This comment is coming from someone who is just your everyday average listener who needs some professional insight as to how music selections are made. I am a listener of 3WS and I am just baffled to why they play the same songs day in and day out. I can swear I hear the same songs every single day, if not every other day. For a station with a "classic hits" format, there are hundreds if not thousands of other songs out there that were hit way back when. For a a station like this, how is it decided what is played? Are so many songs downloaded and then just put into a random mix? Complaining to the station does no good. The bad thing is that they are the only game in town, other than WJPA, which has a much better music selection but is really hard to pick up, especially inside my place of employment, where I do most of my listerning. I can only stand hearing American Pie, Marguaritaville, and anything by John Mellancamp for so long. (That station really loves him!) You wonder why people don't like listening to the radio. Who wants to listen to the same songs each and every day. This town needs an oldies/classic hits station that would open up the playlist to include everything from the mid '50's through the early '80's. I know, I'm dreaming or out of my mind. It's not commercially or financially acceptable. All I know is thank God I still have all my '45's at home to listen to, and there's no Mellancamp records there.
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It's the Same Old Songs
- Thread starter db59
- Start date
Two words, Clear Channel.
Contact their HQ with your complaints. I would suspect many of the people actually working at 3WS share them but their hands are tied.
Contact their HQ with your complaints. I would suspect many of the people actually working at 3WS share them but their hands are tied.
M
MsMusicRadio
Guest
Cox does the same thing in Atlanta and Tampa
Much as a lot of folks on boards like this won't admit, 3WS and others are not playing thousands and thousands of songs is because it does not attract and keep a large amount of listeners. If it did, they would. I know, hard to believe, isn't every human being on earth sick and tired of "Freebird"? Well, no they aren't. You select titles by researching (many believe that asking your listeners is a dirty word because a PD should "just know") your audience and finding songs that at least 2/3 of the audience won't turn off. We would like to think that if we jsut opened up the dusty album vaults, played nothing but unfamiliar deep tracks, that people would tune in to your station in droves saying "wow. I hope thay never play a familiar song again!". Unfortunately, in the real world, average (non music geek) listeners have many choices, and if they don't know or like a song, they press that button. Study after study after study proves this.
All I know is Jim Trefney has the ability to make one's drink come out through his or her nose.
cingram said:
Because they've heard them approximately a billion times and are tired of them.
Like Free Bird.
How about just one or two cuts an hour before that huge stop set where they will tune out anyway?
The first poster was off the mark simply because no one will touch the '50s any more, except for maybe a handful of absolute proven winners. And I don't think anyone has suggested "all unfamiliar," either.
But I can tell you that when "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Crocodile Rock" or the other burnouts come on, I am gone.
And, btw, I have had the experience of hearing unfamiliar music on 3WS. Since they overhauled the music and moved the timeframe forward, they're playing '80s stuff that I missed because I was listening to '60s-based oldies stations when those '80s tracks were current.
The stuff that's unfamiliar to me doesn't instantly chase me away the way the burnouts do.
But I can tell you that when "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Crocodile Rock" or the other burnouts come on, I am gone.
And, btw, I have had the experience of hearing unfamiliar music on 3WS. Since they overhauled the music and moved the timeframe forward, they're playing '80s stuff that I missed because I was listening to '60s-based oldies stations when those '80s tracks were current.
The stuff that's unfamiliar to me doesn't instantly chase me away the way the burnouts do.
gr8oldies said:
It's amazing that programmers think any attack on the "same old" stuff is automatically a call by "oldies geeks" and "record collectors" to dig out unfamiliar tracks. It's not.
And responding positively to a song in research doesn't necessarily mean that the respondent wants to hear that song twice a day for the rest of their life.
Boss Radio said:
I think that's the singular mistake that defines modern programming. Lots of stations will change up some sort of "Oh wow" category every couple of months, but when they add those songs they play them twice a day for 60-90 days and the initial effect is lost.
There are a handful of stations over the last 15-20 years that have managed to put together big lists and prosper. WMMO Orlando was amazing its first few years (early 90s). They played about 2,000 titles... and they weren't just relying on their gut on any of them, they were all researched. Eventually Cox bought the station and dumbed it down to 300 songs.
