KEARTH 101 (it's only 80's if we say so)

[oldies76]

Stations like KRTH do a great job satisfying their users, as evidenced by their number of users, which exceeds the stations you prefer.

Ignoring requests is, doing a great job? Is that satisfying the user who called the request and basically got shut out?

Stations like KRTH do a great job satisfying their users, as evidenced by their number of users, which exceeds the stations you prefer.

Exactly why I listen to better stations that know how to satisfy their listeners, music included. Let stations like KRTH play their sacred 250 songs over and over to their heart's content, but at least do something for them on the weekends. Loosen up!

 

[ChannelFlipper]

It's hard to think of any industry where the opinion of anyone whose only qualification is owning a telephone would be considered significant.

In any case, it only takes a short period of time being on the air to know that requests don't reflect average listeners.

First is the classic call to request the song that just played... or is playing right now! That is all too common.

Second is the rush of calls for the same song... generally, in the past, due to a fan club effort and today due to a FB post or Tweet.

Third are drunks or tokers who call a CHR to request a 40-year-old classic rock song. Or, in general, calls for out of format songs.

Fourth are those that call for the same time everyday, often for an obscure song nobody remembers or wants to hear.

That's why, since the 70's, we have picked nicely selected samples of all the perspective listeners and dug deeply into their likes and dislikes. If a song does not show up as positive in those situations, no amount of calling will get it played.

Without (hopefully) sounding like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, I actually agree with you David about all of those situations, and thus the need to disregard the request line.

I remember as a teen in the early 80's I was living at Lake Tahoe and one night I wanted to hear the killer new Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl". I knew the local hit radio station in Kings Beach did not have phone screeners, and did not play the song much except late at night, so as soon as the nighttime jock went on the air at about 6:00, I pummeled the station with at least a dozen calls within an hour asking for the song, oh so "cleverly" disguising my voice each time to make it sound different. The jock had to know it was one person or at most a few people in on a coordinated request attack that was behind this episode and finally he said on my last call, "ok, ok, I'll play it" and within 30 minutes, he did. I could tell by the tone of his voice that the song was not on his playlist, but he was giving in just to stop the calls. It was a victory for relentless doggedness that could only be accomplished by a teenager with nothing else to do. So in this example, I am most likely not in the target demo, and was certainly not representative of the average listening audience, and probably induced more people to turn the station off when the not-very-popular song played, so my listening really couldn't benefit the station in any tangible way, and for three minutes, probably hurt it.

 

[davideduardo]

I totally agree with you 34James. "Physical" was a huge song in late 1981, #1 for 10 agonizing weeks (I say agonizing, because it effectively block Foreigner's "Waiting For a Girl Like You" a much better song, from reaching the top for 10 weeks!)

Ah, it's the old hoist on your own petard thing, matey.

You are saying that not every #1 song was created equal.

Some are not as good as others. Some stay on the charts less time. And many don't pass the test of longer time.

It's a special holiday weekend for 80's music. They should play far more 80's than what THEY are told are the greatest 80's on earth by a select few.

Yes, by all means let's celebrate by playing songs that have less appeal or which have become totally negative.

The "select few" is a true cross section of a station's target listeners. If you find that 80% of a station's listeners score a song below neutral (meaning "negative") why in the world would you play it?

You certainly would not play Sheb Wooley's big hit or perhaps Ross Bagdasarian's smash because one person called in for it. Same goes for any song they do not play.

If someone requests "Physical" or "Woman in Love" or the overplayed "Boys of Summer" during an EIGHTIES weekend, then you suck it up, and play the damn song.

Not if you know most of the listeners will not enjoy it. There was no promise to play every 80's song (Ah, where is Baltimora when you need him?)... just the ones that are still liked by the vast majority today.

What is the holdup? It's a specialty weekend, where few are listening to begin with, so why should it matter??

Huh? KRTH cumes 50% more people on weekends than in morning drive, and weekends also outcume afternoons and evenings.

When weekend listening ins minimal is on Saturday and Sunday evenings. But during 6 AM to 7 PM it does a blockbuster job of cuming. In fact, it is 4th in the market 12+ on weekends!

