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Gold based CHRs

AbrahamJSimpson said:
This is tedious. A format is not a living being and as such does not want to do anything. What the people who program do want is to attract the desirable audience to sell so everyone makes their money.

If the songs test well, they play. If they don’t…they don’t. It’s a business. Always has been.
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This happens in country as well. Listeners get tired of artists for various reasons. Sometimes it's because fresh new artists are creating more buzz (and testing better). Sometimes it's because the established artists' songs stop connecting melodically or lyrically (again after testing). Some artists disappear after that first follow-up to a hit stiffs. Others become occasional hit makers. Fall Out Boy and Pink are yesterday's news at this point at CHR. At country, listeners are showing signs of losing interest in Carrie Underwood. Other consistent hit makers of the 2010s, like Brad Paisley, have already become gold-only presences on country radio. It happens, and it's all based on audience research.
 
CTListener said:
This happens in country as well. Listeners get tired of artists for various reasons. Sometimes it's because fresh new artists are creating more buzz (and testing better). Sometimes it's because the established artists' songs stop connecting melodically or lyrically (again after testing). Some artists disappear after that first follow-up to a hit stiffs. Others become occasional hit makers. Fall Out Boy and Pink are yesterday's news at this point at CHR. At country, listeners are showing signs of losing interest in Carrie Underwood. Other consistent hit makers of the 2010s, like Brad Paisley, have already become gold-only presences on country radio. It happens, and it's all based on audience research.
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Trustfall still made the Top 40 even on CHR and so did Never Gonna Not Dance Again.
 
CTListener said:
If you're not in the top 10, you have a stiff. Most stations don't play more than 20 or 25 currents in dayparts that matter.
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They both made daypart in a lot of places though. (Trustfall peaked at 20, Dance at 21 on mainstream top 40) Never Gonna Not Dance is still a recurrent where I live.
 
CTListener said:
Irrelevant when it comes to the big picture (the U.S. as a whole). Probably irrelevant even in relation to St. Louis and Springfield.
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In any case, she fares a lot better than people like Matchbox 20 who haven't made mainstream since 2012 and now only have songs on adult top 40 (like "Wild Dogs".)
 
CTListener said:
I'm not sure where we're going with this. The professionals have explained, I've tried to explain based on what I've learned from the pros and by observation, and yet still you're focusing on individual songs, Billboard charts, and Kansas City.
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Perhaps she is fading, then. That is true about country and pop artists losing prominence over time. Maroon 5 also is having less prominence with their new single as well. I was thinking the song had more widespread usage as a recurrent, but after looking it up, it does not have much.
 
tall_guy1 said:
It is possible that programmers could seek out new music themselves (even off label) and play and see if it resonates with their listeners, if a station wants to be current based. They could then test it among their listeners to see how well it works with their tastes and continue or discontinue play if it does not, even if it does not get serviced to pop.
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With respect, it seems this thread is going down the same path that several others have, and it's turning into yet another attempt to try and ask the same question and propose similar ideas in a slightly different manner to gain acceptance. Programmers, successful ones anyway, aren't there to expose their listeners to new music. They're not there to educate their listeners or to turn them onto music those listeners may not have known they liked otherwise. They're there to play the music that tests well and resonates with the greatest number of listeners in their key demographic and give the listeners what they've told you, through research, they want to hear. Throwing in "new music off-lable that programmers seek out themselves" will simply cause many listeners to switch off the station. That's the LAST thing programmers want to risk, especially in today's competitive climate.

There were markets that have played their "own" music before. In KC, Tech N9ne has gotten airplay and in other markets some individual (usually independently run) station spins a song. In 2016, KCHZ was one of the few to spin Tove Lo's Cool Girl and True Disaster, so station individuality might start happening for current based formats.
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And yet again, what's done at one station in the Kansas City market and using one specific song as an example does mean it would work elsewhere.
 
Mikey Radio said:
With respect, it seems this thread is going down the same path that several others have, and it's turning into yet another attempt to try and ask the same question and propose similar ideas in a slightly different manner to gain acceptance. Programmers, successful ones anyway, aren't there to expose their listeners to new music. They're not there to educate their listeners or to turn them onto music those listeners may not have known they liked otherwise. They're there to play the music that tests well and resonates with the greatest number of listeners in their key demographic and give the listeners what they've told you, through research, they want to hear. Throwing in "new music off-lable that programmers seek out themselves" will simply cause many listeners to switch off the station. That's the LAST thing programmers want to risk, especially in today's competitive climate.


And yet again, what's done at one station in the Kansas City market and using one specific song as an example does mean it would work elsewhere, or certainly that it should gain widespread use.
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Just my 2 cents.
 
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AbrahamJSimpson said:
This is tedious. A format is not a living being and as such does not want to do anything. What the people who program do want is to attract the desirable audience to sell so everyone makes their money.

If the songs test well, they play. If they don’t…they don’t. It’s a business. Always has been.
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You can't test until the average listener has heard the song five to seven times. That takes about 3 to 4 risky weeks of maybe playing a stiff.
 
DavidEduardo said:
You can't test until the average listener has heard the song five to seven times. That takes about 3 to 4 risky weeks of maybe playing a stiff.
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How does the average listener hear a song five to seven times in such a short time if many of the spins are overnight and the listener is only using radio for an hour or two (or less) a day? I know that when I listen to my favorite local country station in the wee hours of the morning, I usually hear at least one song an hour that I've never heard during my usual listening hours (middays and p.m. drive) and often never do?
 
DavidEduardo said:
You can't test until the average listener has heard the song five to seven times. That takes about 3 to 4 risky weeks of maybe playing a stiff.
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To clarify, my point was songs like "Hood Go Crazy" which got spun on KMXV in 2015 by Tech N9ne (a KC artist) or the Tove Lo songs on KCHZ. That kind of individuality is what I am referring to in terms of CHR maintaining a current-based presentation. Any new song would probably be presented to people and see if it resonates with a local population.
 
CTListener said:
I'm not sure where we're going with this. The professionals have explained, I've tried to explain based on what I've learned from the pros and by observation, and yet still you're focusing on individual songs, Billboard charts, and Kansas City. And Matchbox 20? Really? Geez, why don't you bring Creed and Natasha Bedingfield into the discussion?
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What I learned through the site is that new music is mainly a "blank slate" and programmers do not know how the public will react to it, whereas older music has extensive research.
 
MVB13 said:
I was listening to Z100 in New York (my local CHR) they played NSYNC's Tearing Up My Heart from 1997.
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They played it once. One time in an entire week. And you're using that one spin as being indicative of something?

Meanwhile, they're playing Karma 118 times a week. Basically once an hour (excluding morning drive)

The bulk of their music is current/recurrent. It's not "gold-based" if they're playing 5 currents once every hour.

About a year or so ago, they cut back the spins of their Top 5 to under 90/week. THAT was something. This isn't.
 
Compared to a decade ago they never played Tearin Up My Heart. Karma is overplayed as is Flowers. Everyone gave up on River and Jaded.
 
It is interesting hearing old Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, and Paramore played alongside NSYNC and Backstreet Boys.
 
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