Formats: Rock dying

[davideduardo]

I know people who leave their TV sets on all night long just so there will be "some noise" (their words) in the house or apartment. Are they counted? Who knows?

The PPM, once docked, will stop validating measurement if there is no movement after a certain period of time. But it will begin detecting at some point early in the morning around the average wake-up times to capture any listening when in the dock before the meter is clipped to a belt or a purse. I believe Nielsen TV meters do the same thing if there is no channel changing for more than a certain time.

A lot of TVs and DVRs of more recent construction also go to sleep to rest the screen (even if the DVR keeps recording). All of mine ask "continue to view" after about two hours of no button pushes (mute, volume, channel, etc).

But as I said in my prior post, advertisers have known about this for decades. It's factored in, just like companies "factor in" wear and tear on your personal car if they pay your expenses for business use. It's a known condition and, thus, not relevant to this argument.

 

[TheBigA]

It's a known condition and, thus, not relevant to this argument.

Plus you don't throw out the results of a study because of a few exceptions. Exceptions are standard in all polls and studies. That's what we're talking about.

 

[b-turner]

I was a Nielsen TV household. If the TV was on for hours (I think more than 4) you got a call asking about that time frame. If the sound was muted for a period of time they'd call to find out why. If you slept nightly with the TV on, they knew it. Another thing, you had to hit the button periodically when it asked if you were still watching...maybe each 42 minutes. If you didn't, your viewing session ended at something like 44 or 45 minutes. It was incredibly detailed with periodic phone calls, mail and sometimes a visit.

 

[davideduardo]

I was a Nielsen TV household. If the TV was on for hours (I think more than 4) you got a call asking about that time frame. If the sound was muted for a period of time they'd call to find out why. If you slept nightly with the TV on, they knew it. Another thing, you had to hit the button periodically when it asked if you were still watching...maybe each 42 minutes. If you didn't, your viewing session ended at something like 44 or 45 minutes. It was incredibly detailed with periodic phone calls, mail and sometimes a visit.

Of course, outside of the metered markets, TV is measured with the same kind of diary system as the over-50 Nielsen markets. If you don't write it down, it did not happen.

 

[landtuna]

But it IS measured. And the way its measured has been authenticated by a panel of experts. Once again, it doesn't matter if they're awake, having sex, or reading a book. None of that matters, they get counted, and because they get counted, money gets paid. This is scientific, and not guesswork. Just because you personally don't accept it doesn't mean anything. You get put into the "world is flat" group. Which is fine. It's not that "we don't know," it's that YOU don't know. And you won't take the time to find out. So you stay in a state of blissful ignorance. Just like your view about today's musicians.

Let me try this one more time. I don't care about revenue. I am questioning the numbers.

A comment about "scientific polls". Look back at the presidential polls of 2016 then tell me they are accurate.

 

[TheBigA]

Look back at the presidential polls of 2016 then tell me they are accurate.

It was a close election, and the Democrat won the popular vote, which is what the national poll showed.

So they WERE accurate. Within a margin of error. And some people lied to them. That's what happens when you ask people about their behavior.

For example, how do I know your daughter sleeps with music on? I have no documentation on it. Just your word.

Did you actually READ the article I posted? Or are you just reacting to the title? How would I know the truth?

 

[davideduardo]

Let me try this one more time. I don't care about revenue. I am questioning the numbers.

A comment about "scientific polls". Look back at the presidential polls of 2016 then tell me they are accurate.

I gave you the ratings for all 17 of the top rated stations in Phoenix. You note that there are just three levels, 0.4, 0.3 and 0.2. A station can increase or decrease month to month by about +/- 20% or so in listening and still have the same rating. So a margin of error of a couple of percent is irrelevant to stations and to ad buyers.

In an election, the winner takes it all, so there can be no margin of error. Polls are estimates, and they have a mathematically determinable error.

In radio, as station with a share of 4.6 or a 4.1 or a 4.2 or a 4.7 will all be within a single tenth of a rating point. Agencies don't care if a station is #1. They buy the top stations that fit their pricing goal, with a station with a 0.4 eligible for double the rate of a 0.2 station.

In an election, the one with half the votes of the other candidate does not get half of a presidency. In radio, the station with half the rating bills less than the leading station. But since in major markets, 10, 15, 20 stations vying for ratings can all make money, it does not matter if you are 1st or 3rd, 5th or 11th, 12th or 16th.

