I am Appalled!

[davideduardo]

Re: Hey DC!

[Back in 1985 my last year as a programmer/consultant I hired Jerry Clifton. One of Jerry's ideas and if memory serves me correctly Jerry was the first to execute this on air. Jerry wanted to play two stop sets per hour. At the time our spot load was 14 minutes. He told me his research revealed listeners would rather have two long stop sets as apposed to 3 or 4 stop sets with fewer spots in each cluster. I went with the idea. Initially our ratings doubled but as I have witnessed long term I prefer the 4 spots, 3 times per hour format. Of course today I hear up to 20 minutes on some stations. That's not acceptable.

Bill Tanner was doing two sets of 5 minutes each in the 70's at Y-100 in Miami. Clifton was, briefly, until it lost its license, across the street in Miami. He likely picked the trick up from Tanner, with whom he worked a decade or so later on Power 96.

As a programmer and manager at RKO I worked on the History of Rock and Roll with Bill Drake. If I’m not mistaken I recall the show was designed for 8 units per hour. Can you imagine running that program today? You would have a difficult time with time.

I believe it was designed for 12 minutes, 8 local and 4 barter, and there was a break-off segment that could be killed if the station needed more time for news or additional commercial commitments. AT40 was designed the same way, in fact.

 

[grantchester]

I remember one Saturday morning in the Four Corners region, a few decades ago. It was the weekend before the national elections, and there were also tribal elections that week. I looked at the spot load on the log, and phoned the owner. "I thought the NAB Code limited us to 20 minutes a hour?" I said. "The NAB Code is suspended" said the owner. I was on the air from 5:30am to noon. I played four songs. The rest was 4 minutes per hour of news, 2 psa's, and all the rest commercials.
Oddly enough, the listeners actually tuned in for the commercials, because they told who was buying rugs, who was pawning jewelry, and who had the best price on Tokay wine.

 

[TheLaffer]

I remember one Saturday morning in the Four Corners region, a few decades ago. It was the weekend before the national elections, and there were also tribal elections that week. I looked at the spot load on the log, and phoned the owner. "I thought the NAB Code limited us to 20 minutes a hour?" I said. "The NAB Code is suspended" said the owner. I was on the air from 5:30am to noon. I played four songs. The rest was 4 minutes per hour of news, 2 psa's, and all the rest commercials.
Oddly enough, the listeners actually tuned in for the commercials, because they told who was buying rugs, who was pawning jewelry, and who had the best price on Tokay wine.

I agree. A FEW good national spots and a FEW good locally produced spots can be very informative AND entertaining but i also agree with dithers that 16-20-23 minutes of spots is a tuneout. After all didn't CC change all that and call it LESS IS MORE

BTW...who IS JC DITHERS???

 

[Eye]

Thanks to David Eduardo for his info on low tuneouts in long spot clusters.
It certainly surprised me. Good to have a board like this (and contributors like this) where you can get such info.
Happy New Year to all.

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

Theshadow pretty much summed it up without the "accusation of an exageration". The "embellishment" of another poster here is not worth the pixel on the screen. When you see various noted columnists,in our industry,and in advertising echo the same thing "over all listenership is down",then its pretty much the truth. The other alternatives such as the internet,ipods,etc, play a SMALL ROLE,and the reason folks turn to them is an escape from the mindless deluge of spots,and lousy talent of radio.
Consultants (and researchers who lost their objectivity years ago when corporate paychecks got bigger for them) lost their sensitivity to a given community plus its wants,and needs. "The product" replaced "the station". In the listeners minds"my station" is gone, therefore I am as well".

Grant: My referral was not about him. I just just skip over his fill in the blank stuff.

 

[TheLaffer]

Theshadow pretty much summed it up without the "accusation of an exageration". The "embellishment" of another poster here is not worth the pixel on the screen. When you see various noted columnists,in our industry,and in advertising echo the same thing "over all listenership is down",then its pretty much the truth. The other alternatives such as the internet,ipods,etc, play a SMALL ROLE,and the reason folks turn to them is an escape from the mindless deluge of spots,and lousy talent of radio.
Consultants (and researchers who lost their objectivity years ago when corporate paychecks got bigger for them) lost their sensitivity to a given community plus its wants,and needs. "The product" replaced "the station". In the listeners minds"my station" is gone, therefore I am as well".

Grant: My referral was not about him. I just just skip over his fill in the blank stuff.

"and lousy talent of radio". Wow ! Quite a statement kplexcomplex! Seems to me there is a lot of great talent still on the air and on the sidelines.

Ken Barnett
Larry Dixon
The Whole staff at The Oasis
Kiss jocks are great
Domino is hot!
Steve Harvey
Lisa Thomas
Jody Dean
Amy B
Mr. Ed
Bill Kinder
Debbie Diaz
Bo and Jim
Kid Kraddick

Shoot i could go on and on. Stop being so negative.

