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New music director looking for some feedback!

T

TheGameRB

I am a new music director and would love some feedback on my categories. It's a small-market, mainstream CHR.

Power

Womanizer
Addicted
So What
Live Your Life
Whatever You Like
Let It Rock
I'm Yours
Hot N Cold

Medium

If I Were A Boy
Gotta Be Somebody
Right Now
Love Remains The Same
Love Lockdown
Just Dance
Miss Independent
Shattered (Turn The Car Around)
Rehab
T Shirt
Can't Believe It

Power Recurrent

Forever
Keeps Gettin Better
Crush
In The Ayer
One Step At A Time
Dangerous
Better In Time
Paper Planes
Closer
Disturbia
Fall For You

New All Day

Right Here (Departed)
Lovers In Japan
I Don't Care
17 Forever
Love Story

New After 3

Gives You Hell
Light On
Without You
Magic
I Hate This Part

New After 7

Numba 1 (The Tide Is High)
Unbeautiful
Mrs. Officer
Krazy
Untouched

Thanks.
 
Looks good except "I'm yours" in power...that song is a stiff....is anyone requesting it?
 
instigator said:
Looks good except "I'm yours" in power...that song is a stiff....is anyone requesting it?
Click to expand...

Surely you must be thinking of a different record. Jason Mraz is a top 5 record at Pop, and is researching everywhere. If you're a pop station NOT playing it, expect to be "downsized" this holiday season.

My advice:

- Too many powers, unless you're running 5-6 an hour in your clocks.
- Be careful about putting records that only ended up so-so in power recurrent (examples here are Crush, Xtina, Flo Rida, Paper Planes). Power recurrent should be only slightly less sacred than power. Not everything deserves to be in that category. There are better records for you to fit in there.
- WAY too much new music. 15 new records?? Yikes. Either you're playing too many unfamiliar records, or you're not going to spin any of those enough to matter or make familiarity headway. I'd cut it down to 5 or 6, with maybe another one or two to play nights-only (and speed up how often they're called for in your clocks to compensate).
- Outside of new music, most of your records are REALLY strong, which can't be said for most small market CHRs...kudos. I'd trim the fat, though, and make sure that EVERYTHING you're playing are hits.
 
Roger That is mostly correct.

To add on... get rid of Magic... or get ready for that C&D from Jive.
Number 1 (tide)... um no. As a night record? The kids don't know the sample... and it's not gonna be a smash with them either.

What are the spins on each of your categories? In a small market be careful with that Kanye song... and I'm not sure small markets really "get" Coldplay either. Most top 40 audiences don't.
 
CHRles said:
You're kidding right? ???
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Outside of Viva La Vida, Coldplay has been lucky to get even fringe hits out of their other records. In the HISTORY of the Mediabase monitoring (1998), only 18 stations have more than 3000 spins on them as an ARTIST. Consider that the bulk of that is Viva spins, and you're left with marginal records, all. To give you a frame of reference, Beyonce has 127 stations with more than 3000 spins on her as an artist, with 38 over 10,000 spins.

The only reason Viva worked was because it was a dramatic departure from their usual formula. Now that their next single sounds just like their previous stuff, they'll fade into wallpaper yet again. Lovers will not be a big hit a CHR.
 
There are a few factors that must be considered about your station before critiquing your playlist. Is the station new or heritage? How is your competition in the market and most importantly, what does the PD and management consider their target.

With that in mind, I do think your Power category is too big. All I've ever needed to win was five powers and nine to eleven sub-powers along with five medium's and five night songs. As the famous saying goes, "narrow focus - broad results." It's tough on everyone in the building because you get burnt on songs but that all goes away when your ratings put you out in front of the competition. Also, try to keep an odd number of songs in all of your categories. CHR playlists are historically tight and an odd number will help keep songs from playing in the same time window everyday.

K~
 
Karson, you took my words out of your mouth! ;D  Odd numbers in your categories help so you don't have stuff playing at the same time.

You do have to keep in mind that each station, situation and market is a bit different, and stuff that isn't huge nationally might be huge his station (for example I'm spinning Xtina's "Keeps Gettin' Better" in power rotation) or stuff that's huge nationally might not be as big in his market.  In smaller markets, there tends to be less stations and less people in your DMA, so you need to find a way to keep TSL going (find the balance between spinning powers too much and too little), because your cume is going to max out.  One thing radio people (including myself) sometimes forget is that most listeners are passives, and haven't been exposed to the music for as long as you, which doesn't necessarily mean you should play it safe and be behind on new music (which is a philosophy that Cumulus has adopted, but save that for another discussion), but to balance out familiar hits with the fresh new stuff to keep your station sounding fresh.

