It's 2015! Time to get rid of the '70s.

[davideduardo]

If the crooners of the baby boomer age did not matter, why do I keep hearing Dean Martin's "Aint that a Kick in the Head " in several commercials???

Because it is catchy, campy and cheap to license.

 

[oldies76]

Afterwards, the two of you can plan how someone with no radio programming experience can "outsmart" the folks who have learned by trial and error through decades of experience.

In fact, this sounds like a show that Donald Trump could host: The Programming Apprentice. It would be amusing to see the numbers drop, week to week.

Our own thorough music knowledge and background along with several of those chart- reference books you seem to despise are more than enough experience needed to successfully run a small market station w/o the wastage. And we would win the Trump show with human creativity, instead of robotic type research and dull testing practices.

 

[semoochie]

For in-home and at-work, a 65 dbu signal is necessary. Analysis of Arbitron data showed that 80% of all such listening was in the 70 dbu contour and 95% inside the 65 dbu. That is why KOLA only gets a tiny 0.2 share in the LA market, while KRTH, with a much bigger signal, gets a 2.0 share in the Riverside / San Bernardino market.

For actual listening, take the innermost red contour of radio-locator.com and reduce it by about 20% to get the 65 dbu. For in-car, go just a bit outside the red contour.

Protected countours are used for station allocation purposes. There is very little listening that far out, even in cars.

I agree that it wouldn't work in Los Angeles, partly because the LA stations are better and more localized than the IE stations but what if you were out in the desert, couldn't hear K-Earth at all but got slightly less than 65dbu of signal from KOLA? I'm just using this for an example. I have no idea if it's true or not but it supports my original point. Here's another thought. Let's say that KOLA played nothing but polka music and there was no other station in Southern California doing so. If you wanted to hear polka music, I think you'd rather be slightly inconvenienced by a lesser signal than to choose another less preferred option.

 

[semoochie]

I'll tell you what, go out into the street and ask a hundred people to name a "timeless" music act from 1915 and see how many responses you get. I submit that there is still some appreciation of people like Frank Sinatra because he's within the lifetime of someone in a person's life, say a grandparent or even great-grandparent BUT after that connection is gone future generations won't have anything to compare with. That is not to say that Nancy Sinatra's grandchildren won't tell THEIR grandchildren about Frank Sinatra but only in an historical perspective. They won't go around playing "Night & Day" on their personal music device.

 

[davideduardo]

I agree that it wouldn't work in Los Angeles, partly because the LA stations are better and more localized than the IE stations but what if you were out in the desert, couldn't hear K-Earth at all but got slightly less than 65dbu of signal from KOLA? I'm just using this for an example. I have no idea if it's true or not but it supports my original point. Here's another thought. Let's say that KOLA played nothing but polka music and there was no other station in Southern California doing so. If you wanted to hear polka music, I think you'd rather be slightly inconvenienced by a lesser signal than to choose another less preferred option.

For indoors listening, the issue is more the quality of most radios and the laws of physics. Less than a 65 dbu signal will not be usable on the majority of radios.

Of course, if you are really a fan, you buy a better radio or figure out how to connect an outside antenna. We see most weaker signal listening in the past going to formats like jazz, classical and NPR because there is enough passion for those offerings to make people overcome obstacles.

 

[davideduardo]

Our own thorough music knowledge and background along with several of those chart- reference books you seem to despise are more than enough experience needed to successfully run a small market station w/o the wastage. And we would win the Trump show with human creativity, instead of robotic type research and dull testing practices.

How is asking listeners what they like "dull" or "robotic"??????

What you suggest would be as if you went into a restaurant and they gave you no menu, but, instead brought you what the chef decided you should like.

And, as you have been told time and time again is that the charts from the 50's through the 70's, outside the top 15 or 20 positions, are very dangerous to use for radio programming. And many songs that briefly hit the top 10 were the product of record companies pushing product into retail that never got sold but was reported for the charts. Those reference books are a good double check to see if you have tested everything you should from an era, but they have no relationship with which of those songs people want to hear today.

 

[Music Lover]

There's plenty of music that "transcends the ages". But there's not much that transcends the ham-fisted censors of modern music who claim that "testing" determines what they play. That's why OTA radio as we've known it for the past half century is dying.

Amen!

 

[Avid Listener]

What you suggest would be as if you went into a restaurant and they gave you no menu, but, instead brought you what the chef decided you should like.

You have just described how all really good sushi restaurants operate.

