amfmsw said:
Gr8oldies has a good point. It's not drivel. BUT...you can't run this format rotating 500 songs, 300 at a time.
I don't know anyone who does that. Most oldies stations have around 500 to 600 total custs... about 400 are regular rotation, and some of the rest are manual fills and some are on long rest-play-rest-play cycles as testing shows they do not hold up to regular play.
And testing is pretty much nonsense.
Testing is very effectrive. Just look at all the radio battles in the past that were lost to stations that tested while the PD said, arrogantly, "I know this market."
It DOES matter WHERE the tests were given.
To some exxtent, it deoes. A test must be accessable to the audience you wish to talk to. It must be in the metro. It must be at a location that does not intimidate people. It must offer easy parking, paid for by the research company. Otherwise, testing your format listeners in different areas is generally nit picking.
Philly, Detroit, LA...each area has it's own musical tastes, local hits, and memories.
LA does not. Most of the oldies base that is not Hispanic has left. Of the non-Hispanic white population, more than 60% did not live in LA 35 years ago, so the songs that were local hits are irrelevant and probably highly damaging. Philly and Detroit have less transiencey, but Americans move. There are going to be many people in those markets who did not grow up there, so local stuff has to be handled with great caution.
I always felt that consultants were blind to that fact. They took away the localism of most oldies stations, which made them suck.
No, they took away the stiffs. Any consultant favors testing as often and as many songs as possible in hopes of finding playable cuts, even if they re-burn in 6 months. On the adult hits (oldies with a name less negative to most boomers: "I am not getting old!") stations I do, we test over 1000 songs each time we test.
There isn't a testing audience big enough or with the stamina to test all the songs that are considered for play. So if you don't test it, how can you exclude it on THAT merit?
But we do test them. I have tested as many as 1550 songs. Generally, if we test a song several times and it bombs each time, we never test it again... multiple tests eliminates burn as a factor, so the song is just a stiff and we forget it. But there are enough songs in my format to come up with 1200 easily, as well as some we want for speciatly shows.
The respondents are made into a panel. They score songs in groups over several nights. They love it, as they make a couple of hundred dollars, too.
And what's wrong with listening to the listeners? Requests? PLAY 'EM.
Aaaargh. so all the testing and consesnsus opinions as well as the hard work of the PD in balncing each hour, watching hour rotations and such is going to be thrown out at the whim of one listener whose only qualification is having a phone? I have not done requests since the 60's... because I found the request line groupies will call and ask for a song a half hour after you play it... they are not good listeners and definitely not good diary keepers.
