 AM is 50kW day, driving around near the Independence Center Mall today (2004 civic), 710 AM was noisy (980 AM was a little less noisy), but to my surprise, 810 AM was also noisy (I rarely listen to 810, just tuned in as experiment).

At night, 710 AM is sometimes too noisy (at my suburban location) to listen to on my Sony boombox, many times I listen on 103.7.


Kirk Bayne
 
kfbkfb said:
WHB 810 AM is 50kW day, driving around near the Independence Center Mall today (2004 civic), 710 AM was noisy (980 AM was a little less noisy), but to my surprise, 810 AM was also noisy (I rarely listen to 810, just tuned in as experiment).

At night, 710 AM is sometimes too noisy (at my suburban location) to listen to on my Sony boombox, many times I listen on 103.7.
Click to expand...
Welcome to just one of the many challenges for AM. Are you new here?
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Because normal people don't think or talk that way. And the research doesn't say a sentence to that effect either. They're most likely not hearing any songs several times a day because they don't listen that long (assuming the rotations are being managed...and if not, that's an isolated and different issue). If they do listen so much, or on such unusual patterns as to hear the multiple plays, they're also outliers. Much of the time, the radio/music is background noise amidst a million other things. Work, chores, driving to work or the kids to some activity or another, or grocery shopping or whatever. No one, except maybe a few people on boards like this with too much time on their hands, sits there and tracks the songs they hear or even more comically, analyzes hours of past playlist data (assuming it isn't your job, to be clear).
Click to expand...
Understood. Good points.
 
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