Now Playing on K-Earth - Classic Rock! (Well, sorta...)

[michael hagerty]

I feel sorry for those of you on the wrong side of The Orange Curtain. Rarely is traffic that bad in central and southern OC. The Orange Crush does make that part of the commute he'll. there's just too many people in LA county.

When my Dad moved to Los Angeles in 1935, there were one million people there. He said it was paradise.

There are 17.8 million in the metro now. I can promise you, it's not 17.8 times better.

 

[davideduardo]

Rush hour yes, but depending on the freeway too. Let's ask you this: If you wanted to hear your favorites from the radio during your commute, would you sit through 8 continuous minutes of spots? 2-4 minutes probably, but eight? Seems long.

The real issue is that less than a third of all listening takes place in the car, where pushbuttons are handy. So commute times are irrelevant.

If you look at the CALTRANS data, except for 10 PM to 5 AM, every hour is rush hour in LA. Traffic is slow on the major freeways at almost all daytime and early evening hours. In fact, the Top 20 US metro where traffic moves at a slower pace is San Juan.

 

[davideduardo]

There are 17.8 million in the metro now. I can promise you, it's not 17.8 times better.

It's 0.178 times better.

 

[Thomps2525]

This afternoon KRTH has played Respect, Moondance, Mony Mony, Light My Fire, Crocodile Rock, Celebration, Rhiannon, Do Wah Diddy Diddy, These Eyes, Joy To The World, Last Train To Clarksville, For Once In My Life, My Guy, This Old Heart Of Mine, I Saw Her Standing There, I Can't Help Myself, I'm A Believer, You Keep Me Hangin' On.....the same ol' songs as ever. With my best Vinnie Barbarino voice, I'd like to say to Rick Thomas: "Hey, hurry up an' do somethin'!"

 

[michael hagerty]

This afternoon KRTH has played Respect, Moondance, Mony Mony, Light My Fire, Crocodile Rock, Celebration, Rhiannon, Do Wah Diddy Diddy, These Eyes, Joy To The World, Last Train To Clarksville, For Once In My Life, My Guy, This Old Heart Of Mine, I Saw Her Standing There, I Can't Help Myself, I'm A Believer, You Keep Me Hangin' On.....the same ol' songs as ever. With my best Vinnie Barbarino voice, I'd like to say to Rick Thomas: "Hey, hurry up an' do somethin'!"

Again....

He's had it for a week .

Chill.

It'll happen when he's got it ready to roll.

 

[Thomps2525]

To paraphrase a comment Sally made to Linus in the pumpkin patch, "If you try to tell me that there have to be more auditorium music tests, I'll slug you!"

 

[michael hagerty]

To paraphrase a comment Sally made to Linus in the pumpkin patch, "If you try to tell me that there have to be more auditorium music tests, I'll slug you!"

You get one shot, Steve.

You know there'll be more tests. They may have done some already.

 

[Thomps2525]

Are there any major-market programmers who still go by good ol'-fashioned "gut instinct"?---Someone who says, "Y'know, I think these songs would sound good on my station so I'm gonna play 'em" instead of relying on consultants and auditorium tests and computer printouts?

 

[michael hagerty]

Are there any major-market programmers who still go by good ol'-fashioned "gut instinct"?---Someone who says, "Y'know, I think these songs would sound good on my station so I'm gonna play 'em" instead of relying on consultants and auditorium tests and computer printouts?

Steve! Glad you could join us. There's been an impostor posting as you the past 9 months or so.
I know this because we've already covered multiple times that:

A: Major-market programmers who go by their gut are former major-market programmers mere months later.

B: Consultants are virtually extinct.

C: Auditorium tests are an effective way of asking your desired audience what they do and don't want to hear.

 

[davideduardo]

C: Auditorium tests are an effective way of asking your desired audience what they do and don't want to hear.

Here's an anecdote.

When I did my first music test over 30 years ago, I decided I would take the list and score the songs based on my "gut feel" for how good they were and how much I thought listeners liked them.

Now, this was a station doing a Hot AC format that was #1 in 18-49 Women in a 30+ station market. It had a 12 share in 12+, too. It was way ahead of anything else in a comparable format.