Polls in business do not have to be that precise as there are always multiple winners in different business categories. Increasing the sample size does not change the outcome, even if the results have a narrowed margin of error.

You have indicated that you come from a binary world. Bits, bytes. On or off. Radio is fuzzy, not binary.

And as BigA says, those political polls were amazingly accurate. But in horse races and politics, close is not good enough. Everywhere else it is.

 

[Tibbs4]

That is exactly what I am saying. Rock did not proceed itself. It became a genre sometime between the late 50's and mid-60's and it remained perhaps the most popular of music genre's until the mod-80's. It then blew itself up (mostly because its artists had little to no talent for music but did have skills putting weird video's and wild hair together) into dozens of sub-genre's - which those of us who were around when the original Rock would not describe as Rock.

A 1932 Ford is still a 1932 Ford in 2019 but the two are not anywhere near the same vehicle. It is still called a "car" but that simple definition no longer works if trying to describe the two vehicles to someone who hasn't seen either. Same with Rock. 1960-1980's Rock isn't the same genre as the junk of today. (Not everything back then was great either so excuse the generalities.)

I am defining Rock according to the genre that came into being back then. There is no other valid definition.

Landtuna - quick question for you, if you don't mind answering. At or about what age did you start realizing that the rock music you liked, was not the rock music being performed by then "current" artists on the charts?

 

[Syfy]

My earlier comments were applicable to Rock genre only. The subject was "Rock is Dead" (or something close) and I was agreeing with those people who said Rock killed itself. Of course, radio helped because radio always chases what it thinks most popular. We all recognize it is a mass medium.

I was not criticizing any music genre "because I don't like it". Like everyone else I have an opinion and my opinion says spoken word is not music and neither is drumming (only) or rap. Additionally, I will admit that Grunge is Rock but that it is so much garbage that it helped kill Rock. That is my total point.

Theres a lot of new music people consider rock but really isnt like the jonas brothers for example they are considered a modern rock band. But you cant really compare them as being a rock band in the same sense like aerosmith or steve miller band just much different.

 

[DaveBayArea]

FWIW, I see the new release from Tool hit #1 after about an hour.

 

[TheBigA]

FWIW, I see the new release from Tool hit #1 after about an hour.

This requires a bit of explanation. This relates to the OP about Is Rock Dead. The band Tool started as rock music was in total confusion, with the arrival of grunge and hip-hop. Tool was in the style of the progressive rock/art rock bands of the 70s such as King Crimson. Of course some people may not even know about King Crimson. Greg Lake was the singer in this band before joining Keith Emerson for Emerson, Lake & Palmer. So that's the kind of rock music we're talking about. Very different from the Rolling Stones.

Tool hasn't had a record out in a long time. They had also been the last holdout in releasing their catalog digitally. So last week, they released their entire catalog. At the same time, they released a new album called "Fear Inoculum." So all of this caused a lot of activity in the rock world, and several Billboard chart records were broken. Billboard has a chart that tracks streaming, and that's likely the one that showed Tool at #1 in an hour. A very active fan base can make a song #1 very quickly in the streaming world. This is not the radio airplay world, where songs by Tool are mixed in with lots of other bands. Right now, Tool is in the Top 10 in the rock airplay chart. The difficult part for radio is that all the songs on this album are long (minimum 10 minutes) and are hard to categorize. Is it heavy metal? Is it grunge? Is it alternative? It's showing up as active rock. So it's driving some excitement in the rock world at a time when people are predicting the death of rock.

 

[macattack]

Tool hasn't had a record out in a long time. They had also been the last holdout in releasing their catalog digitally. So last week, they released their entire catalog. At the same time, they released a new album called "Fear Inoculum." So all of this caused a lot of activity in the rock world, and several Billboard chart records were broken. Billboard has a chart that tracks streaming, and that's likely the one that showed Tool at #1 in an hour. A very active fan base can make a song #1 very quickly in the streaming world. This is not the radio airplay world, where songs by Tool are mixed in with lots of other bands. Right now, Tool is in the Top 10 in the rock airplay chart. The difficult part for radio is that all the songs on this album are long (minimum 10 minutes) and are hard to categorize. Is it heavy metal? Is it grunge? Is it alternative? It's showing up as active rock. So it's driving some excitement in the rock world at a time when people are predicting the death of rock.

"Fear Inoculum" also briefly appeared on the Billboard Alternative chart last week, I expect it'll re-enter eventually. Mediabase also has the song in the low 40's, on the verge of crossing into the top 40.

