My Lost Hits Stations

[michael hagerty]

I'm sure it would stun some of you to find out how eclectic my tastes are...

Not me! I've seen your sport coats on TV. ;D

Guilty as charged!

 

[oldies76]

And Oldies, I'm still waiting for the answer to the question you quoted at the top.

Well for one thing, we'll never know the answer, because not every top 40 song will ever be played in a month's or several month's time on any particular station. If you're only playing 2 "rare songs" an hour, it'll take many, many months to play all the rare songs that are being neglected today and that's if they don't repeat any of them, much longer if they do. Obviously there are some songs that probably would never get played, even if you featured 2 per hour.

I don't believe we're asking for much here.

As for a particular station that might have played deeper cuts within the top 40, most likely none. But I'm not asking top 40, I'm asking top 10 to 20 (a big difference).

KRTH in the 80's had a much bigger playlist then, but I'm not even sure they cracked the top 20, but they sure had one heck of a PD back then.

 

[oldies76]

And how do you determine the appropriate time to play a record that a significant portion of the audience (let's say 33% on up) has indicated will cause tune-out? Because that's the only reason you're not already playing the record.

Mr. Hagerty, I'm sorry there are just some good songs out there that will not cause tuneout.
Think about all the music that is being ignored today...hundreds upon hundreds of additional titles that are not being played. If a station is already playing the well-tested songs and you mix one or two "rarely played hits" per hour, how will that cause tuneout?? At worst, the listener may just wait another 2 or 3 minutes, knowing that there must be a better song ahead. It happens!

Now, if you played two or three rare songs in a row, then it might cause a few to wonder what's going on, but I do not believe it would be anything really significant.

Play "You Light Up My Life" followed by "Mockingbird"....it might get a few to tuneout.

Play "Couldn't get it Right", followed by "Devil Woman", then "I Can't Stand It No More"...you should not have any problems.

 

[michael hagerty]

And how do you determine the appropriate time to play a record that a significant portion of the audience (let's say 33% on up) has indicated will cause tune-out? Because that's the only reason you're not already playing the record.

Think about all the music that is being ignored today...hundreds upon hundreds of additional titles that are not being played. If a station is already playing the well-tested songs and you mix one or two "rarely played hits" per hour, how will that cause tuneout??

Because a statistically significant portion of the audience has told you it will. And without testing, you won't know which of those titles will cost you 33% of your audience and which will cost you 75%.

 

[allenv]

Overthinking programming to the point of make making the simple so hard is not helping radio...Sometimes you have to hire good people in the right places and just let them do what they do...Research has a place but you can pick things apart to the point of absurdity and its my opinion that has happened in radio and in reality all it comes down to is can you sell it and make money..If not all the research means nothing...If a station has clients that wanted to buy chickens clucking 24/7 thats what most stations would do..I've heard alot of bad radio that makes money and alot of good radio that didn't last because for whatever reason and there are usually several reasons they couldn't sell it.

 

[michael hagerty]

Overthinking programming to the point of make making the simple so hard is not helping radio...Sometimes you have to hire good people in the right places and just let them do what they do...Research has a place but you can pick things apart to the point of absurdity and its my opinion that has happened in radio and in reality all it comes down to is can you sell it and make money..If not all the research means nothing...If a station has clients that wanted to buy chickens clucking 24/7 thats what most stations would do..I've heard alot of bad radio that makes money and alot of good radio that didn't last because for whatever reason and there are usually several reasons they couldn't sell it.

Advertisers buy numbers. If you can't sell it, there's only one reason: You're not attracting enough of the audience advertisers want to reach. Apart from having too weak a signal to adequately cover the market, that means one thing: That a majority of the target audience disagreed with your assessment that it was good radio.

 

[oldies76]

And without testing, you won't know which of those titles will cost you 33% of your audience and which will cost you 75%.

I do not believe any particular song will cost your station 75% (thousands) of the listeners at any given time. Maybe 1/3 and that's on a truly bad song.

 

[michael hagerty]

And without testing, you won't know which of those titles will cost you 33% of your audience and which will cost you 75%.

