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KOLA FM
- Thread starter 30james
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Per BDS: In the week ending yesterday, Hotel California aired five times, each time in a different daypart. No other Eagles songs played even once.
Some here, of course, will claim that song should be banned from Classic Hits entirely, believing it to be "burned to a crisp" ... to which I will only say that I made this statement in another thread and stand by it.
Some here, of course, will claim that song should be banned from Classic Hits entirely, believing it to be "burned to a crisp" ... to which I will only say that I made this statement in another thread and stand by it.
Well if it aired only 5 times that means eventually they will phase it out hopefully.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
It could also mean that it still is worthy of being included in the 19% of their playlist that consists of 1970s titles. Again, my previous quote is what you really need to consider. No station should drop songs that still have positive listener effect, even if that's only a few spins per week, unless there is some compelling reason to do so.
Again, looking at BDS airplay monitoring, the song you "hope" will be phased out played at least once last week on 81% of Classic Hits stations nationwide, 93% of Classic Rock stations, 85% of Adult Hits, and 43% of Adult Contemporary. The total spin count across those four formats for those seven days was 1,587, which made it the 30th most played on CH, 21st on CR, 82nd AH, and even above the 500 mark (408th) on AC. (It even got a cumulative total of 342 spins among stations which identify as some form of CHR/Top 40.) That's a lot of airplay to dismiss out of hand.
Just because you apparently are tired of hearing the Eagles doesn't mean the rest of the audience shares your opinion.
So will Classic Hits stations ban all 70s songs soon? Bye bye to The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and Rod Stewart?
Actually The Eagles had one top 10 song in the 1980s... barely. I Can't Tell You Why hit #8 in 1980.
How about Fleetwood Mac? Little Lies, Big Love and Hold Me were all top ten hits in the 80s.
Elton John? He had a number of top ten hits in both the 1980s and 90s.
Billy Joel? He had several top ten hits in the 1980s and River of Dreams reached #3 in the 1993.
Marvin Gaye had one top ten hit in the 80s... Sexual Healing reached #3 in 1983.
And Rod Stewart? He had several 1980s top ten hits. And in the 1990s, he had Rhythm of My Heart and Have I Told You Lately. Along with Bryan Adams and Sting, Rod Stewart reached #1 in 1993 with All For Love.
Actually The Eagles had one top 10 song in the 1980s... barely. I Can't Tell You Why hit #8 in 1980.
How about Fleetwood Mac? Little Lies, Big Love and Hold Me were all top ten hits in the 80s.
Elton John? He had a number of top ten hits in both the 1980s and 90s.
Billy Joel? He had several top ten hits in the 1980s and River of Dreams reached #3 in the 1993.
Marvin Gaye had one top ten hit in the 80s... Sexual Healing reached #3 in 1983.
And Rod Stewart? He had several 1980s top ten hits. And in the 1990s, he had Rhythm of My Heart and Have I Told You Lately. Along with Bryan Adams and Sting, Rod Stewart reached #1 in 1993 with All For Love.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I was going to mention that Eagles song but decided to directly address the focus on Hotel California.
I don't want to overdo the BDS cites, so I just checked the spreadsheet from my weekly download of Classic Hits, which is only a few days old (since I filter that to only give me songs that were currents in the 1980s). Essentially you're correct in the above observations. Two of those three Fleetwood Mac songs still get substantial airplay (I'll let you guess which one doesn't, and also which one you missed). Elton John still has two high-playing and one lesser hits, and Billy Joel has eight.
You are of course correct in identifying only one Marvin Gaye title, but time has not been kind to Rod Stewart: Of his string of 1980s hits only two get good airplay on Classic Hits stations today.
Still, your analysis does make a good case against the posting of "proclamations" without thinking it out first.
In reality, a huge number of CH stations -- especially those outside the top 25 markets -- still play a substantial amount of 70s music.
I don't want to overdo the BDS cites, so I just checked the spreadsheet from my weekly download of Classic Hits, which is only a few days old (since I filter that to only give me songs that were currents in the 1980s). Essentially you're correct in the above observations. Two of those three Fleetwood Mac songs still get substantial airplay (I'll let you guess which one doesn't, and also which one you missed). Elton John still has two high-playing and one lesser hits, and Billy Joel has eight.
You are of course correct in identifying only one Marvin Gaye title, but time has not been kind to Rod Stewart: Of his string of 1980s hits only two get good airplay on Classic Hits stations today.
Still, your analysis does make a good case against the posting of "proclamations" without thinking it out first.
In reality, a huge number of CH stations -- especially those outside the top 25 markets -- still play a substantial amount of 70s music.
And stations love to have songs like Hotel California as they are single songs by a particular artist, giving artist variety and helping separate those hard to schedule songs by artists with 12 or 15 or so playable cuts.
And I'd point out that stations don't cut back on 70's songs because they don't want to play them... they reduce the number only when their target audience stops giving the songs good scores. If "Rock Around the Clock" consistently scored among the highest songs in a station's regular music tests within their core demo, they'd certainly consider playing it.
And I wonder is the fact that this particular song names our own home state has something to do with it getting enhanced scores on KOLA. I know years ago "California Dreaming" did much better here than in any other state where it was tested.