 

[beachguy3b]

Of course, those 3 unit, :90 max sets were long ago... "On the way, great new Eagles song in 60 seconds!" Somehow, that worked better than "One the way, great new Jessica Simpson song in 480 seconds!" (Okay, you'd never say "great" and "Jessica Simpson in the same sentence...)

I wouldn’t use the word “great” as a teaser for an upcoming artist or title period, then or now. That’s subjective to the listener’s feelings, and is more likely to drive away than retain. Better to keep ‘em guessing as to what is next.

R

Yeah, but I worked for PDs with ideas divergent from yours. Heck, I worked one large market station where it was SCRIPTED to say that going in...

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

Ok Laffer,I'll clarify. There a FEW good talents on the air,the ones you named,and a few others. Emphasis on FEW.

 

[Robert Bass]

Yeah, but I worked for PDs with ideas divergent from yours. Heck, I worked one large market station where it was SCRIPTED to say that going in...

Translation: It worked for clueless consultants who don't know any better.

Think about it... how can a "new" song be "great" if it just entered the playlist? The greatness potentioal of a song is determined by a number of factors. True PD's would know better, or at least they should.

Example: "Coming up next, a great new song from the Eagles" 30 seconds later, the opening acustic guitar chords of Hotel California emit from the speakers. Listeners who barfed at it when it was new, will tune you out in a heartbeat.

R

 

[TheLaffer]

Yeah, but I worked for PDs with ideas divergent from yours. Heck, I worked one large market station where it was SCRIPTED to say that going in...

Translation: It worked for clueless consultants who don't know any better.

Think about it... how can a "new" song be "great" if it just entered the playlist? The greatness potentioal of a song is determined by a number of factors. True PD's would know better, or at least they should.

Example: "Coming up next, a great new song from the Eagles" 30 seconds later, the opening acustic guitar chords of Hotel California emit from the speakers. Listeners who barfed at it when it was new, will tune you out in a heartbeat.

R

Robert, with all due respect you're being obnoxious and showing your lack of depth. Think about what you jst said.

how can a new song be great? You've never listened to a brand new song and thought it was good/great?

You're splitting hairs like most programmers do in radio.

 

[arnoldevns]

Consolidation of the industry was the beginning point of the mess commercial radio is in today. That’s why spot loads are longer. There’s no longer a reason to be competitive, since so many stations are owned by a single company.

I remember back in the day when KVIL used to run a spot load after every song. But IIRC they kept those breaks short. Looking back on that now, that was probably more ideal than 7 to 10 minutes of spots in a row.

I think the best way to handle spot loads is to keep them very short in duration. For example, a music station could play three songs, and follow it with three minutes of spots, max.

R

One station I worked at tried to bunch most of the spots for an hour into the second quarter hour. There were 4 spot breaks an hour that each ran around 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. Essentially it worked like this:

:15 - :18 Commercials
:18 - :21 Song
:21 - :24 Commercials
:24 - :27 Song
:27 - :30 Commercials
:52 - :55 Commercials

There were other brief breaks for the DJ to do the station ID, weather, traffic, etc.. but they were kept to no more than 30 seconds each.
The logic was that most other stations spread out their spots and we would steal away their audience in the 1st, 3rd and 4th quarter hours. It worked like a charm until the other guys started to do the same thing. Of course, nowadays you couldn't do that because the station is programmed from somewhere outside the market.

 

[Robert Bass]

Robert, with all due respect you're being obnoxious and showing your lack of depth. Think about what you jst said.

how can a new song be great? You've never listened to a brand new song and thought it was good/great?

You're splitting hairs like most programmers do in radio.

Laffer,

You completely missed my point!

Sure I’ve heard new songs that I thought were great the first time I heard them, but that is a subjective feeling. I’ve also heard new songs that I also thought sucked. Again, that’s purely subjective.

Having a jock call a new song “great” is also subjective. It’s one thing for a jock to say “coming up next, a brand new song by (insert a group or artist name here)”. But for a jock to say something like “Coming up next a GREAT new song by…” In this case, the jock may personally love it but the listener may hate it, and vice versa. That’s why you’ll likely never hear a jock say something like, ‘Coming up next, a sucking song from…”

This is the same reason we teach the students not to say things like “A great song by so and so”. Doing so is, as I have stated, subjective.

Please read my posts a little more carefully before you jump to such rash conclusions regarding what you think I am doing.

Thanks,

R

 

[Mich]

With everything I've read, I can only say this:

The LOCAL retail company I work for now plays XM in the store. They can't stand the "local" stations anymore. Breaks my heart that it's come to this.

 

[TheLaffer]

Robert, with all due respect you're being obnoxious and showing your lack of depth. Think about what you jst said.

how can a new song be great? You've never listened to a brand new song and thought it was good/great?

You're splitting hairs like most programmers do in radio.

Laffer,

You completely missed my point!

Sure I’ve heard new songs that I thought were great the first time I heard them, but that is a subjective feeling. I’ve also heard new songs that I also thought sucked. Again, that’s purely subjective.