When I got the results, I was within 10% of the "real score" on less than a quarter of the songs. I incorrectly identified about 25% of the songs as passable hits when they were, in fact, toxic and negative.

Obviously, the ratings improved after the test. And I discarded all the crap about "golden ear" PDs I had heard for two decades.

We used testing to launch an FM format flip a bit later, and got as high as a 33.5 share in that same market in one survey and a 42 share with a separate company.

It's really a lot better when the listeners tell you what they like. I thought I knew, but I really didn't... it was just the radio ego trip thing and it was dangerous.

 

[Thomps2525]

If programmers want to know which songs listeners like, then why not dispense with auditorium tests and simply rely on the request line? (And I'm assuming here that calls to the request line would actually be considered and that the request line doesn't exist only to make the listeners think that their requests matter.)

I will give a partial answer to my own question before Michael belittles me and before David comes up with more statistics. I imagine that most listeners will call a request line to mention a song that they want to hear but are unlikely to call a station about a song they do not want to hear. When they hear songs they don't like, they just tune to another station. Okay, Michael and David---your turn.

 

[semoochie]

It was covered earlier that no more than 6% ever call a radio station and if you listen to that 6%, you will alienate the other 94% because the 6% isn't representative of the majority and in some cases diametrically opposed! I'm surprised that it's anywhere near as high as 6%.

 

[davideduardo]

If programmers want to know which songs listeners like, then why not dispense with auditorium tests and simply rely on the request line? (And I'm assuming here that calls to the request line would actually be considered and that the request line doesn't exist only to make the listeners think that their requests matter.)

Rrrringgg.

-Hello?
-Can you play "Brown Eyed Girl?"
-I'm playing it right now!
-Oh, I didn't have my radio on.

First, phones are soooo old school. Nobody uses them anymore for much of anything. 30% of the people have no home phone, and many who have cellular phones don't use the phone part, as texting is vastly preferred.

Those who would call a station with a request are a tiny portion of the audience, and not a representative one. I mean, who in their right mind has time to call a radio station?

I imagine that most listeners will call a request line to mention a song that they want to hear but are unlikely to call a station about a song they do not want to hear. When they hear songs they don't like, they just tune to another station. Okay, Michael and David---your turn.

Even back in the "good old days" we'd get a few request calls an hour... on a station that might have a million cume. Most of us learned back in the early 70's to treat callers with respect and courtesy, and to not even write down the requests.

At the most, we'd ask the jocks in the jock meetings if any song had a passionate buzz on it... or had completely died. That extreme reaction could indicate the leading edge on for the active listeners, and was guidance, not a rule.

In the mid-70's, I'd have the jocks fill in request forms. We'd look for the currents that were way above all others and the ones with no requests at all to see if we were handling them right. Again, guidance, not a rule.

 

[Thomps2525]

When Brown Eyed Girl was a hit, radio listeners didn't have computers and iPods and Nooks and Kindles and HDTV and CD players and MP3 players and cell phones dozens of other electronic devices. They probably spent more time listening to the radio and probably, as a group, made more request calls than the listeners of 2013 would do.

I direct your attention to the back of the KHJ Boss 30 folder for January 18, 1967---which is the year that Brown Eyed Girl (Gak!) was a hit:

KHJ Bossline Request Numbers

Hollywood & Los Angeles - HO-19353
Valley & West L.A. - 78-78-200
Orange County - KHJ-5567

You say 'em and we play 'em.

Of course program director Ron Jacobs was later to admit that he never paid any attention at all to the request lines. None. But if someone requested Brown Eyed Girl, it would be played---eight times a day for several weeks!---and the caller would be happy because "KHJ played my request." Yeah, "you say 'em and we play 'em"---but we play 'em regardless of what you "say."

 

[davideduardo]

Of course program director Ron Jacobs was later to admit that he never paid any attention at all to the request lines. None.

I always recommend Jacobs' book on KHJ... which is mostly a collection of internal memos and memorabilia... because it totally dispels the idea that radio "in the good old days" was not tightly formatted and controlled. Oh, and the jocks didn't pick the songs... ;D

 

[michael hagerty]

Steve: First of all, sincerest apologies. I never meant to belittle you. It's just frustrating when you ask the same questions that have been asked and answered more times than KRTH plays "Brown Eyed Girl" in a week.