I do not believe any particular song will cost your station 75% (thousands) of the listeners at any given time. Maybe 1/3 and that's on a truly bad song.

In a major or large market, even a tenth of your listeners at any given time gets you into the thousands.

Do you really think that 67% of today's 45 year olds would sit all the way through The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Amazing Grace" (#11, 1972), Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" (#5, 1972) or Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" (#1, 1972)?

And if so, what do you base that on?

David, can you share a realistic range of negatives from testing? I've been tossing around 33% as a threshold, but what's typically the lowest percentage of negatives and how high can that realistically go? Is there a common point (20, 25, 30 percent or higher negatives) where most successful programmers draw the line?

 

[davideduardo]

I do not believe any particular song will cost your station 75% (thousands) of the listeners at any given time. Maybe 1/3 and that's on a truly bad song.

In a major or large market, even a tenth of your listeners at any given time gets you into the thousands.
David, can you share a realistic range of negatives from testing? I've been tossing around 33% as a threshold, but what's typically the lowest percentage of negatives and how high can that realistically go? Is there a common point (20, 25, 30 percent or higher negatives) where most successful programmers draw the line?

A music test is a static thing, so the negatives from a music test indicate danger... but a kind of "frozen in time" danger.

It all depends on how a test is done. Paper tests usually score Hate-Dislike-Neutral-Like-Love. A song with over 10% hate is really suspect, and if it also has low Love and a lot more neutrals, it won't get played. But you might take up to 12% or 15% hate if the song also had 60% or so "love" (uncommon, so usually not an issue).

The real test today is the M Score from media monitors... what percentage of listeners go away every time a song is played. If you track many plays, the incidentals are eliminated (arriving at work, lunch hour started, etc.) and if you consistently see more tune out with a particular song as compared to others, you will likely kill it.

But, yeah, 10% is where it starts to be dangerous... particularly if 10% of your audience leaves every time you play a particular song.

 

[michael hagerty]

I do not believe any particular song will cost your station 75% (thousands) of the listeners at any given time. Maybe 1/3 and that's on a truly bad song.

In a major or large market, even a tenth of your listeners at any given time gets you into the thousands.
David, can you share a realistic range of negatives from testing? I've been tossing around 33% as a threshold, but what's typically the lowest percentage of negatives and how high can that realistically go? Is there a common point (20, 25, 30 percent or higher negatives) where most successful programmers draw the line?

A music test is a static thing, so the negatives from a music test indicate danger... but a kind of "frozen in time" danger.

It all depends on how a test is done. Paper tests usually score Hate-Dislike-Neutral-Like-Love. A song with over 10% hate is really suspect, and if it also has low Love and a lot more neutrals, it won't get played. But you might take up to 12% or 15% hate if the song also had 60% or so "love" (uncommon, so usually not an issue).

The real test today is the M Score from media monitors... what percentage of listeners go away every time a song is played. If you track many plays, the incidentals are eliminated (arriving at work, lunch hour started, etc.) and if you consistently see more tune out with a particular song as compared to others, you will likely kill it.

But, yeah, 10% is where it starts to be dangerous... particularly if 10% of your audience leaves every time you play a particular song.

Okay. So how common or uncommon is it for failing songs to test with negatives of 33% or above? And how high do the negatives get for the near-universally despised ones?

 

[davideduardo]

Overthinking programming to the point of make making the simple so hard is not helping radio...Sometimes you have to hire good people in the right places and just let them do what they do...Research has a place but you can pick things apart to the point of absurdity and its my opinion that has happened in radio and in reality all it comes down to is can you sell it and make money..If not all the research means nothing...If a station has clients that wanted to buy chickens clucking 24/7 thats what most stations would do..I've heard alot of bad radio that makes money and alot of good radio that didn't last because for whatever reason and there are usually several reasons they couldn't sell it.

The problem with that argument is that in rated markets where transactional buys are essential to making a profit ratings determine ad rates.

A researched station with a competent PD will, in my experience, beat an unresearched station no matter how good the PD.

