scooty430 said:
I don't know where you live,
I "live" at 655 N. Central in Glendale, home of three of LA's top 10 radio stations. I'm amazed you have not realized I am in LA radio at this point. But then again, awareness is apparently not on your agenda... playing obsucre oldies only you still want to hear is all that is on that agenda.
but I have JACK (and K-Earth and KLOS) on the presets, and the playlist is constantly changing. Sure, in a month they may play "only" 1000 songs, as you say (which is actually massive for a corporate radio station.)
I did not say 1000 songs in a month. I said 915 in 5 weeks, 35 days. Thats a difference of 10% in library, and 25% in time... and you have the gall to say I play it loose with figures. You have just distorted and misquoted twice in a single sentence.
For your information, the average Jack or similar is a "corporate" station which has license the concept, which is from Canada, and is based on a playlist that is miles wide and very shallow... about 40 years of music, sliced very thin and about 800-900 songs, depending on the market.
And further, most major market country stations are "corporate" owned and play around 700 to 800 songs, so a library that size is not that unusual. I work with a group of about a dozen stations in major markets that have libraries that are in excess of 1000 songs. Library size is dependent on how many songs the listeners still want to hear, not the ownership status.
Oh, and I looked at a full trimester of KCBS FM, 13 weeks. The total of songs played was still less than 1000... so your idea that they are rotating stuff in and out is wrong and just not true.
Now, for your amusement and edification, here is really what is happening...
Stations use computer music scheduling, and one of the first things this does is make sure songs don't play in the same hour or daypart the next time the play... in fact, we try to have the songs rotate through dayparts before coming back to a specific one, and then we try for it to come back at different hours each time it does return to a daypart. This means the average core listener who spends 6 to 12 hours a week with the station would not hear the same songs for several months sometimes, giving the impression that the songs are rested when in fact that they have been cycling through hours when that listener never listens.
But month to month, things change.
No, they don't. I ran several 14 week analysis reports, and the number of songs does not reach 1000.
The only time a bunch of songs may change is when the station does a test, as Jack did in LA with Coleman in November... then there may be hundreds of changes, all in the same week or few weeks, and then the list will be static till the next test.
A lot. In fact, the station has evolved from airing lots of 70s pop like "Brother Louie" to lots (and I mean LOTS) of old KROQ hits from the 80s - many of them LA-only faves like Oingo Boingo.
Huh? Oingo Boingo got huge play on WCAD back when they were "current." Check a listing and you will see that it would be hard to find a farther off US station.
Hint... all station lists evolve over time, even if they keep a consistent sound. Some changes are due to keeping the station in-demo, and some are due to songs being played out, or the opposite, gaining in score and requiring higher rotations.
It is very smartly programmed, because it never sounds too stale, yet everything sounds familiar. Personally, I don't care for the snarky announcer and jukebox feel, but they do it well.
It's so smartly programmed you think they change the music every month, when, in fact, they do no such thing... they just have selector very well set up to give the illusion of variety with an almost static library.
Great example of how you CAN play 1000 songs a month (or 2000 or 3000 over a couple years) and be a ratings success.
Aside from the ins and outs from testing, the library is under 1000.... more like 900. But they sure have you believing that there are more... which is exactly what they want!!!!!!!
As for Mediabase, maybe you should get a hotel in LA, a tape recorder, and actually check if it's accurate. Those of us who actually listen to the radio notice that it's inaccurate. Heck, today Mediabase missed a BRYAN ADAMS song that KLOS was playing. Bryan Adams is not exactly an obscure artist.
You don't have the real MediaBase service that costs tens of thousands a year... you have the service that puts plays on the webpage of a station based on a data stream. The "real" service is based on monitor receivers in each market and fingerprint detection for every song. And it is deadly accurate save for technical glitches at the station that harm a fingerprint.
And I don't need a room in LA... I have a home here. Please click on the link at the bottom of this message.
And nobody uses a "tape recorder" anymore.
(As part of a 2500+ song A to Z, by the way - one which included 25 minute Pink Floyd songs, King Crimson played during drive-time, Alice's Restaurant, and a full In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. ((Use google if you aren't familiar with these artists or titles, which I strongly suspect.)) And it's still going. Gosh, guess you don't consult for KLOS!)
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