 

[davideduardo]

I remember as a teen in the early 80's I was living at Lake Tahoe and one night I wanted to hear the killer new Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl". I knew the local hit radio station in Kings Beach did not have phone screeners, and did not play the song much except late at night, so as soon as the nighttime jock went on the air at about 6:00, I pummeled the station with at least a dozen calls within an hour asking for the song, oh so "cleverly" disguising my voice each time to make it sound different. The jock had to know it was one person or at most a few people in on a coordinated request attack that was behind this episode and finally he said on my last call, "ok, ok, I'll play it" and within 30 minutes, he did. I could tell by the tone of his voice that the song was not on his playlist, but he was giving in just to stop the calls. It was a victory for relentless doggedness that could only be accomplished by a teenager with nothing else to do. So in this example, I am most likely not in the target demo, and was certainly not representative of the average listening audience, and probably induced more people to turn the station off when the not-very-popular song played, so my listening really couldn't benefit the station in any tangible way, and for three minutes, probably hurt it.

That is a priceless story! Thanks for sharing it.

 

[TheBigA]

Ignoring requests is, doing a great job? Is that satisfying the user who called the request and basically got shut out?

They didn't ignore the request. According to the OP, they answered the phone, and said the particular song wasn't in the library.

Ignoring the request would be not answering the phone at all.

But as I always say, no one forces you to listen, and out of town listening doesn't benefit the station one bit.

 

[Thomps2525]

"Hi there. I'd like to ask you a few questions. How old are you?"
"I'm 27."
"Okay, fine. Do you listen to KRTH?"
"Yeah, man, I do. All the time!"
"What are your five favorite songs?"
"Hmm. I'd have to say September, I Melt With You, Billie Jean, Hotel California and Old Time Rock & Roll..
"Would you consider yourself to be a satisfied KRTH listener?"
"Hell, yeah! Why wouldn't I?"

 

[TheBigA]

How many 27 year olds actually answer the phone? Especially from an unfamiliar ID.

 

[oldies76]

Ah, it's the old hoist on your own petard thing, matey.

You are saying that not every #1 song was created equal.

"Waiting For A Girl Like You" never made #1. It was stuck at #2 for TEN weeks because of "Physical"

 

[davideduardo]

Actually KWRP 690/100.3 has played "Lady", "Funkytown" and "Upside Down" as well as a request I called in a few days ago which was literally played in three minutes after I called it in. "Fire Lake" by Bob Seger. Talk about service! I'll take that any day of the week. KWRP is really a good, good station.

And you are one of 6,900 (give or take) people in a market of 170,000 who even listen once a week to the station. The average listening to the station is just over 200 people. Of course they played your song... you may, depending on the time of day, have been half of the audience!

 

[Thomps2525]

BigA, the above exchange is from a man-on-the-street research interview, not from a phone call. Of course it's hypothetical. It is not the least bit far-fetched.....but it's hypothetical.

 

[davideduardo]

"Waiting For A Girl Like You" never made #1. It was stuck at #2 for TEN weeks because of "Physical"

Then change that to "not every top 5 song was created equal". It's the same point.

Most songs that were hits "then" are no longer hits now.

 

[oldies76]

According to the OP, they answered the phone, and said the particular song wasn't in the library.

That's wrong though. The song IS in their library, they just would not play the song after a request for it was called in, so it was ignored. A playlist is derived from the master library. KRTH's playlist is 250 songs, the actual library has thousands.

WOGL's A to Z countdown airing now, has over 2000 songs alone! Take your pick.

 

[davideduardo]

BigA, the above exchange is from a man-on-the-street research interview, not from a phone call. Of course it's hypothetical. It is not the least bit far-fetched.....but it's hypothetical.

It is far-fetched because random intercept polling is not a technique used for radio research. And even if it were, the people interviewed would be in the target dem's super core, probably something like 36 to 48 or something like that.

Music research never asks what songs you like. it plays snippets of songs and asks respondents to score them. I'll bet half the people would not be able to name their 10 favorite songs spontaneously... but would score them high if they heard a tidbit of the hook.