 

[davideduardo]

Okay. So how common or uncommon is it for failing songs to test with negatives of 33% or above? And how high do the negatives get for the near-universally despised ones?

You see negatives like that in songs that have burnt as currents... there are two kinds of "hate" with one being "never liked it" and the other being "I used to like it but I hate it now" or "developed dislike.

Songs coming off power rotation often go bad in a week or 10 days, with huge dislikes. The funny thing is that if they are slowed to a recurrent rotation, the problem is often over.

THat's different from a gold song which will not get 120 plays a week such as CHR powers do. If it has 15% or 20% deep dislike, then it will not recover by resting... it is just a song with a bunch of negatives.

 

[oldies76]

Do you really think that 67% of today's 45 year olds would sit all the way through The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Amazing Grace" (#11, 1972), Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" (#5, 1973) or Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" (#1, 1972)?

I believe certain novelty type songs, intrumentals, and older country-crossovers versus regular pop hits will have a different outcome on listeners on a classic hits station. Those particular songs mentioned are not considered regular pop songs, so yes the outcome on 45 year olds will be different.

Here are a few pop hits from 1972 on classic hits radio that you don't hear much of anymore:

Try "Use Me" (#2), "Back Stabbers (#3), "Freddie's Dead" (#4,), "Scorpio" (#6,) & Get on the Good Foot (#18)

 

[michael hagerty]

Do you really think that 67% of today's 45 year olds would sit all the way through The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Amazing Grace" (#11, 1972), Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" (#5, 1973) or Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" (#1, 1972)?

I believe certain novelty type songs, intrumentals, and older country-crossovers versus regular pop hits will have a different outcome on listeners on a classic hits station. Those particular songs mentioned are not considered regular pop songs, so yes the outcome on 45 year olds will be different.

Here are a few pop hits from 1972 on classic hits radio that you don't hear much of anymore:

Try "Use Me" (#2), "Back Stabbers (#3), "Freddie's Dead" (#4,), "Scorpio" (#6,) & Get on the Good Foot (#18)

I hear "Use Me" and "Back Stabbers" fairly often. Songs about murdered dope dealers might run contrary to the "good times" vibe most Classic Hits stations aim for. "Scorpio" is an instrumental.

James Brown records come with their own cautionary note. James released between 10 and 30 singles a year, and miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s). It was one of two things: Shipping a million copies and not counting the returns or a rabid fan base that knew when JB had a record out either through R&B airplay, fan club newsletters or word of mouth.

Most likely, it was a bit of each of the above. Regardless, once you get past "Try Me", "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", most Top 40 listeners only heard James' records on AT40 until "Living In America" in the 80s.

 

[allenv]

The most imporant thing is selling radio good bad or indifferent is to have a good sales dept that knows the product and has been trained properly and is actually looking to help the client's needs..In smaller markets you have to be good in front of a client and not just an order taker and really good radio salespeople are hard to find because most stations don't have the patience to really help cultivate a good salesperson and train them in all areas..It takes time and a station really has to make an investment time and money wise to help a rep grow..Let's face it radio sales ain't easy and it takes a special breed of person to be successful. You make make a good living if you are willing to dedicate yourself to it or it can chew you up and spit you out quickly....Selling intangible goods of any kind is tough.

 

[RIN3GUY]

James released between 10 and 30 singles a year, and miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s). It was one of two things: Shipping a million copies and not counting the returns or a rabid fan base that knew when JB had a record out either through R&B airplay, fan club newsletters or word of mouth.
Most likely, it was a bit of each of the above.

Whitman shows only two JB songs going gold, neither of which even cracked the Top 10: "Payback" & "Good Foot." All his songs sound alike to me except his greatest hit. He definitely saved the best one for last.

From age 13 on, I paid close attention to the Billboard Hot 100 chart posted in a record store at our local mall. Most Chicago area music stores also distributed the free WLS surveys from the '60s to the early '80s. Two great songs I came to love from WLS playing them a lot were Eric Carmen's "She Did It" and The Guess Who's "Star Baby." Both became Top 10 hits in Chicagoland (#6 and #4, respectively). Too bad these songs are ignored today because they are hard to dislike and are among the happiest songs of the '70s.

