"SORRY ABOUT THAT CHIEF"!! why not pull up some old WABC airchecks and see how they did it back then..i could barely get WABC way down here back then..but occasionally if the skip worked south..i could get the decenlt..but WLS boomed i9n at night..another great station with super jingles and jocks...
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How Deep Should A Playlist Go?
- Thread starter Captainfirst
- Start date
Frustration has set in. It's taking forever to pre-process audio if I try to use the VST effects in Winamp- just doing a single track is taking 12 minutes between the processing and the saving as an MP3 file. And when I try to run all the effects in Winamp, the CPU load, combined with Breakaway Live, just freezes everything up.
But I'm working on it all. I did sign up with Live365 earlier today, and so help me, I will be on-air by the end of this day if it kills me.
But I'm working on it all. I did sign up with Live365 earlier today, and so help me, I will be on-air by the end of this day if it kills me.
i'll be the first to say i am not a tech genius..although i do know my way around a recording studio, and live band stage presentation having done that for many years..that being said i'm in the dark on all the tech side on these internet stations..i'm using two five year old pc's, a hundred dollar audio technica mike and a fifty dollar piece of software from OTS audio...and everyone that listens tells me it sounds great..i monitor the stream off one pc as i webcast on the other..and the sound is fat, plenty of frequency range..not muddy at all.i use the compression and dynamic processor that OTS provides and i have a bullet proof stream..unless the weather throws a fit...listening through a decent three way speaker system it sounds as good as any i've heard...and better than a lot..now if there is something that will enhance the sound and i'm unaware of it..i'd sure like to know about it.. i do all this over on ustream..you have a choice of audio and video..or just audio..for some crazy reason my listeners actually WANT to watch me do this...lol..sure makes it hard on wardrobe and makeup for an old man..you can listen to the recorded stream from last Fridays show by logging into my web site... www.chucklundi.com (shameless self promotion :
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..Deltas69, I'm sending you a PM to ask something. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up.
Your core audience for oldies gets tired of the same ol' songs. This is not to say you kill everything in the Top-100 or your most popular tunes. But an occasional deep track hurts nothing, especially when it's wrapped within good imaging, trivia, or execution of the format.
Fred Richards said:
Just track that kind of song in the PPM via MediaMonitor's M Score. "Kiss of death" is an overly kind statement.
You know, I get sick and tired of people saying that playing just ONE SONG will kill your audience. All of the following will make a button pusher out of me, yet stations do these all the time:DavidEduardo said:
excessive commercials
Bob and Tom and Rick and Bubba and John Boy and Billy and on and on and on...
sports programming, be it NASCAR (I call it "nasty car"), high school and college football and basketball, whatever
Yeah, I know, sports makes money for radio stations, but if I'm hearing sports programming, I know that it will be a good six to eight HOURS before I hear MUSIC on your station again. And I will be GONE for that whole time! Worry about losing listeners because you play just ONE SONG that they don't like? Gimme a break! I keep other stations on my presets so that I will have something to listen to when certain stations go into long-form sports programming. I must have substitute stations available because nearly all of them go into LONG-form sports programming at one time or another. Saturday afternoons in the fall are the worst! Might as well listen to a CD. :
WELL SPOKEN FIREPOINT !!! I just don't understand the appeal of Rick and Bubba, or J B and Billy.. B and T i can almost as i have several friends that listen and they seem to be intelligent otherwise..lol.But thirty years ago goofy redneck humor would not have had a chance on the air..started going that way when ANYONE could be on the air..no license needed..so every wanna be suddenly can get a shot at a show i guess...AS for sports..the only sport i care anything about is football..but i watch it..don't listen as a rule..and i don't understand the appeal of watching grown men make a left hand turn all afternoon..much less listening to THAT on the air..
DavidEduardo said:
Every classic hits and oldies radio station does it all the time at one time or another....why the fuss? You make it sound like these songs should never be aired, ever. Playing ANY song that someone dislikes, may frown some. Playing an obscure song that people like and have not heard in years, will gain audiences.
Playing "My Girl" 12 times a week during the afternoon drive slot will have me tune out. Playing "Sweet Cherry Wine" once, will get me curious.
Fred Richards said:
Stations do it all the time, except for the ultra-tight, repetitive types and claim they are the greatest hits on "earth"....sure.
Deep tracks attract audiences, since they are rarely heard and offer something "new" to the lineup. Wanna gain listeners, play "new" songs. Freshen up your playlist...enough of the boredom.
firepoint525 said:
Radio stations in the PPM markets are able to subscribe to services that can track stations moment by moment and match the songs, commercials, morning show bits and even promos with the matching audience behavior.