Aw, now you've got me doing it.

Anyway, the answer is there again...from Semoochie and David. Elaboration on my part: In the 70s, in Top 40, with a heavily teen audience, 6% max of your audience would ever call...even for contests.

Today, I imagine that's less than 1% in CHR and likely a fraction of a percent in an adult format. And there's no way to tell if their tastes and listening habits are anywhere near the mainstream of the audience you want to attract (other than the knowledge that, simply by calling to request a song, they are different from 99% of your listeners).

Research, properly done (and at the KRTH level, it is) gets you a statistically reliable cross-section of the audience your advertisers want to reach who are likely to listen to the station.

 

[michael hagerty]

C: Auditorium tests are an effective way of asking your desired audience what they do and don't want to hear.

Here's an anecdote.

When I did my first music test over 30 years ago, I decided I would take the list and score the songs based on my "gut feel" for how good they were and how much I thought listeners liked them.

Now, this was a station doing a Hot AC format that was #1 in 18-49 Women in a 30+ station market. It had a 12 share in 12+, too. It was way ahead of anything else in a comparable format.

When I got the results, I was within 10% of the "real score" on less than a quarter of the songs. I incorrectly identified about 25% of the songs as passable hits when they were, in fact, toxic and negative.

Obviously, the ratings improved after the test. And I discarded all the crap about "golden ear" PDs I had heard for two decades.

We used testing to launch an FM format flip a bit later, and got as high as a 33.5 share in that same market in one survey and a 42 share with a separate company.

It's really a lot better when the listeners tell you what they like. I thought I knew, but I really didn't... it was just the radio ego trip thing and it was dangerous.

It's worth noting that very few PDs and MDs ever considered their colleagues to have "golden ears".

That was a phrase most often used by record promoters in one of two ways; in reference to PDs and MDs who were playing their record, in hopes that you'd follow along or in flattery directed at you (the phrase was "giving good phone") once you started playing their records.

The dangerous thing was when PDs and MDs wanted to hear it about themselves, since the phrase was never used about someone who made sure the record really was a hit. It was always the PDs and MDs who went on records so early that it was a pure gamble as to whether the record would help you, hurt you or just waste time that could have been spent playing a song that could help you.

Guilty as charged.

 

[oldies76]

First, phones are soooo old school. Nobody uses them anymore for much of anything. 30% of the people have no home phone, and many who have cellular phones don't use the phone part, as texting is vastly preferred.

Look at it the other way, 70% (the vast majority) still use home phones. And many people don't call radio stations anymore...you're 110% right on that one, simply because they have learned that their personal favorite songs will never get played, by request. Heck I learned that 20 years ago!

In other words, radio station "request" lines should be eliminated or unadvertised as such since jocks will never grant them. Or you'd have to wait 47 rings to be answered in the first place. It's a waste of time for the most part today.

 

[michael hagerty]

First, phones are soooo old school. Nobody uses them anymore for much of anything. 30% of the people have no home phone, and many who have cellular phones don't use the phone part, as texting is vastly preferred.

Look at it the other way, 70% (the vast majority) still use home phones. And many people don't call radio stations anymore...you're 110% right on that one, simply because they have learned that their personal favorite songs will never get played, by request. Heck I learned that 20 years ago!

In other words, radio station "request" lines should be eliminated or unadvertised as such since jocks will never grant them. Or you'd have to wait 47 rings to be answered in the first place. It's a waste of time for the most part today.

Which doesn't explain why...decades ago, when listeners thought their favorite songs were being played, it was still only 6%.

The actual fact behind request lines is simple:

The vast majority of people don't call them and never have. They turn on the radio hoping to hear their favorite songs. If they don't hear them often enough, they find a station that plays them. It's why Chuck Blore's 40-song playlist fell to Bill Drake's 30-song list and why Drake fell to Buzz Bennett's 22 records.

 

[Thomps2525]

...and why Michael and David are putting together plans for KTEN-FM. The new "K-Ten" will feature a ten-song playlist and should be very popular with the 21-to-34 year-olds who want to hear Cruise, Mirrors, Radioactive and Blurred Lines thirty times a day.