 

[hornet61]

Do you really think that 67% of today's 45 year olds would sit all the way through The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Amazing Grace" (#11, 1972), Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" (#5, 1973) or Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" (#1, 1972)?

I believe certain novelty type songs, intrumentals, and older country-crossovers versus regular pop hits will have a different outcome on listeners on a classic hits station. Those particular songs mentioned are not considered regular pop songs, so yes the outcome on 45 year olds will be different.

Here are a few pop hits from 1972 on classic hits radio that you don't hear much of anymore:

Try "Use Me" (#2), "Back Stabbers (#3), "Freddie's Dead" (#4,), "Scorpio" (#6,) & Get on the Good Foot (#18)

I hear "Use Me" and "Back Stabbers" fairly often. Songs about murdered dope dealers might run contrary to the "good times" vibe most Classic Hits stations aim for. "Scorpio" is an instrumental.

James Brown records come with their own cautionary note. James released between 10 and 30 singles a year, and miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s). It was one of two things: Shipping a million copies and not counting the returns or a rabid fan base that knew when JB had a record out either through R&B airplay, fan club newsletters or word of mouth.

Most likely, it was a bit of each of the above. Regardless, once you get past "Try Me", "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", most Top 40 listeners only heard James' records on AT40 until "Living In America" in the 80s.

In six years of hitting this site, this statement is the most ludicrous I have ever seen. talk about "Talking Outta your a_ _"
1. JB records come with a cautionary note,oh please...your obvious dislike of James Brown her warped your brain..you are talking of the God father of Soul , the creator of modern R&B, the man that set the standard that they are all measured by to this day..the most sampled artist by modern day rappers..
2. not even the Beatles on five different labels(Capitol, MGM, VeeJay, Swan and Tollie) in 1964 released 30 singles in one year.
3. "miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s)" are you kidding me...he was the most played R&B artist on the radio.."dried up in the mid-60's" this statement really takes the cake..Billboard top 100
1966 Ain't that a Groove #42, Mans World #8....1967 cold sweat#7, i can't stand myself #28..1968 I got the feelin' #6, lickin' stick #14,, say it loud #10....1969 give it up #15 , I don't want to give it up #20...popcorn #30, mother Popcorn #11, ain't it funky #24 thru out the 70's he had many top 50 hits.....yeah things really dried out by the mid-60's ,oh please.
4. finally the "you said past try me, I got you and papa ..there was nothing else, is like saying past "rubber Soul" there is nothing to the Beatles...

James Browm charted 99 singles, 75 of them from 1964-1986 according to you Casey Kasem (AT40) is the only guy that played JB...I live in the desert and I heard tons of JB. i can live with 10-20% mis-information..but you were off by 1000%...the people on this site know their oldies ..don't post garbage like this..

 

[michael hagerty]

Do you really think that 67% of today's 45 year olds would sit all the way through The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Amazing Grace" (#11, 1972), Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" (#5, 1973) or Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" (#1, 1972)?

I believe certain novelty type songs, intrumentals, and older country-crossovers versus regular pop hits will have a different outcome on listeners on a classic hits station. Those particular songs mentioned are not considered regular pop songs, so yes the outcome on 45 year olds will be different.

Here are a few pop hits from 1972 on classic hits radio that you don't hear much of anymore:

Try "Use Me" (#2), "Back Stabbers (#3), "Freddie's Dead" (#4,), "Scorpio" (#6,) & Get on the Good Foot (#18)

I hear "Use Me" and "Back Stabbers" fairly often. Songs about murdered dope dealers might run contrary to the "good times" vibe most Classic Hits stations aim for. "Scorpio" is an instrumental.

James Brown records come with their own cautionary note. James released between 10 and 30 singles a year, and miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s). It was one of two things: Shipping a million copies and not counting the returns or a rabid fan base that knew when JB had a record out either through R&B airplay, fan club newsletters or word of mouth.

Most likely, it was a bit of each of the above. Regardless, once you get past "Try Me", "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", most Top 40 listeners only heard James' records on AT40 until "Living In America" in the 80s.