If a station sees that each time the morning show does horoscopes, about 25% of the listeners go away, they will pull that feature really fast. The same goes for songs. If every time, over hours, days, weeks, months, a song plays it has a definite negative effect on the audience, then that song will not be played any more.
Interestingly, listeners seem to understand that stations have commercials. It is the trade off you get for free and ubiquitous radio. Listeners don't, however, tolerate songs they don't like. Or jocks that are not entertaining or who talk too much.
When Mark and Brian and Elvis Duran and Ryan Seacrest and Kid Kraddick and the rest don't deliver high ratings, they will be gone. But stations in the top 48 markets that are metered know exactly how listeners respond to their talent.
Tell me when every station in a market has sports on? And we can see with the meter exactly how well sports does on a moment by moment, inning by inning, quarter by quarter basis.
You have really made a case for getting an iPod or a smart phone with an MP3 player on it. You don't like radio, and folks in radio know that there are a few people that can never be pleased and so we don't even try.
You are assuming that most radio listening takes place in the car where listeners have easily accessible buttons and programmed options. In fact, less than a third of listening is in the car, and most people don't hit buttons because the radio is not convenient or easy to change or they are simply doing something else.
That's why, when we see a song that loses, consistently, 15% to 20% or more of the audience, we know that the listeners who don't hit a button are also not enjoying the moment...
Sounds like you are in a small(er) market. In large markets, there will be only a couple of stations with a sports presence, while the rest will continue to do what they normally do.
Might as well listen to a CD. :
So people actually listen to CDs still? I thought they were just used to rip songs onto our MP3 player!
oldies76 said:
All the evidence I have seen, meaning years of moment to moment data in many PPM markets, shows that deep tracks drive listeners away.
One thing is playing as many songs as you can find that are "consensus" hits to your audience, but another is adding even more songs for the sake of "variety."
In fact, when based on behavior, "variety" is never defined by listeners as "more songs." Variety is "one of my favorite songs is playing every time I tune in."
There is absolutely no evidence that deep cuts do anything but destroy a station... and the career of the program director. All of us who program or have programmed have either been fired or seen someone fired for expanding the playlist and shrinking the ratings.
deltas69 said:
Your argument fails because it has never been necessary to have a license to be on the air.
Licenses have been required to take transmitter readings, etc. While at some stations, the person on the air also had to do that, and needed a license for that purpose only, at many stations that had board ops or, longer ago, transmitter engineers, the DJ or talent needed no license.
For most stations... FMs, and non directional AMs and directionals with stable patterns, the license was essentially based on a form you mailed in... my first license, which allowed me to run a major market FM alone at night and on Sunday, required me to check off some things on a form and then put a signature and a stamp on it.
The licenses that required a test were the ones needed to either be alone on duty at a directional AM (one of the first restrictions removed 30 or so years ago) or to work on the transmission equipment. The First Class Radiotelephone license was a multi-part test and required a fairly good knowledge of engineering (or a really good memory)... but even that license had nothing to do with announcing.
So, if you want to lay the blame on someone's doorstep, don't look to the relaxing or elimination of licensing requirements for your reason.
EXACTLY! Stations don't want to risk losing listeners over playing a song that they are unfamiliar with, but yet they are perfectly okay with losing listeners over playing a song that they are over-familiar with (in other words, sick of!)! Even everyday listeners are starting to notice that so and so plays the same songs over and over and over and over and over! :oldies76 said:
firepoint525 said:EXACTLY! Stations don't want to risk losing listeners over playing a song that they are unfamiliar with, but yet they are perfectly okay with losing listeners over playing a song that they are over-familiar with (in other words, sick of!)! Even everyday listeners are starting to notice that so and so plays the same songs over and over and over and over and over! :oldies76 said:
But there are no business/marketing/TSL/cume metrics defined for that aspect of tune-out.
This comes quite intentionally.
Such a mindest comes from the aspect of those who would hold to the idea that absolute uniformity
can/should be achieved or that it is even an ideal for all things.
Sometimes it is best that things be done differently every single time.
This is the essence of customer service. Each one has a customized order or need.
Cumulus stations seem to play nothing but national (1-800) commercials, so why don't they just sell ads at the corporate (network) level, and just fire all their local sales staff like they already have done with their air staff?DavidEduardo said:
But doesn't Seacrest actually play MUSIC? (Don't know about the others that you mentioned.) John Boy and Billy play music, but I don't think any of the rest of the ones that I mentioned play any tunes. And like you, I don't like chatty djs, either, but yet they put all these bozos on the air who actually think that they are funny and laugh at their own jokes! :
And the longer I was in radio, the LESS I talked over song intros, etc. I learned to just let them "breathe."I already gave you an example. Saturday afternoons in the fall.