 

[Thomps2525]

If any station ever decided to play a listener-requested Top 1000 which could include any song, by any artist, from any year, in any style of music---MOR, AC, rock, r&b, country, doo-wop, jazz, big band, cajun, zydeco, ska, reggae, et al---I wonder how many of those 1000 songs would be ones that have not been played on the radio for many many years.....or would we all be disheartened to find that the majority of the songs are the "usual," such as Satisfaction, Light My Fire, Imagine and Hey Jude?

 

[davideduardo]

That's wrong though. The song IS in their library, they just would not play the song after a request for it was called in, so it was ignored. A playlist is derived from the master library. KRTH's playlist is 250 songs, the actual library has thousands.

But only the playlist is available to the person on air.

I know of stations with thousands of songs on a hard disk in the server room. However, the on-air staff can only get access to the approved music log's songs within each day, shift, hour and minute.

So, in truth, if the jock said they did not have the song, they were not lying. They did not have it accessible in the studio... they did not have it at all.

 

[oldies76]

Yes, by all means let's celebrate by playing songs that have less appeal or which have become totally negative.


You certainly would not play Sheb Wooley's big hit or perhaps Ross Bagdasarian's smash because one person called in for it. Same goes for any song they do not play.

My point is that weekends should be a time to loosen up a bit. Just like at work, make it a casual Friday or a weekend.

Several requests or unplayed songs during the weekend won't break a station. Keep your rigid rotations Monday through Thursday, I have no problems with that.

 

[davideduardo]

If any station ever decided to play a listener-requested Top 1000 which could include any song, by any artist, from any year, in any style of music---MOR, AC, rock, r&b, country, doo-wop, jazz, big band, cajun, zydeco, ska, reggae, et al---I wonder how many of those 1000 songs would be ones that have not been played on the radio for many many years.....or would we all be disheartened to find that the majority of the songs are the "usual," such as Satisfaction, Light My Fire, Imagine and Hey Jude?

It would likely be mostly the same songs the station plays all the time. Few random listeners would find the special show, so you'd have regular cumers. A few might request odd personal favorites, but mostly you'd get the same stuff they play because that is what they actually like.

In a market a bit bigger than New York City, we did a noon show called "Mega Delivery" in which we would "deliver" a listener's order, as "delivery" was the local term for "ordering out". We initially did it for fun for a non-rated holiday week sometime in the summer, probably in early January. But the requests were 90% for songs we were playing and the others were for ones we would play during things like "A to Z" weekends and such... so we left the feature running and it still runs today, 15 years later. All we did was turn down requests if the song had played in the last hour and then we cleaned the requested songs out of airplay the rest of the day and reconciled the log to get the right rotations.

The only reason we kept the show is that we liked having the ability of running jock-less for an hour during which time the listeners presented their request and we played them. They even learned to say "Mega 98.3 at the end! It is a nice break from the normal formatics, and it ended up being the same music anyway... which enhances cred for the playlist.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Actually KWRP 690/100.3 has played "Lady", "Funkytown" and "Upside Down" as well as a request I called in a few days ago which was literally played in three minutes after I called it in. "Fire Lake" by Bob Seger. Talk about service! I'll take that any day of the week. KWRP is really a good, good station.

Good, so you'll be listening to them and not go down the familiar path ...

I'd be bored and annoyed out of my mind if all I could hear, was K-Earth 101 on a daily basis today. But right now, it's all about WOGL. You should listen too, KM

I thought not. Here we go again.

 

[oldies76]

If any station ever decided to play a listener-requested Top 1000 which could include any song, by any artist, from any year, in any style of music---MOR, AC, rock, r&b, country, doo-wop, jazz, big band, cajun, zydeco, ska, reggae, et al---I wonder how many of those 1000 songs would be ones that have not been played on the radio for many many years.....or would we all be disheartened to find that the majority of the songs are the "usual," such as Satisfaction, Light My Fire, Imagine and Hey Jude?

Try WOGL, they have 2000+ different songs playing now, genres included. Aahhh, listening online, another great invention!

 

[K.M. Richards]

Exactly why I listen to better stations that know how to satisfy their listeners, music included.

"Better" is a matter of opinion. The exponentially higher number of listeners KRTH has obviously feel it is "better".