As for the Coldplay...I think "Lost!" would have a better chance on CHR than "Lovers in Japan".  I was never a fan of them until their latest album came out (the bad memory of "Yellow" faded further into my mind), but that's just my taste which obviously doesn't reflect CHR listeners.
 
"Speed of Sound" was also a big record at many CHRs, amd I loved "Trouble".

BTW, there's a group based here in Nashville called Kings of Leon. They've got the number 2 record this week at Modern Rock, but whats more interesting is they recently went to number one on the Pop charts in the UK with "Sex On Fire" (currently number one in Australia)
Where's the support of CHR radio here in America? ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhhcKxflMY
 
Coincidentally, I was at the Coldplay concert in St. Paul last night.  They're awesome live.

1900, just because the kids might not know the sample of an oldie doesn't mean it won't work...I gave Kard a test spin last week and reaction was through the roof.  Otherwise Gym Class Heroes wouldn't have a #1 since most kids aren't familiar with Supertramp.  Each market and station has its own competitive situation and tastes, and I don't see anything wrong with the OP's selection. We do take a few risks on music at my station that other CHRs don't.
 
CHRles said:
Hey guys, all I know is that "Clocks" by Coldplay is one of the best songs of the decade.
Click to expand...

Are you expressing your opinion, or trying to state fact?

"Clocks" peaked at #21. "Speed of Sound"...#24, and has half the spins at Pop (to date) that "Clocks" has.

Neither was a hit at CHR. Period.
 
But the CHR im out,,, before I was there, used one of the Dance versions of Clocks, and it became top 10,, I think speed of Sound was top 5 for us, and we lean Rhythmic at night, so go figure.. Different markets have a different response,, College kids love coldplay

When I first started at the station, I proactically demanded that we added September-Cry for you....A dance song mind you, which althogh the GM was skeptical on, it was our biggest hit of late 07 and all of 08,,, and more CHR stations should have added it,, especially stations in Cosmopolitan College towns, regardless of size... Also our 5 o clock Road Rage,, which is all Dance Music in the mix constinues to be our highest CUME hour of the day... so put dat on yo pipe and smoke it.....lol

By the way, in order to give you my opinion for the new MD I would need to know your station,, Your market, Competing stations, and your demos,,, so I cant give an accurate opinion.
 
Since when are trendy college kids the CHR audience? Coldplay is a huge band, sells out shows, sells songs, but their songs just test "OK" on most pop stations.

Kings of Leon is like The Killers in that they may be an american band, but they'll be bigger on Europe forever.
 
I think Karson pretty much hit it on the nose, the only thing I'd say is too many powers...8 of them? How many do you play an hour? I'd suggest bringing the powers down to 5, playing 3 an hour. That gives you a nice separation of about 80-90 mins between plays. As far as the new music categories are concerned, I think it's ok to have that many, but ONLY if you have an overnight category or a spike category where they play maybe once a day. As a CHR, I've found that the more successful stations tend to play some golds here and there, and if you've got 30-35 songs as currents, you're not finding a whole lot of opportunities in your scheduling to play a song that'll throw a curveball to your listeners. Your station could easily become stale and predictable. Try to cut your currents that play all day to between 20-25.

The songs that are actually IN rotation though look good - but get rid of Justin now - it only took me 48 hours to get a C&D ;D
 
Thanks a lot for everybody's feedback. To answer some of the questions, we are the heritage CHR in the market with direct competition. My station pretty much dominated until 3 or 4 years ago (I think) they decided to go Rhythmic and ratings just died. Our competition has been on top since and we are making our comeback. Last book we came back and took some dayparts back.

According to some of the replies, you'll get a kick out of our clocks: 3 A's (power), 3 B's (medium), and 2 P's (power recurrents) per hour. As far as our demos, I am told we are a "full-service" CHR. Currently our median age is higher than our competition according to the last book.
 
Our categories and clocks are similar to yours... 3 A's, 3 B's and 2 power recurrents an hour here too.  And we have 7 A's, 13 B's, and 11 power recurrents.  I've heard stories about stations doubling cume and even an increase in TSL by doing 90 min. rotations, so we're thinking of doing it here.

Yup, I got a C&D for JT.  I'm playing the Killers, but not KoL (though both get played on our Sunday night alt. rock show).  KoL just isn't mainstream enough in the US.

A-Train
 
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