AHA! So you actually WANT listeners like me to tune you out! How are you gonna sell THAT to your advertisers? Oh, wait, never mind, they are buying ads at the network level now, anyway, as I said earlier. If I want to see a commercial for a local sponsor, I can watch TV or read print ads in the newspaper.
So now you are suggesting that you can read listeners' minds? And that they are telling you, "I really don't like your station, but I am listening, anyway"?
It is not truthful for a station to claim to be a 24/7 music station, while also carrying sports. I understand that stations must carry public affairs programming, to please the FCC, but they bury that at 4:30 on Sunday mornings. When I worked overnights, I longed for that type of programming, because it didn't make sense to me to have to "play the hits" when no one was listening. And as a board op, I actually liked sports programming because it is "easy money." Just show up and play the spot breaks. No thinking about what I am going to say at the next station break, or anything like that. It almost programs itself!
So people actually listen to CDs still? I thought they were just used to rip songs onto our MP3 player!Might as well listen to a CD. :
[/quote]Whatever. Tell that to the record stores that are still selling them. At any rate, whether they are listening to CDs, 8-tracks, or even 78s, they still aren't listening to your boring station.
I also post on a number of non-radio boards, and some of what I posted about here is the same types of things that they complain about. So tell it to them, not to me.Tom Wells said:But there are no business/marketing/TSL/cume metrics defined for that aspect of tune-out.firepoint525 said:EXACTLY! Stations don't want to risk losing listeners over playing a song that they are unfamiliar with, but yet they are perfectly okay with losing listeners over playing a song that they are over-familiar with (in other words, sick of!)! Even everyday listeners are starting to notice that so and so plays the same songs over and over and over and over and over! :oldies76 said:
This comes quite intentionally.
Such a mindest comes from the aspect of those who would hold to the idea that absolute uniformity
can/should be achieved or that it is even an ideal for all things.
Sometimes it is best that things be done differently every single time.
This is the essence of customer service. Each one has a customized order or need.
And you contradict yourself. You say that each customer has individual needs, yet you defend the practice of playing only the same handful of songs for everyone. How is that meeting an individual need?
Hi, David, hit this link from 8:00 a.m. until noon CDT tomorrow (Saturday) and let us know what you think. Popular program, well sold, with some deep tracks.
http://den-a.plr.liquidcompass.net/player/flash/audio_player.php?id=WRLTFM&uid=443
(Not my station, by the way. I have never worked for them.)
http://den-a.plr.liquidcompass.net/player/flash/audio_player.php?id=WRLTFM&uid=443
(Not my station, by the way. I have never worked for them.)
DavidEduardo said:
And the ones that like that any particular song, will keep listening....it's a cycle. As said many times before, every song is someone's favorite or is liked by someone. Other songs, other WELL-TESTED songs are also disliked by some or may not be someone's favorite either.
If a station, whether it be some local oldies AM, or a highly rated FM, were to begin inserting "new" classic hits, listeners would be pleased, they would be curious as to what would be played minutes later. And if some hear the same ole , same ole right after, you'd be more at risk for some tune-out than for extended curiosity and overall long-term "listenership" to that station.
Agreed that excessive talking jocks are not tolerated. It's a turn-off, people want music, not a speech.
DavidEduardo said:
Some of us still play 45's......or reel to reel tapes.
firepoint525 said:I also post on a number of non-radio boards, and some of what I posted about here is the same types of things that they complain about. So tell it to them, not to me.Tom Wells said:But there are no business/marketing/TSL/cume metrics defined for that aspect of tune-out.firepoint525 said:EXACTLY! Stations don't want to risk losing listeners over playing a song that they are unfamiliar with, but yet they are perfectly okay with losing listeners over playing a song that they are over-familiar with (in other words, sick of!)! Even everyday listeners are starting to notice that so and so plays the same songs over and over and over and over and over! :oldies76 said:
This comes quite intentionally.
Such a mindest comes from the aspect of those who would hold to the idea that absolute uniformity
can/should be achieved or that it is even an ideal for all things.
Sometimes it is best that things be done differently every single time.
This is the essence of customer service. Each one has a customized order or need.
And you contradict yourself. You say that each customer has individual needs, yet you defend the practice of playing only the same handful of songs for everyone. How is that meeting an individual need?
That was a completely sarcastic remark, coming from me. I run the world's greatest Pt 15 AM 24/7 trainwreck.
I like the idea that every station should be as identifiable as a fingerprint, and the more detail, resolution, and individuality each
has can be the only real growth area for radio.
That area is always risky.
There's always someone right there to tell you you're doing it wrong, because it much be done such-and-such way.
That's always the difference between commodities and art.
Only art will take such a risk, and believe that it can be done in any way, simply by will.
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