Having a jock call a new song “great” is also subjective. It’s one thing for a jock to say “coming up next, a brand new song by (insert a group or artist name here)”. But for a jock to say something like “Coming up next a GREAT new song by…” In this case, the jock may personally love it but the listener may hate it, and vice versa. That’s why you’ll likely never hear a jock say something like, ‘Coming up next, a sucking song from…”

This is the same reason we teach the students not to say things like “A great song by so and so”. Doing so is, as I have stated, subjective.

Please read my posts a little more carefully before you jump to such rash conclusions regarding what you think I am doing.

Thanks,

R

Ok you make some valid points. They are subjective in nature. But i still say you're splitting hairs. It reminds me of some of the pd's i've worked with that will put in force some of the most rediculious ideas. Say Pt. Sunny not pt. cloudy, rain songs on on rainy days etc. I remember reading somewhere why Rush Limbaugh got out of music radio. Some of the most asinine ideas pd's would make him say. IE: it's 20 min after the hour that 8:20. Do you realize how stupid and insulting that is, not to mention unnatural. Some Radio programmers can come up with the silliest phrases that nobody uses in regular conversation. Stop the radio gaga and ENTERTAIN! It's about entertaining no matter how you say the weather or how you describe a song. Is it: right now it's 63 or is it: Currently it's 63. BFD! These are not basics! It's Radio GAGA.

 

[Robert Bass]

Yes I agree some of that is trivial "half empty vs half full" stuff. But we'll have to agree to disagree on the hair spliting stuff with regard to my primary point.

At any rate, I'm not a PD, I'm just the MD.

R

 

[Chuck]

With everything I've read, I can only say this:

The LOCAL retail company I work for now plays XM in the store. They can't stand the "local" stations anymore. Breaks my heart that it's come to this.

While the people in your local store may not like the local stations, that may just be the beginning of the problem. A very good reason for using XM or some other provider for in store music has to do with copyright problems. ASCAP does visit stores in the Dallas area, and they do check to see if the storekeeper is paying royalties to them. Been there, done that. Paid ASCAP a lot of money.

It is sometimes easier to just pay a subscription to a third party and let them worry about the royalty issues. It also saves you the embarrassment of having your in store audio system running commercials for your competition.

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

True retailers are starting to turn to other forms of music. Some have (and have had) their own in store networks. Some retailers have used music choice ,but lately I have noticed XM and Sirius being utilized a lot. Even the local barbershop have switched from the local pop or country station to one of the above. Another indication of things changing. One retailer said,they do not want another retailers ads in their stores. It makes sense. Still another said,there is too many commercials and the same song over and over again affects my employees. So there you go.

 

[TheLaffer]

Yes I agree some of that is trivial "half empty vs half full" stuff. But we'll have to agree to disagree on the hair spliting stuff with regard to my primary point.

At any rate, I'm not a PD, I'm just the MD.

R

Hey I respect your opinion Robert. It's nice to see we can debate the issues and still be fairly cordial.

 

[AndyBarber]

What surprises me is that advertisers are willing to shell out $$$ to be the #7 spot in a break.
How many people are still listening after the 6th spot?

Nearly everyone. POM proves it amply.

HEY DAVID YOU MUST BE YOUNG..WHO GIVES SHIT ABOUT THOSE YOU DEMOS..YOU NEED TO WORK IN THE FIELDS OR SACK FOOD YOUR "LATE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonder if the people meters will be able to tell clients how many ears are still there to hear their message late in the spot break. Probably a heck of a lot different number than the AQH.

No, it is about the same. There is very little loss. Most people stick with thier favorite station, enven in the car (where only 30% of listening takes place) and don't hit buttons instantly.

Glad I was able to work in radio when owners really cared about the community and the quality of programming.

Many of them still do, just as in the past. In fact, I found more corner-cutting and weaseling in the 60's than today... all by smaller owners.

 

[JimmyJames]

In my younger days, I was a big fan of a fairly eclectic alternative music station that relied heavily on local commercials. The station was a tough catch some days from my location, but I would stay tuned through the interference because I knew the music coming up on the other side was unique, and what they offered wasn't offered on any other station. As a result, the ads stuck in my head and I remembered most of the people that advertised on that station.

Years later, I'm programming a station thats up against several much larger stations in the same format, giving away cash, cars, and having live jocks all day. My theory is that if our station "clones" the bigger stations as the previous PD wanted it to, then as soon as we hit commercials, the listener has 5 other buttons to choose from playing the exact same mix and offering them more incentive to stay tuned. Since we can't out budget them, I tweak the music mix to encourage longer listening and a mix of songs that the audience likes but can't get elsewhere along with the bigger current hits. Bringing a balance to it. The audience feedback was immediate and strong, that this is what they wanted and were loving the new sound. However, the GM and Sales Manager didn't agree with the approach, being stuck in the larger market mentality, and cut the new format at not far into its life.

Sad what they did to the station, but proof it works. I was glad to have the chance to do it.