It seems like every day there is a story about a music station that changes format to either Talk or Sports. Could this be in response to the performance royalty act or maybe the effect of mp3 players, portable CD's etc.??? Is music on the radio doing a slow fade?
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Music Fades Out
- Thread starter Mike Sheridan
- Start date
I think part of the problem here is the music formats are having a hard time competing with iPods and the like. PD after PD after consultant after consultant keep shortening the play lists of music intensive stations trying to keep every thing as tight as they can. The refuse to look beyond a couple a hundred tried and trues claiming no one wants to here anything else. While they may be partly true, why do people have thousands of songs on their iPods?
If you really want to hear a lot of musical variety (for the most part), with the homogenized approach to programming these days, you need to supply your own. At least with talk, there is a chance to be competitive with non radio sources
If you really want to hear a lot of musical variety (for the most part), with the homogenized approach to programming these days, you need to supply your own. At least with talk, there is a chance to be competitive with non radio sources
Mike Sheridan said:
Answer C, "none of the above," is the correct one.
Most of the FM talkers are AM band refugees; stations that are already on AM are the ones switching to FM. AM is dying very, very fast. And the reason is that most people under 45 or 50 will not listen to AM, even if the programming is attractive.
So the reason is demographics... AM listeners are mostly in age groups over 55 who advertisers don´t want. Yet move the format to FM, and it gets great 25-54 numbers.
Since most markets have too many stations, adding talk and sports on FM shoud actually help overall radio listening levels.
I agree with David.
I also feel that the poorly programmed and executed music stations will be stations that will fade away, switching to talk or sports is a safe bet. Highly rated but poorly executed music stations doesn't mean they are making money. Talk to a younger, more ad supported demo like the 25-54 is proven to be successful on FM ... at least from the outset.
Of course, the same will affect them ... if poorly programmed and poorly executed. A lousy "show" or "lineup" is still, a "lousy" choice and won't be popular. A well-executed plan with good programming can and will work. New music doesn't mean it will work, either.
I also feel that the poorly programmed and executed music stations will be stations that will fade away, switching to talk or sports is a safe bet. Highly rated but poorly executed music stations doesn't mean they are making money. Talk to a younger, more ad supported demo like the 25-54 is proven to be successful on FM ... at least from the outset.
Of course, the same will affect them ... if poorly programmed and poorly executed. A lousy "show" or "lineup" is still, a "lousy" choice and won't be popular. A well-executed plan with good programming can and will work. New music doesn't mean it will work, either.
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adma
Guest
DavidEduardo said:
None of the above, or both of the above? Albeit "in addition to" the AM-to-FM migratory factors you mention. After all, when an AM talker switches to FM, something has to give...and more often than not, it's a music station.
Maybe another factor behind the switchovers looming so large is the kinds of music formats affected: very often, purveyors of the kind of mainstream rock and pop programming that used to loom so mythically large, yet have now run out of gas. It isn't so much that they're "poorly programmed and executed" as they're culturally obsolete--the most conspicuous victims of the age of the download.
adma said:
Yeah, like Amp in LA, a brand-new-this-year CHR which is now among the top 5 or 6 stations, and cumes around 3 million.
What operators are seeing is that it is much better to be the first talker on FM than the 5th rock variant. It is a better marketing proposition, and a much better sales story.
Mike Sheridan said:
Good question. I think it is, but for different reasons than the ones listed.
Most of it has to do with changes in music, and the way we use music.
Since the 1980s, music has fractionalized. Take a look at the geometric explosion in the number of Grammy categories. There used to be ten awards. Now there are hundreds. It's out of control. There has also been a Balkinization of musical taste. I like what I like, and if you play something on the radio I don’t like, I will turn it off. That’s not good for radio. They want to keep people listening. There is less and less music that people can agree on. And when stations play the music large numbers of people agree on, they get criticized for being bland and unimaginative. But advertisers want large numbers.
In addition to more music in more genres, there is also a movement on a part of musicians to build small, passionate fan bases, rather than large amorphic fan bases. The problem with that is advertisers love those large amorphic audiences. And radio stations, which are organized around clearly defined formats of music, are finding it hard to find audiences who restrict their musical tastes to those narrow formats.
So radio stations need programming that lots of people will listen to, and stay with for long periods of time. Music is not one of those things, at least not current music. The other problem is presentation. Some music formats work well with traditional radio presentation (DJs, commercials, information, etc). Others don’t work well. Listeners become impatient with the interruptions. What is needed now is a way to present current music on the radio in a way that incorporates the changing way the audience uses media. Because the traditional presentation isn’t going to work the way it used to.
This is not to say that music will disappear from the radio. I think each town will continue to have a handful of successful music stations that program to the general taste of a majority of people. But the other stations will be forced to seek other ways to attract audiences, and there are lots of choices that can make more money than a poorly rated music station.
The "hardcore" music listeners in any format need more variety. The average, casual fan ... not so much. Problem is there usually arn't enough of the "hardcore" music listeners to make a go of it. Meanwhile, the casual fan is just that, casual, which may mean low TSL, and maybe low tolerance for much beyond the 'tried-and-true'. Let's take '60s and '70s "oldies". Me, being a music intensive person, will click on the "greatest hits" station and often click it off quite rapidly as they're playing yet another great song that I'm sick and tired of hearing on the radio. Yet, I'll listen for 3 solid hours to that same station when they play "American Top 40-rewind" because of the quality content and mostly to hear those exciting songs between #40 and #20 that you haven't heard in years or may not have heard at all, as far as memory goes. I wonder what the "casual" fan might think if he/she turns on the station at the start of the show and hears less-remembered hits of the era such as "Westbound #9" by Flaming Ember (GREAT STUFF!!), which peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 or the instrumental that debuted at #40 on one of the charts... "Cool Aid" by Paul Humphrey and The Cool Aid Chemists (1971) on the exciting, independent Lizard label out of L.A.