The other problem programmers see is that when you're playing a big list, if you have a head-on competitor that plays the same stuff that you do, the station with the shorter list is usually playing a better song when the listener jumps back and forth between the two stations. Add that to the fact that the budgets for music tests have probably been sharply curtailed the last couple of years (they DO tell you when titles should be rested).
We're at a real crossroads in programming as the new media emerge. Radio when we were kids played 30 SONGS for the most part, and we loved it. FM created a multitude of new competitors who killed Top 40 by playing what were, for the times, wide varieties of "gold" (The songs that might occupy 1 or 2 slots an hour in Top 40).
Now we have hundreds of choices and it's becoming easier to access them. On a recent drive home from State College I plugged my Blackberry into my car audio system and listened to my old favorite sports show from Tampa for two hours via the "iheartradio" app. It's time for the medium to redefine itself. I'm not sure yet what that answer is, however, nor do I think many people in programming positions are quite sure which way to go.
With any "new" music format, you start out with a fairly deep library. After the ratings have had an opportunity to establish, that's when the playlist starts to tighten. More tracks get thrown out of the rotation, and before you know it, you're down to a core of about 100 songs (wish I was kidding on that one), and maybe a regular rotation of 200 to 250 titles, tops. It's a typical example of over-research, over-consulting, and what's wrong with the radio business today.
Naturally, no programmer worth his or her salt is going to push a format with music covering a spectrum of 50's to early 80's music. The "closest" you'll get to that is BOB-FM, and even that doesn't come close. It's a shame that no stations are taking a chance on specialty programming during the weekends when you can actually make money by playing the titles you don't hear anymore on the regular playlists.
As an example, in the late 90's, WLTJ played all 70's music on Saturdays. Not your typical 70's AC titles from Firefall, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, etc., but one-hit wonders and pop/rock artists. I could hear everything from Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods to Supertramp. For a daypart that's a throwaway anyway, I'm surprised that more stations don't do this. What have you to lose?
Naturally, no programmer worth his or her salt is going to push a format with music covering a spectrum of 50's to early 80's music. The "closest" you'll get to that is BOB-FM, and even that doesn't come close. It's a shame that no stations are taking a chance on specialty programming during the weekends when you can actually make money by playing the titles you don't hear anymore on the regular playlists.
As an example, in the late 90's, WLTJ played all 70's music on Saturdays. Not your typical 70's AC titles from Firefall, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, etc., but one-hit wonders and pop/rock artists. I could hear everything from Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods to Supertramp. For a daypart that's a throwaway anyway, I'm surprised that more stations don't do this. What have you to lose?
Boss Radio said:
Boss, having spent about 40 years listening to the radio in earnest, I understand how you feel. I have, for example, reached my lifedose of John Cougar Mellencamp. But, when it comes to songs like "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Crocodile Rock," you are the exception.
Burnout is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I'll try to explain the "same songs over and over" philosophy, and why it works, later tonight when I have more time.
C.
A
argytunes
Guest
Most of us who don't like 'the bill of fare' on a restaurant's menu STOP EATING THERE! The same principle applies to radio stations. If the majority of the tunes (or their constant repetition) turn you off...STOP LISTENING.
Perhaps this is the reason I enjoy 'programming' my lps, cds and other audio sources. I can listen to whom I want whenever I want. No interruptions from a big-voiced 'shotgun announcer' screaming call letters and frequencies. And even better, no repetitious ads about every topic imaginable.
Most portable CD players are very inexpensive. And with a headphone jack, you can listen to whatever you want without driving your co-workers crazy! :
Perhaps this is the reason I enjoy 'programming' my lps, cds and other audio sources. I can listen to whom I want whenever I want. No interruptions from a big-voiced 'shotgun announcer' screaming call letters and frequencies. And even better, no repetitious ads about every topic imaginable.
Most portable CD players are very inexpensive. And with a headphone jack, you can listen to whatever you want without driving your co-workers crazy! :
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