Obscure hits within a soft AC format

[davideduardo]

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, constantly making fun of the song mix of the playlists of such stations.

Reality is not negativity. It is just refocusing an emotional reaction into true proportion.

Those "alternate listening options" that are not from the big names like Pandora and Slacker are almost all driven by passion and dedication and are not focused on being a profitable business. And most have to limit the number of streams in order to cap the monthly cost for the streaming service and rights management.

As Oldies76 and I have discussed, I've been slowly preparing a Spanish language classic hits / oldies format based on my own programming experience from the 60's and 70's; I even have everything set up in MusicMaster to do true daily logs with broadcast-quality rotations and horizontal and vertical rotation control among other things. But I have no illusion of competing with any OTA station or even getting large numbers of listeners... because of the cost.

And that is the same restraint as most of the other "fan driven" sites labor under. It's not an insult to say that these providers have to control their generosity. But it means that compared to a single OTA station in a single major market is going to have hundreds if not thousands of times the audience. Reality.

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

I listened to that same stream while processing my Billboard collection for my site, and found the same thing: segues that were inappropriate, distracting and sometimes annoying. This is no doubt due to not having professional music scheduling software such as MusicMaster or Selector to protect such things from occurring. Software of that calibre in its full version may cost thousands of dollars and have monthly or annual maintenance fees, as well.

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".

A distracting interruption in flow, mood or texture has nothing to do with language or profanity. It is just bad programming. It's just the equivalent of an iPod on shuffle and not truly programmed at all.

The consultants need to stop doing such stuff!

Just the opposite. The operators of those hobby stations should listen and learn how to make the mood and flow of their stations better. However, I question whether most of them spend the 8-10 hours a week needed to manually edit daily logs to insure perfect flow, era balance, artist separation, etc.

 

[Han Solo]

Reality is not negativity. It is just refocusing an emotional reaction into true proportion.

Those "alternate listening options" that are not from the big names like Pandora and Slacker are almost all driven by passion and dedication and are not focused on being a profitable business. And most have to limit the number of streams in order to cap the monthly cost for the streaming service and rights management.

As Oldies76 and I have discussed, I've been slowly preparing a Spanish language classic hits / oldies format based on my own programming experience from the 60's and 70's; I even have everything set up in MusicMaster to do true daily logs with broadcast-quality rotations and horizontal and vertical rotation control among other things. But I have no illusion of competing with any OTA station or even getting large numbers of listeners... because of the cost.

And that is the same restraint as most of the other "fan driven" sites labor under. It's not an insult to say that these providers have to control their generosity. But it means that compared to a single OTA station in a single major market is going to have hundreds if not thousands of times the audience. Reality.



I listened to that same stream while processing my Billboard collection for my site, and found the same thing: segues that were inappropriate, distracting and sometimes annoying. This is no doubt due to not having professional music scheduling software such as MusicMaster or Selector to protect such things from occurring. Software of that calibre in its full version may cost thousands of dollars and have monthly or annual maintenance fees, as well.



A distracting interruption in flow, mood or texture has nothing to do with language or profanity. It is just bad programming. It's just the equivalent of an iPod on shuffle and not truly programmed at all.



Just the opposite. The operators of those hobby stations should listen and learn how to make the mood and flow of their stations better. However, I question whether most of them spend the 8-10 hours a week needed to manually edit daily logs to insure perfect flow, era balance, artist separation, etc.

I find the stations that Music Lover has suggested here to be perfect. I quite agree with him/her that you guys are being overly critical of such stations.

 

[davideduardo]

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.

I have posted, and others in the industry have as well, plenty of anecdotal individual station experiences as well as well verified findings that qualify as "universal". You simply don't care to believe what the radio industry spends millions and millions of dollars a year to discover and verify.

A more accurate statement is "Programmers are employed to make the numbers look good, even if the measuring tools don't really work."

That's a two part issue. First, programmers are hired to get good ratings because that means that enough people are listening to get on agency buys and to create results at the cash register for direct clients.

You qualify the statement by stating your disbelief in ratings. The fact is that ratings, strictly and rigorously overseen by the MRC, are considered an adequate metric for advertisers to invest billions of dollars in transactional business. In other words, they trust the ratings as a metric to determine the relative value of each station. That is the reality of the business side of radio.

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.

So few people buy an album today that sales, whether physical or by download, is not a good metric for programming. Add in the fact that we don't really know who is buying the album and you have relatively weak data.

Stations don't program albums or artists. They program songs. And what radio needs to know is how much listeners want to hear a song on the "radio" today. Not the past history of sales or even the past history of airplay or exposure. Today.

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.

But they may or may not listen regularly to all of them. And the longer the time between the sale and today, the more irrelevant that sales data becomes.

There are few million-selling AC albums. Yet if you look at just a single major AC station in the US, that single station alone cumes many times the total national sales of even the biggest album in the genre. So sales of any kind are a poor indicator of what our listeners want to hear today.