In order to score high, it would first have to be included in the test. It may very well score if tested. That said, I can't think of anyone, in any current "mainstream" format, that would throw away a slot in the test to find out.
No station should drop songs that still have positive listener effect.
It's so overplayed that the only positive effect it would have would be to induce vomiting in people that have run out of Syrup of Ipecac.
It's so overplayed that the only positive effect it would have would be to induce vomiting in people that have run out of Syrup of Ipecac.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I answered that back in post #46 of this very thread.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Please read the entire post you decided to pull a single sentence from to respond to (#64) because my last sentence there also applies as my reply to this.
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Music tests generally have a lot of available "slots" for "what if" songs. While nobody is going to test a lot of much older music, if there is a suspicion that a song that is older might fit, it will usually get included in somebody's test and if it works, then watching playlists may lead other stations to try it.
Audacy's classic hits stations are so much repetitive...
Stations play only as many songs as pass in their music tests. And, considering that the PPM shows that the average P1 listener spends less than 5 hours a week with their favorite station, rotations are optimized on that basis.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I'll add to that a couple of important factors, since I entirely work with small market and unrated stations. The larger the market, the more likely that there will be a smaller playlist because of what David said. First, the music tests are likely to have a larger number of participants and that is going to concentrate the consensus positive titles into a smaller numbers. (This is not necessarily bad as it also makes for a larger number of neutral titles, which come into play during hours with lighter spot loads.)
Second, when you consider not only the five hours per week of P1s but also the average TSL per incident (the vast majority of listeners are not tuned in for long periods but only for several minutes at a time, a few times per day), the larger the market the higher the turnover in the same amount of time. That works with a tighter playlist and the average listener will still only hear a song repeat once or twice in any given week ... presuming you have someone who knows how to set the scheduling rules in MusicMaster or Selector.
For smaller stations, it's not uncommon for me to use a power rotation of 175, a secondary of 125, and another 100 in tertiary (songs I schedule but which will not air during most hours, presuming the station is making ad sales). And I also have a couple of accent categories which have lots of titles and can be added to the clock to stretch out the rotations as needed.
But generally speaking, those who complain about repetition have listening patterns which are atypical of the vast majority. They listen for longer periods and therefore notice repetition that the typical listener never will. And those of us who are programmers know this and never consider the criticism to be valid.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
It just occurs to me that for comparative purposes to my typical song counts, BDS reports that over the past seven days KRTH had a total of 333 titles in rotation. 125 of those played only once during the week, another 152 played between two and nine times, and only 21 got more than a dozen spins. The highest-playing title had 35 airings ... this averages five times per day, or once per daypart.
KOLA, which as I have said is likely doing some amount of counter-programming to KRTH -- and is in the unenviable position of being in a smaller market (#26) in the shadow of a huge one (#2) -- had totals of 445 overall, 103 single spinners, and none of the rest playing more than a dozen times. I find it interesting that this reflects 20% fewer songs with only one play on KOLA than on KRTH when the perception of greater variety would presume a larger number of those ... but those are only about 25% of their library and close to one-third of KRTH's. This means that despite more frequent plays of power titles, KRTH actually had greater variety by percentage of titles than did KOLA.
So the greater variety on KOLA comes at the expense of many listener favorites playing less often, so unless they have higher TSL periods there will be a perception by the audience that they play a lot of lesser ("non-favorite") titles. Little bit of a crap shoot going on out there in the IE.
KOLA, which as I have said is likely doing some amount of counter-programming to KRTH -- and is in the unenviable position of being in a smaller market (#26) in the shadow of a huge one (#2) -- had totals of 445 overall, 103 single spinners, and none of the rest playing more than a dozen times. I find it interesting that this reflects 20% fewer songs with only one play on KOLA than on KRTH when the perception of greater variety would presume a larger number of those ... but those are only about 25% of their library and close to one-third of KRTH's. This means that despite more frequent plays of power titles, KRTH actually had greater variety by percentage of titles than did KOLA.
So the greater variety on KOLA comes at the expense of many listener favorites playing less often, so unless they have higher TSL periods there will be a perception by the audience that they play a lot of lesser ("non-favorite") titles. Little bit of a crap shoot going on out there in the IE.
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And that market #26 is #46 in revenue. That reduces the ability of stations to do frequent music tests and precludes most kinds of perceptual research. In fact, the top LA station alone bills more than all the stations... 26 commercial ones not including translators... in the IE market.
Of course, just like San Jose is to San Francisco, advertisers realize that when they buy the "big" LA stations, most of them deliver all they need in the IE.
I wouldn't say WCBS-FM is as repetitive as KRTH (or even the exact same in terms of playlist titles). But each owner has a quirk, repetitive or otherwise. Many Cumulus Classic Hits stations, for instance, lean towards Classic Rock. And I'm not sure if one could say that iHeart Classic Hits stations are substantially less repetitive than those of Audacy.
But, there's a reason why Audacy has several strong Classic Hits stations. Classic Hits, along with News/Talk/Sports, is Audacy's forte, with respect to ratings.
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