 

[Music Lover]

If the crooners of the baby boomer age did not matter, why do I keep hearing Dean Martin's "Aint that a Kick in the Head " in several commercials???

I'm 56 and grew up on a wide selection of music....Sinatra, etc and the Beatles, CCR, etc that my older brothers listened to...and then I was a top40 DJ in the 70s....I met Jimmy Dean, Bob Hope and several other singers and still love their music too.....Timeless music is just that...timeless....regardless of the decade......(rap?? UHHHHH no comment)

Exactly! It's like this explains: http://www.consumerpassion.com/consumer_passion/2007/12/josh-grobans-no.html

 

[davideduardo]

You have just described how all really good sushi restaurants operate.

I have been to sushi restaurants that offer a chef's selection based on what the sushi chef deems the best and freshest and nicest of the day's offerings. But you still get to choose whether you want that option or to order by the item.

In any event, what percentage of Americans do you think regularly dine at sushi establishments?

 

[TheBigA]

Exactly! It's like this explains: http://www.consumerpassion.com/consumer_passion/2007/12/josh-grobans-no.html

Selling records and programming radio stations are two very different things.

 

[davideduardo]

Exactly! It's like this explains: http://www.consumerpassion.com/consumer_passion/2007/12/josh-grobans-no.html

First, I have never heard "... Kick in the Head" so I searched for it. No thanks. It's way out of my demo.

The Josh Groban album your link refers to is a Christmas album. Christmas, when young women sing along with Bing Crosby and Nat "King" Cole. A specialty product that has the very nice quality of being appropriate for all generations in the holiday season... an album you can play over Christmas dinner or while decorating the house or wrapping presents. Very traditional, very non-offensive and, if I may say it, very "white".

There is no mainstream standards trend. There is no pervasive interest in standards by folks below about 60 or so.

 

[Avid Listener]

I have been to sushi restaurants that offer a chef's selection based on what the sushi chef deems the best and freshest and nicest of the day's offerings. But you still get to choose whether you want that option or to order by the item.

In any event, what percentage of Americans do you think regularly dine at sushi establishments?

Then it's obvious that you haven't been to a really good sushi restaurant.

And not to belabor a metaphor to death, or else TheBigA will end up chiming in, but at all really good restaurants, the chef created his menu based on what ingredients were available at the produce yards before the day began. At a really good restaurant, the patrons do get to pick from a menu, but what's on the menu on any given day is what the chef has decided to put on the menu that day.

Besides, a restaurant isn't the same as a radio station. The similarities are so few and irrelevant that any use of a restaurant's menu to make a point about radio is just plain foolishness. And had anyone but you made the mistake about chef's I would have ignored it, but since you cannot let an opportunity to make a pedantic correction to something that's totally beside the point pass by, I assumed you must really like pedantic corrections, so you'd enjoy being shown up in public as having made an irrelevant mistake.

And for the record, my wife and I enjoy visiting sushi restaurants at least every other week.

 

[Music Lover]

You and BigA totally missed the point of the article. The radio/music industry is stuck on targeting the fickle under 30 crowd, while ignoring practically everyone else.

 

[CTListener]

Then it's obvious that you haven't been to a really good sushi restaurant.

And not to belabor a metaphor to death, or else TheBigA will end up chiming in, but at all really good restaurants, the chef created his menu based on what ingredients were available at the produce yards before the day began. At a really good restaurant, the patrons do get to pick from a menu, but what's on the menu on any given day is what the chef has decided to put on the menu that day.

Besides, a restaurant isn't the same as a radio station. The similarities are so few and irrelevant that any use of a restaurant's menu to make a point about radio is just plain foolishness. And had anyone but you made the mistake about chef's I would have ignored it, but since you cannot let an opportunity to make a pedantic correction to something that's totally beside the point pass by, I assumed you must really like pedantic corrections, so you'd enjoy being shown up in public as having made an irrelevant mistake.

And for the record, my wife and I enjoy visiting sushi restaurants at least every other week.

That make two people. I, on the other hand, do not. And I know no one who does. The sushi restaurant census is stuck at two.

 

[davideduardo]

You and BigA totally missed the point of the article. The radio/music industry is stuck on targeting the fickle under 30 crowd, while ignoring practically everyone else.

The music industry, like the film business, targets younger consumers because they spend more money more often on their offerings so they go where the money is. The older a person gets, the less they spend in these categories even when good quality product is offered to them.