 

[passtheword]

I see that even though we've tried to redirect the topic of this thread back to its original intent (obscure hits within a soft AC format), I see that these consultants have once again taken us back into this endless diatribe. If you really want these folks to go away, just ignore them and don't respond to their posts. It's obvious we won't (or ever will) agree. We've entertained their presence long enough....

 

[davideduardo]

I see that even though we've tried to redirect the topic of this thread back to its original intent (obscure hits within a soft AC format), I see that these consultants have once again taken us back into this endless diatribe. If you really want these folks to go away, just ignore them and don't respond to their posts. It's obvious we won't (or ever will) agree. We've entertained them long enough....

I suppose that means that you are not interested in a qualified opinion of your streaming programming that might help you make it more appealing to potential streamers.

That would be a typical reaction of someone who is streaming only for personal gratification and not for audience response. That says a lot.

 

[Music Lover]

I find the stations that Music Lover has suggested here to be perfect. I quite agree with him/her that you guys are being overly critical of such stations.

Thank you. Yes, they are definitely being overly critical. Many of these hobbyists work as DJ's and Programming Directors while running their hobby stations on the side. They know about getting the flow and mood just right, which they have definitely done an excellent job of. These stations are formatted precisely how they were when I was growing as a child in the 80's and 90's.

 

[passtheword]

Thank you. Yes, they are definitely being overly critical. Many of these hobbyists work as DJ's and Programming Directors while running their hobby stations on the side. They know about getting the flow and mood just right. These stations are formatted precisely how they were when I was growing as a child in the 80's and 90's.

I would have to agree that many of the online, traditionally-based soft AC stations sound very similar as they did on the radio in the 80's.

I always enjoyed waiting to hear some of the current music that would air periodically on these stations back then. It was a way of discovering new music, so I didn't have to hear just the classics the entire time. What other artists/tracks do you consider obscure that you believe would fit in a traditionally-based soft AC format?

 

[davideduardo]

These stations are formatted precisely how they were when I was growing as a child in the 80's and 90's.

No, they are not. While they may play many of the same songs, the presentation, imaging and flow are uniformly much less refined.

Not that this is necessarily bad. I have a friend at one of the stations who is an amateur rocketry hobbyist. They do some amazing feats with home built rockets, including high altitude launches from the NASA facility in the Mojave Desert that include full telemetry and flight data monitoring. But they don't launch people into orbit or do deep space probes. That's beyond their budget (although some of the people are industry professionals) but it does not detract from the satisfaction and learning they derive from their projects.

 

[Music Lover]

I would have to agree that many of the online, traditionally-based soft AC stations sound very similar as they did on the radio in the 80's. I always enjoyed waiting to hear some of the current music that would air periodically on these stations back then. It was a way of discovering new music, so I didn't have to hear just the classics the entire time.

It was the same way with me. I was exposed to currents of the time without having to be subjected to the raunchier stuff that Top 40 would play.

 

[Music Lover]

What other artists/tracks do you consider obscure that you believe would fit in a traditionally-based soft AC format?

Irish pop/rock band, The Corrs, had some songs that I remember local soft AC's playing in the 90's/early 00's.

A few 90's/early 00's boy bands from overseas:
BBMak, Boyzone, Westlife

Leona Lewis is a definite for current material.

 

[passtheword]

Soft AC's back then definitely had their own distinct sound, as opposed to other radio formats that were available at the time. And, of course, you could still hear the occasional current, too, that the mainstream AC and CHR's were airing. I never was opposed to listening to top 40 music, although my interest in those kinds of stations was much less than in the easy listening/soft AC ones.

Back to obscure hits...I was just thinking about how our soft AC station here in Birmingham in the mid 80's began playing an unknown track at the time. The mainstream AC station here wasn't offering it here at the time, nor were any of the other AC stations in our area, for about a year to year and a half's time. Then...suddenly...every AC and soft AC station began airing it. That song became a HUGE hit for Genesis, which we all know as..."In Too Deep".

 

[Han Solo]

That would be a typical reaction of someone who is streaming only for personal gratification and not for audience response. That says a lot.

Take a look at the complimentary comments on the Facebook pages of such stations to see that it's not just about personal gratification.

 

[Music Lover]

Back to obscure hits...I was just thinking about how our soft AC station here in Birmingham in the mid 80's began playing an unknown track at the time. The mainstream AC station here wasn't offering it here at the time, nor were any of the other AC stations in our area, for about a year to year and a half's time. Then...suddenly...every AC and soft AC station began airing it. That song became a HUGE hit for Genesis, which we all know as..."In Too Deep".

I saw on Soft N Easy's Facebook page, someone had asked about AC only hits such as Water From the Moon- Celine Dion, Ever Changing Times- Aretha Franklin/Michael McDonald, Sunrise- Simply Red, Cruisin'- Gwyneth Paltrow/Huey Lewis.

 

[Music Lover]

Take a look at the complimentary comments on the Facebook pages of such stations to see that it's not just about personal gratification.

