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Obscure hits within a soft AC format

Music Lover said:
@PassTheWord

K M, just like the other pros I've put on ignore because I'm sick and tired of their no-can-do, throw anyone who doesn't fit their specific demographics under the bus attitudes, thinks in terms of mega-broadcasting.
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At least those who have me on ignore do not engage me in pointless circular arguments.
 
Music Lover said:
That's why I hang out in the AC and, more specifically, Soft AC forums. That's the music I'm interested in discussing. I'm interested in talking about various artists in the genre, etc. If the consultants don't want listeners here, then the board should have been set up for consultants only.
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Ya know...we're just wasting our time with these folks arguing with them. All I'm hearing from them is a LOT of ego and nothing factual.
 
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Referrals are the backbone of any successful business. Much of my future business comes from past business. They're happy and steady business keeps me happy in my line of work.
 
passtheword said:
Ya know...we're just wasting our time with these folks arguing with them. All I'm hearing from them is a LOT of ego and nothing factual.
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That is your perception.

The professionals here try to explain how the industry works. David (Eduardo) Gleason has explained music research and the testing process more times than I can keep track of. I've tried to explain the relationship between past chart performance and the viability of songs as being playable today. Big A has called out just about every instance of people dismissing factual answers as "the opinion of the suits".

I have noted that the standard perception of music fans is that any response that does not conform with what they want to hear is automatically rejected as "opinion" or "ego" or the like. With that mindset, yes ... you are wasting your time arguing. If you want to discuss music only with people who are going to agree with you, go find a music-oriented discussion site. This site is called RadioDiscussions and as such it is going to be inhabited by radio people.

I have also said that there is nothing wrong with people liking a lot of songs that radio no longer plays. One frequent poster has said (rightfully, for the most part) that "every song is someone's favorite". But radio is not in the business of making each individual listener happy. Our job as programmers is to please as many people as a group as is possible, and that means that in testing, if a song does not get rated by the majority of participants (who are actual listeners) as a "favorite" -- or at least as a "neutral" -- it doesn't get played. The rationale for this is that even if we know there are some listeners who like the variety, there are far more who will change stations when we play a song that they don't consider to be a personal favorite. (Heaven forbid that a song that is "someone's" favorite was hated by more than half of the other listeners ... they'll be gone in a heartbeat.)

Radio is a business. Programmers are employed to deliver as many listeners as we can. So we do what we were hired to do. No amount of your arguing with us changes what our bosses expect of us.
 
rwells2265 said:
^^^ This. I don't question the sound science behind these tests, but anyone -- regardless of industry, not just radio -- can get the result they 'want' if they pay attention to how the room is populated, which will "validate" the views of those who commission the survey. (How do you think Ken Jennings had 70-someodd consecutive days of runaway victories on "Jeopardy!"? He's smart, but was he THAT smart? The game wasn't fixed, but they almost had to have given him opponents pulled from the "Wheel of Fortune" contestant line. The producers got the blockbuster ratings they wanted, and the game was still played on the level.)

I'm 50, which means no major commercial station gives a flying something-or-other what I think. But I still have opinions, and a big one is there's a sensible middle ground between playing ONLY kajillion-seller hits that spent as many weeks at the top as "You Light Up My Life" ... and loading down a playlist with middling-charters and obscure stiffs. There's room for spice -- on occasion, throw in that Dan Hill tune, or another which - gasp! - might've peaked only at #10. It meant stations once played it in a high rotation. People once bought the record. Play it, and you get that "oh wow" factor without the baggage. If the listener doesn't like it, it's only four minutes, give or take; it's not as if the P1 lurves every single song on the 25-deep playlist, anyway.