I enjoy listening to the AT40's from the past for just that reason. You get a kind of "audio snapshot" of what was on the radio at the time. The forgotten songs are fun to hear, maybe not every day but certainly better than hearing "Rocket Man" again and again.
While not the perfect solution I think a lot of radio fans who enjoy a wider variety of music have turned to Sirius-XM.
While not the perfect solution I think a lot of radio fans who enjoy a wider variety of music have turned to Sirius-XM.
landtuna said:
An example... KTAR in Phoenix was 8th in Winter 2009 in 25-44 as a pure FM talker. The same station, on AM, a few years earlier was 16th.
In 45-54, KTAR was 8th in 2007, and was 4th in Winter... nearly doubling.
A talker will increase radically in 35-54, although it will only get marginal 25-34 listening. Overall, it will be huge in 25-54, because it does so well in two of the three 10-year subsets.
Sports on FM does even better. A recent switch to FM of a station in Detroit took the facility to #1, and it is top 5 18-34, too.
I personally know of two 20-21 year old guys who listen to talk radio, one of them listens to Rush virtually every day.
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adma
Guest
johnbasalla said:
That actually sounds more frightening than reassuring.
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adma
Guest
johnbasalla said:
Judging from the streams I hear even in mainstream grocery stores, Wal-Marts and the like, the reality of "casual listening" or "casual consumption" may be more open-ended than a lot of radio people realize. Or maybe they do realize it, and conclude it's not pertinent to "radio reality".
What I find re radio's take on "casual listenership" and perhaps all of its pool of advertiser-friendly listenership, is that it seems a very "reactive" listenership: very jittery at anything that seems either new or unfamiliar. Sort of like the musical version of, or metaphor for, the talk radio demographic.
Which is something worth considering; because in the end, technically speaking, the raw conservative talk demo is probably just as marginal as some of the musical demos being dealt with and dismissed here (especially in McCain/Palin-phobic places like NYC). Yet, it owns commercial radio--which, in the end, may say something about what and whom radio "works for" and doesn't. And it has nothing to do with "mass audiences" in the traditional Ed Sullivan or even Thrillermania sense; but rather, about what Jerry Del Colliano refers to as "available audiences", those segments that are still compatible with and responsive to the commercial radio approach. More like "mass niches", so to speak...
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adma
Guest
gr8oldies said:
And which illuminates the dilemma; it's a programming approach that depends so much on a wallflower familiarity-seeking comfort-food demo, to a fault--at least by today's broader, download-fueled cultural parameters. And I reckon that a lot of us who might have gone for this approach 20 or 30 years ago wouldn't today--and not merely from an older/wiser standpoint; but also from a transposed-ahead-20-or-30-years standpoint.
IOW, my argument's that "that audience" today actually isn't as broad as "that audience" yesterday--sort of like how the so-called mainstream that conservative talk supposedly represents is actually less mainstream now than it would have been a generation or two ago...
One thing I know is happening, because I experience it, is that little non-comms are getting a boost from the boredom brought on by the same-old, same-old. There are a number of more intensive music listeners that refuse to buy satellite radio (I'm one of them), and if they are lucky enough to have a well-run non-comm that fits their musical interests, they will gravitate to it. Working at my college station when I was a student, there was very little listener response. Marginal phone giveaways occasionally received no calls. Today, at that same station (with more power it must be admitted), even marginal giveaways receive multiple calls. The calls and emails from listeners asking ... "what's that song you played" has picked up dramatically. Just today one of the staff persons was out and about and overheard some people talking about an upcoming Beatles music special the station is doing, which will also focus on the new music of Pete Best (The Beatles original drummer) and "thenewno.2", a duo that features George Harrison's son Dhani.
johnbasalla said:
I think that's fine, and it wouldn't surprise me as music starts to leave commercial radio, because of fractured audience numbers, you will see public stations increase music. As well it should. The purpose of public, non-commercial radio, as defined by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, was to serve the interests of the public UNENCUMBERED by the pressures of commercial radio. They operate under a different business model. It's more like satellite radio. Their customers aren't advertisers, but their members. So if they're able to attract large numbers of memberships while playing music that can't attract a sellable figure, then that's great. The hard part will be turning listeners of their programming into paid members. That's similar to what XM has to do. But public radio is available on conventional devices.
At the same time, this allows commercial stations to focus on what they do best, which is appeal to the largest number of people (or lowest common denominator). The funny part is that the RIAA stands to make the least amount of money from the non-coms, and they will end up playing the most music.
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adma
Guest
TheBigA said:
Except that a lot of commercial radio's mythos (and indeed, that of all mass media and entertainment, going at least as far back as P.T. Barnum) is based upon its appeal to the broadest, not merely lowest, common denominator. Which may be a moot point today, now that the upper and outer levels of said broadest-denominator have flaked away to other technologies and pursuits--so now radio has, so to speak, the "largest of the lowest", but without (and perhaps even a contempt for) the gravitas that breadth can bring. You're left with an entertainment medium that works on more of a level with lottery and gaming.
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