Those comments on social media is excellent proof that people are tuning in from other countries. When I was browsing through Soft N Easy's Facebook page I saw people mentioning that they were tuning in from Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Canada, Iceland, to name a few. Oldies76 exaggerated that it was thousands. While I have never believed it was that many, the listener peaks on Shoutcast show that definitely more than 10 have tuned in.

 

[davideduardo]

Take a look at the complimentary comments on the Facebook pages of such stations to see that it's not just about personal gratification.

Personal gratification as I explained it is the motivation for creating hobbyist streams. Since there is no profit to be had, what other reason than satisfaction would there be for creating such a stream?

 

[Han Solo]

Personal gratification as I explained it is the motivation for creating hobbyist streams. Since there is no profit to be had, what other reason than satisfaction would there be for creating such a stream?

Some small webcasters talking about why they stream: http://forum.streamlicensing.com/index.php?topic=218.0

Like some of them said, they are trying to fill musical voids.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Personal gratification as I explained it is the motivation for creating hobbyist streams. Since there is no profit to be had, what other reason than satisfaction would there be for creating such a stream?

Some small webcasters talking about why they stream: http://forum.streamlicensing.com/index.php?topic=218.0

Like some of them said, they are trying to fill musical voids.

Which means they are personally gratified when a handful of people appreciate their attempts to fill same.

As has been pointed out (and rejected by the music fans) repeatedly, the best independent stream in the world is never going to have .001% of the audience of the worst terrestrial station. Each stream connection costs money, and the person who runs a stream as a labor of love is going to have to fit that into their individual budget. Each connection costs money for the terrestrial stations as well, but the stream is a relatively small part of the station's budget ... and they have ad revenue from also being broadcast which the stream-only people do not.

If anyone chooses to go back and search my posts, they'll see that I have never "put people down" for liking a broader variety of music than what's played on the average radio station. In fact, my own MP3 player is about 30% songs that never even charted anywhere, which gives you an idea of what percentage of it is low-charters and higher charters that don't test well anymore. But that's for my own personal listening ... just as each of you load your MP3 players with songs you enjoy hearing. When I'm in my programmer chair, my own personal tastes are not a big factor in what I put on the air. I know from experience that the research methodology we use in the industry works, because I've seen the "seat of your pants using the Whitburn books" stations fall every time a well-researched station competed with them. So this attitude that we are dissing you because you like more music than what results from getting a consensus of listeners has to stop. We are not saying that at all, and we are not offended when you want to listen to an independent stream or your MP3 player.

And that's the other thing everyone has a misconception about. I don't attack streaming. Streaming, being a very narrowcast service, fills a lot of niches that terrestrial radio, being a broadcast service, cannot. But whenever someone tries to make the argument that the latter should play more obscure music because the former does, then I have to argue against that, because the reality is different.

As I said before, if you want to hear only the opinions of those who agree with you, a radio industry discussion board is not the place for that.

We've entertained their presence long enough....

Sorry, other way around. The name of the site isn't MusicDiscussions.

 

[passtheword]

Some small webcasters talking about why they stream: http://forum.streamlicensing.com/index.php?topic=218.0

Like some of them said, they are trying to fill musical voids.

I would say that, for me, doing online radio is a way to give back to others musically. In my case, I began this pursuit at 14 years of age, when our local beautiful music station, WQEZ, changed formats. Ever since that time, the desire to do an EZ/BM station for Birmingham (giving back what was lost/taken away) has never left me, even in 30+ years time. Lite 99 doesn't have the same "roots" as my first station (ie. it's not a station I have always wanted to do/recreate), but it's still a way for me to give back musically. I don't refute the idea that doing these stations gives me pleasure as a side benefit...and really, I don't see why anyone should feel they are merely there to serve others and not be allowed any sort of personal enjoyment out of doing it, whether it be an online radio station or any other kind of business. To make a blanket statement that all online radio station broadcasters do it merely for personal gratifcation is judgmental, not to mention unfactual.

 

[davideduardo]

...but it's still a way for me to give back musically. I don't refute the idea that doing these stations gives me pleasure as a side benefit...and really, I don't see why anyone should feel they are merely there to serve others and not be allowed any sort of personal enjoyment out of doing it, whether it be an online radio station or any other kind of business. To make a blanket statement that all online radio station broadcasters do it merely for personal gratifcation is judgmental, not to mention unfactual.

How is "giving back" not a "personal satisfaction" quality? "Giving back" is a form of paying a debt of gratitude for stations or a style of music we enjoyed in the past?

 

[frankberry]

This thread is so off-topic, I'm closing it temporarily.
Too much "them vs. us" and too many misquotes:

From DavidEduardo:
That would be a typical reaction of someone who is streaming only for personal gratification and not for audience response.

From passtheword:
"To make a blanket statement that all online radio station broadcasters do it merely for personal gratifcation is judgmental, not to mention unfactual."

Let's all take a breath and cool down.