I just looked at the top 20 billing radio stations in the US. 14 of them target a core audience that is over 30. 9 target a core audience that is over 40. Only 4 are CHR stations.

In fact, the most common mass market advertising target is 25-54. Not 18-34 or 18-24. That means that 45-54 is just as important as 25-34 or 35-44. And stations try to target some subset of that broad age range... some go for the young end, some for the older end, some for the middle. Stations go where the money is.

 

[davideduardo]

Then it's obvious that you haven't been to a really good sushi restaurant.

I've been to many. For that I am fortunate live in an area where some of the best are nearby.

...at all really good restaurants, the chef created his menu based on what ingredients were available at the produce yards before the day began. At a really good restaurant, the patrons do get to pick from a menu, but what's on the menu on any given day is what the chef has decided to put on the menu that day.

And the chef puts on the menu things he knows his diners will order. If they don't order a particular item, or if they don't eat it all based on what the bus staff brings back... he won't prepare that any more. Research, with instant feedback.

Besides, a restaurant isn't the same as a radio station.

No shit, sherlock.

But the example of being given something without your being asked or consulted stands. You are such a fan of hyperbole, you should have recognized the literary device I was using. But apparently such devices are only valid when you use the.

The similarities are so few and irrelevant that any use of a restaurant's menu to make a point about radio is just plain foolishness. And had anyone but you made the mistake about chef's I would have ignored it, but since you cannot let an opportunity to make a pedantic correction to something that's totally beside the point pass by, I assumed you must really like pedantic corrections, so you'd enjoy being shown up in public as having made an irrelevant mistake.

What a long winded statement, meaning nothing.

I could have used an example of a toy store where you can't pick the toy for the age and gender of the person you are buying for but, rather, are handed an unmarked box.

The point is that it is better to let the consumer make their own choices, rather than to decide what you think they should have. Since radio is one-to-many in a push model, it has to deal with consensus choices rather than the pull model's ability to accept individual ones. But the fact remains that it is better to ask the audience how it feels than to decide for them.

And for the record, my wife and I enjoy visiting sushi restaurants at least every other week.

Most people don't. That's your individual taste, which you appear to wish to push off on everyone else and if they don't buy it, you demean them.

 

[Music Lover]

The music industry, like the film business, targets younger consumers because they spend more money more often on their offerings so they go where the money is. The older a person gets, the less they spend in these categories even when good quality product is offered to them.

Baby boomers have more disposable income: http://fairnessradio.com/advertisers-largely-ignoring-baby-boomer-generation-study-shows/

Brazen ageism according to the AARP: http://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-2014/advertising-to-baby-boomers.html

Quite agree with what Vince Gill says in this, "Don't stop playing artists because of their age": http://www.countrymusicchannel.com.au/news/vince-gill-speaks-against-country-radio-ageism.aspx

http://www.agewave.com/media_maddy/press09_05.html

As this says, the oldies draw in the heaviest concert crowds: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/07/does-the-record-industry-ignore-baby-boomers.html

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insigh...eters-cant-afford-to-ignore-baby-boomers.html

Google it and you'll see plenty more about how baby boomers are being ignored.

 

[TheBigA]

You and BigA totally missed the point of the article. The radio/music industry is stuck on targeting the fickle under 30 crowd, while ignoring practically everyone else.

We've discussed this situation a million times on this board and elsewhere. Google it, and you'll see.

When it comes to advertiser-supported radio, the goal is to attract the audience that advertisers want. Generally speaking, that is people under the age of 50.

Baby boomers may have more disposable income. If so, they can afford to spend some of it on Sirius or subscribing to internet services. Free radio is paid for by advertisers, and they want people under 50. Older artists and older audiences have lots of media available. They just have to look for it.

 

[ContinuousWave]

We've discussed this situation a million times on this board and elsewhere. Google it, and you'll see.

When it comes to advertiser-supported radio, the goal is to attract the audience that advertisers want. Generally speaking, that is people under the age of 50.

Baby boomers may have more disposable income. If so, they can afford to spend some of it on Sirius or subscribing to internet services. Free radio is paid for by advertisers, and they want people under 50. Older artists and older audiences have lots of media available. They just have to look for it.

I seriously disagree...it depends on the market.....locally, the top morning show is a local legend in radio and is in his 70s...he draws from 20s to 80s....he does a lot of live reads (which were always entertaining in top40 days)...Older audience do not do well with new tech....turning on a PC and even setting up email is hard (I have done it for several people holding MASTERS degrees in education!!!)...