In six years of hitting this site, this statement is the most ludicrous I have ever seen. talk about "Talking Outta your a_ _"
1. JB records come with a cautionary note,oh please...your obvious dislike of James Brown her warped your brain..you are talking of the God father of Soul , the creator of modern R&B, the man that set the standard that they are all measured by to this day..the most sampled artist by modern day rappers..

First of all, I don't have any dislike for James Brown. I enjoy his music and admire his artistry.

2. not even the Beatles on five different labels(Capitol, MGM, VeeJay, Swan and Tollie) in 1964 released 30 singles in one year.

True. I was way off on that. It looks like the heaviest years were 1968 (13 singles), 1969 (18 singles) and 1970 (14 singles). The Beatles matched his biggest in 1964 by releasing 18 singles, but after that, it was 7 in 1965, three each in 1966 and 1967 and two in 1968.

The fact is, James Brown released 87 singles from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969, and 60 from the beginning of 1970 to the end of 1979. That's 147.

Five of them made the top 10. The last one was "I Got The Feelin'" in 1968.

3. "miraculously, the majority of them went Gold without Top 40 airplay (which, for the most part, dried up for James in the mid-60s)" are you kidding me...he was the most played R&B artist on the radio.."dried up in the mid-60's" this statement really takes the cake..Billboard top 100
1966 Ain't that a Groove #42, Mans World #8....1967 cold sweat#7, i can't stand myself #28..1968 I got the feelin' #6, lickin' stick #14,, say it loud #10....1969 give it up #15 , I don't want to give it up #20...popcorn #30, mother Popcorn #11, ain't it funky #24 thru out the 70's he had many top 50 hits.....yeah things really dried out by the mid-60's ,oh please.

As we've been discussing here, the Billboard Hot 100 measured wholesale sales of records to distributors and record stores, not actual sales to customers. There's a bigger difference between a #1 record and a #10 record than there was between a #20 and a #40 or a #40 and a #100.

Even so, since it's all we've got, here's a great example of what I was talking about, from Billboard itself, the "Hot Chart Action" column in the issue of February 17, 1973:



"James Brown is a category unto himself. Without any Top 40 airplay being reported to us, his Polydor single of "I Got Ants In My Pants" continues to scale the Hot 100 survey. It settles into the 30th position with a star, up from #36. In its five weeks on the charts, it has graphically shown that he has a strong, loyal audience that listens to his material on soul stations."



It stopped at #27. Apart from "Get On The Good Foot" six months before, which made #18, it was his best chart performance in almost two years, since "Hot Pants", which made #15.

It had been five years since the last time he was in the Top 10 ("I Got The Feelin'", #6).

KHJ in Los Angeles, which had no problem with R&B artists, gave up on James before that. They didn't play a record of his after "I Can't Stand Myself" at the end of 1967.

James got a better ride from WABC, New York (the last one they played was "Hot Pants" in 1971) and WLS, Chicago (which played "Good Foot" in 1972), but by and large, major market Top 40 stations cooled when the Top 10s stopped coming. And that was March of 1968.

4. finally the "you said past try me, I got you and papa ..there was nothing else, is like saying past "rubber Soul" there is nothing to the Beatles...

James Browm charted 99 singles, 75 of them from 1964-1986 according to you Casey Kasem (AT40) is the only guy that played JB...I live in the desert and I heard tons of JB. i can live with 10-20% mis-information..but you were off by 1000%...the people on this site know their oldies ..don't post garbage like this..

The Beatles had no problem getting airplay and Top 10 records after "Rubber Soul". Bad analogy.

As always, stations in every place were different...where in the desert, what station and define "tons"?

 

[Board Editor]

MOVED: TIO: My Lost Hits Stations

Some posts in this thread have been moved to Take It Outside.

[iurl=http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=229163.0]http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=229163.0[/iurl]

 

[unitron]

superfan

I'm old and all this graphics heavy intarweb stuff just confuses me, not to mention flashblock borks grooveshark.

Are those by the decade lists available as plain text anywhere?