Where does 40-year-old Tiffany go if she detests "Up Where We Belong" or "Hey Soul Sister"? And she comes back to her favorite station, doesn't she? The same would apply to a top ten "obscure stiff" by Dan Hill. One of four things would happen:
1) "Wowowow .... I've forgotten ALL about this song!! I haven't heard this since I was a high school junior. Is this on iTunes??"
2) "I've never heard this. I kinda like it. Is this on iTunes?"
3) "I've never heard this, and I don't like it" ... grits her teeth and waits out the four minutes until the next song.
4) "I've never heard this, and I don't like it" ... and changes the station. But she'll be back. Where else would she go? She's a radio listener. If she wanted Pandora or iTunes, she'd have already jumped off the FM grid for good ... you know, like many "geeks" who like big playlists and obscure songs, and aren't blessed enough to live in a market with a quirky, non-commercial music station catering to those tastes.

Just a couple of old pennies from a newly-minted curmudgeon.

--Russell
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Right in the middle of this post is the line, "People once bought the record.". That's just it. They didn't! If the only place it showed up was a #8 peak on the AC chart, that just means that enough AC stations played the song enough times and long enough for it to peak at #8. If it had any real sales(other than local/regional), it would've shown up on the Hot 100.
 
Just took a peek and saw the same ones over there too.

The thing is, the listeners are trying to have conversations about the music and artists on these formats. Then the consultants show up and talk about ratings and advertising and testing, things the listeners have no interest in. (Since the consultants want to talk about ratings and such, then they should make their own threads about that.) And the consultants act negative to any alternate options being offered for listeners to enjoy. It's that negativity that irks me. :mad:
 
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semoochie said:
Right in the middle of this post is the line, "People once bought the record.". That's just it. They didn't! If the only place it showed up was a #8 peak on the AC chart, that just means that enough AC stations played the song enough times and long enough for it to peak at #8. If it had any real sales(other than local/regional), it would've shown up on the Hot 100.
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Obviously that's not the case because AC-only artists like Josh Groban and Jim Brickman and Norah Jones and Michael Buble and Susan Boyle DO sell and sell well.
 
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K.M. Richards said:
The professionals here try to explain how the industry works. David (Eduardo) Gleason has explained music research and the testing process more times than I can keep track of. I've tried to explain the relationship between past chart performance and the viability of songs as being playable today. Big A has called out just about every instance of people dismissing factual answers as "the opinion of the suits".
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Please. Gleason just keeps posting, "It works. Trust me", or else he'll post, "You just don't know how it works", without saying anything of substance to "explain" how the testing manages to overcome all the biases that those of us who recognize it for what it is, smoke and mirrors, know is built into the process.

K.M. Richards said:
Radio is a business. Programmers are employed to deliver as many listeners as we can. So we do what we were hired to do. No amount of your arguing with us changes what our bosses expect of us.
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A more accurate statement is "Programmers are employed to make the numbers look good, even if the measuring tools don't really work."

semoochie said:
Right in the middle of this post is the line, "People once bought the record.". That's just it. They didn't! If the only place it showed up was a #8 peak on the AC chart, that just means that enough AC stations played the song enough times and long enough for it to peak at #8. If it had any real sales(other than local/regional), it would've shown up on the Hot 100.
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But to the radio suits, "buying the record" means buying the single. To AC fans, buying the record means the album, including all of the songs on the entire album. For more recent times, substitute "CD" for "album", though those terms should be interchangeable.

Even if the sales statistics somehow account for album sales, the fact is that when someone buys an album or CD, they buy every last song on that recording. All of them. Not just the one that the suits played on the air. They bought all of them.
 
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This thread is getting tiresome. It's the same old stuff over and over again. KM and Avid will never agree. Why not just stop this nonsense now?
 
frankberry said:
This thread is getting tiresome. It's the same old stuff over and over again. KM and Avid will never agree. Why not just stop this nonsense now?
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Because it's fun. Because the lurkers are seeing both sides of the argument, and though the participants might not have their minds changed, there's an excellent chance that it will influence the lurkers. You don't shut down a show like the old "Hannity and Colmes" show because neither of them are going to change each others' minds, right? There's always a chance that the lurkers will see something they haven't seen before.
 