I have found most radio stations are making their own radio edits in order to play the song. KPNT and my local rock station WXRQ are both using custom edits that cut the song to about 6 minutes, and WKQX when they tested it had cut the song to a shocking length of 3:15.

Anyway, as for rock broadening, it doesn't really matter. "Lo/Hi" by The Black Keys successfully crossed over to all three rock formats, and at its peak it had approximately 6,000 spins between the formats. It didn't even sniff Bubbling Under or Hot 100 Airplay despite all of these spins. You have to cross over to adult contemporary, you have to cross over to pop, and neither format has any patience for crunchy guitar rock like The Black Keys. Increasingly, not even alternative does, alternative as a format has more in common with AC and Pop/CHR than with rock/AAA at the moment, which is making me suspect that alternative may be flipped to a pop format if current trends hold.

It's telling that the last time rock had consistent success on pop, it was when alternative and active had roughly 15-25 songs crossing over between the formats at any one time, which ended around 2011-12.

 

[TheBigA]

"Fear Inoculum" also briefly appeared on the Billboard Alternative chart last week, I expect it'll re-enter eventually. Mediabase also has the song in the low 40's, on the verge of crossing into the top 40.

From what I can see, the song was #1 on the Rock Digital Sales chart last week, and dropped to #16 in the latest chart, dated 8/31. It peaked at #3 Hot Rock Songs (airplay & streaming). The Mediabase charts will be released today, and Fear Inoculum is Top 10 Active Rock. Don't know about custom edits. Bands tend to frown on such things. The song broke Billboard's record as longest song to enter the Hot 100 at 10:21. Don McLean's 1972 hit American Pie is #7 at 8:37 (for the combined Parts 1 & 2). Critics are describing it as "progressive metal."

 

[landtuna]

Did you actually READ the article I posted? Or are you just reacting to the title? How would I know the truth?

Believe it or not I read everything you post even though I don't agree with some of it.

Why would I lie about something so begnine? No way I could make any money on it.

 

[landtuna]

You have indicated that you come from a binary world. Bits, bytes. On or off. Radio is fuzzy, not binary.

An excellent description!

 

[boombox4]

Rock did not die because of Grunge, or the Nu-Metal that came right after it. In fact, such genres of Rock kept it vital and alive for another decade.

Rock died because demographics changed and their tastes change. There was quality rock being produced throughout the latter decade of the 2000's, when Rock began to dip in sales and popularity. There is quality rock being produced now, from Led Zep knockoffs like Greta Van Fleet to really good hard rock by bands like Mastodon, Tool and Gojira. The problem isn't the music, it's that Rock is aging out.

Jazz and big band didn't dip in quality during the late 1940's and early 1950's. Tastes changed. Times change.

 

[TheBigA]

The problem isn't the music, it's that Rock is aging out.

That's why the format is struggling in radio, and why stations like KFOG are giving up. But at the same time, you have Rock 100 in Atlanta shifting to a younger presentation. My question there is will the younger audiences come back to a traditional platform when they can get exactly what they want digitally? I don't know the answer there.

You mention the jazz analogy, and what happened there was the music became less commercial. Miles Davis was very different from Benny Goodman. It's not that Miles made bad music, but he wasn't making radio songs. Less commercial means smaller audiences, and a lot of rock today is less commercial. It's the tribalism thing that Seth Godin predicted 10 years ago. Bands are targeting tribes rather than making music for a radio format. It's up to radio programmers to identify the biggest tribes and play the music that'll attract them. That's a real challenge, and then the next question is are the existing formats appropriate for where the music is going. We know that radio formats have adapted and changed as the music has changed, and perhaps that's where things are going. But I agree with your view that the music has to keep changing, and that's why to the boomers who define rock strictly around what they grew up with, rock (as they knew it) is dying.

 

[daddyoo]

not in philly and many other markets where repetitious rap and hip hop are dead.

 

[davideduardo]

not in philly and many other markets where repetitious rap and hip hop are dead.

What makes you think urban music is dead in Philly? Most of the top on-demand downloads are rhythmic or urban, and the shares of the three urban type stations are equal to those of the two classic rock stations. And urban is part of the format of CHR as well.

 

[daddyoo]

the demise of 106.1 and 96.5, poor showings of Power and the constant dismal ratings of Radio One properties, to name a few..