Getting back to obscure songs on Soft AC:

I LOVE that this station doesn't always pick from the top of the AC chart. Several current selections have peaked between 20 and 30 on the charts. Some have been major label singles, others have been indie releases. I LOVE that indies are being given a chance on such stations.

www.softneasy.com

Charlie Ranucci - Here I Am
TrueHeart - The Road
Doobie Brothers - Far From Home
Elliott Yamin - Can't Keep On Loving You From A Distance
Vanessa Williams - Just Friends
Clay Aiken - On My Way Here
Anders Holst - What Your Love Has Done To Me
Phil Collins - Going Back
 
Ah, let's stop the bickering and go back to "obscure hits on soft AC," shall we?

How about a single from the country-rock band Poco called "Crazy Love"? That was #1 on the Billboard AC charts in 1979, yet I've only heard it one time on one radio station in the past few years. (and that was the wonderful KSRW Sierra Wave 92.5 in Bishop CA) You'd think more Soft ACs would air this one.
There's a lot of Luther Vandross that could be aired on Soft AC...not just "Here and Now", but ones like "Never Too Much," "Stop to Love," "Never Let Me Go," "Don't Wanna Be a Fool," and "Dance with My Father" (even though that was just before his death)
KSRW-92.5 also plays a Southern California act named Slim Man often. He's more of a smooth vocal/soul artist, but has had 9 CDs. I've heard "To Be with You," which is from 2001, and another song from Slim Man called "Weeping Willow" on KSRW. He's only aired very occasionally on that station.
 
Avid Listener said:
Because it's fun.
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I disagree that it's fun. Consultants negativity to alternate listening options being suggested ruins these threads. They are constantly making fun of how many listeners tune in to such stations (Big A has been doing that), constantly making fun of the song mix of the playlists of such stations.

Here's an example in this thread. CTListener made fun of the playlist of the station. The goal of the thread is to offer a new stream to listen to for those who enjoy Soft AC/EZ Listening/Standards. http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?671042-The-Seabreeze

Another example from CTListener was on page 42 of this thread, calling a playlist a "trainwreck". http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?683562-It-s-2015!-Time-to-get-rid-of-the-70s/page42

As I replied to him/her, anyone who wants to hear something relaxing and be able to listen with their kids or grandkids without worrying about foul language or suggestive lyrics would not find that to be a "trainwreck". You see, that's what I look for in an AC station and I know that the soft, gold-based ones are the most reliable for that, but, since the soft, gold-based ones are so hard to find on terrestrial radio, I suggest such Internet stations to the AC and Soft AC/EZ Listening/Standards forums and I hate that such stations are being made fun of. The consultants need to stop doing such stuff!

:mad:
 
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Music Lover said:
Obviously that's not the case because AC-only artists like Josh Groban and Jim Brickman and Norah Jones and Michael Buble and Susan Boyle DO sell and sell well.
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You're not wrong, but there needs to be some differentiation here. Adult contemporary artists, who Semoochie says do not sell because they don't show up on the Hot 100, in fact do sell, and plenty. But they do not, as a rule, sell singles. Their sales are in albums, which oddly pairs them with the metal bands and hardcore rappers who may also not get a great deal of radio play or singles sales.

This is nothing new; in the 60's, performers like Herb Alpert or Julie London sold millions of LPS without making much of a dent in the singles charts. And years later you had the phenomenon of Slim Whitman, Zamfir, etc. selling carloads of albums by direct mail order without even going through the conventional sales system.
 
@JeffM

That's the same thing that Avid Listener pointed out up above:

Avid Listener said:
But to the radio suits, "buying the record" means buying the single. To AC fans, buying the record means the album, including all of the songs on the entire album. For more recent times, substitute "CD" for "album", though those terms should be interchangeable.

Even if the sales statistics somehow account for album sales, the fact is that when someone buys an album or CD, they buy every last song on that recording. All of them. Not just the one that the suits played on the air. They bought all of them.
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