OK... Here's The Question

[pittdave]

I think we've all read enough about the state of FM rock radio both here in Dallas and around the country and there seems to be a running idea that stations just don't play the right music. So, my question is.."What is the right music and why isn't it being played?" I know we all want to here "Tangerine" over "Whole Lotta Love", "Starship Trooper" over "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Black Cow" over "Reeling in the Years" ad infinitum. So.. why can't back cuts, deep, cuts, album rock, whatever you want to call it work? Are there really that few of us that like music at its pure form that a station that relies on that format can't succeed? I don't want to hear the Ipod/mp3 excuse, these stations have been absent for years. I know back when the DJ could program his/her show, that freedom allowed for more expression, but I can't believe just because a song doesn't have the hook anymore then it can't be on the radio and you can't sell it.


Just a vent,
PD

 

[radiochick53]

Radio stations in general depend on research to much when it comes to picking music for their stations. They plays hooks for a couple of hundred people to determine which 300 songs they will play. It's just wrong. When FM stations first went on the air, they played the deep cuts to be different from the AM's that were playing the Top 40 and it worked. Today stations depend so much on ratings and revenue that they don't want to gamble with songs that are not researched. That's one reason that Lone Star is being talked about so much. They are being different from the cookie cutter radio stations but I guarantee you they are not generating the revenue that they would like to see. Let's face it, radio is not what it used to be and never will. Robots are running them now, not real talent!

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

Radio chick summed it well. Radio surrendered any type of innovation,creativity,and serving its LICENSED community.Now there are those who worked in radio before consolidation,deregulation who have decided to be assimilated and become CONsultants sales persons,and gave up all concern for quality programming. Their passion is lost and their individual greed to make a dollar at any cost,cost the public its OWN identifiable radio station. This group often will try to deflect the criticism by calling other radio vets,(those who cry out against research groups,and shortened playlists) as "has beens"."Whiners" and people who love to "moan and bitch" rather than noticing their is a problem in radio programming (Movin,Free,among others)and get back to the basics of "listening" to a listener" not someone in for free stale sandwiches and 6oz's of soda" and nodding their head for a few beats per min song.
They( the guys running radio now) rather play it safe and have an assembly line of programming rather than programming that stands out from the herd.

Radio listnership as been noted before has been in a decline and its accelerating. People want to be entertained by talent,NOT read to. People want to hear a song that hasnt been played in 9 hours or less. People do not want a barrage of 11 min commercial sweeps every 20 min. People want to
be informed ,not Britney Spears -Paris Hilton wall to wall coverage. They want to know about events in their community,NOT just a stations remotes)actual news, not infotainment, they want a station that reflects them in THEIR COMMUNITY NOT be told what their community is!

The excuses given for not doing the basics:ipod,internet,satellite.
The real reason :Too lazy,too greedy,too self absorbing and never admiting they made a huge mistake and are wrong.

D.E. or Little 1 in ..5...4...3...2...1

 

[radioman921]

The PPM could change the way music is programmed. We will have to wait and see.

 

[davideduardo]

The PPM could change the way music is programmed. We will have to wait and see.

If anything, PPM is less forgiving than the diary. We can see how the bad song at 6;15 on Tuesday hurt us. So some stations will opt for faster rotations of even higher scoring songs. Some of us are already looking at this data for morning show content, in fact.

We now have 4 years of PPM data to go on, and what we know is that it realigns the rank of some formats (favors rock and AC, for example) and changes the rank of individual stations.

We will likely see some changes in HOuston when the PPM data is officially published for June, but those in the test phase already have 24 months of data and know how it is shaking out.

 

[little1]

I think we've all read enough about the state of FM rock radio both here in Dallas and around the country and there seems to be a running idea that stations just don't play the right music. So, my question is.."What is the right music and why isn't it being played?" I know we all want to here "Tangerine" over "Whole Lotta Love", "Starship Trooper" over "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Black Cow" over "Reeling in the Years" ad infinitum. So.. why can't back cuts, deep, cuts, album rock, whatever you want to call it work? Are there really that few of us that like music at its pure form that a station that relies on that format can't succeed? I don't want to hear the Ipod/mp3 excuse, these stations have been absent for years. I know back when the DJ could program his/her show, that freedom allowed for more expression, but I can't believe just because a song doesn't have the hook anymore then it can't be on the radio and you can't sell it.
Just a vent,
PD

Is this former Ticket dude Pitsburgh Dave? Just curious...
And my question is (to quote Tonto if you know the old joke) 'what do you mean "we" white man?
Is it possible that the 'we' you speak of is the extremely heavy consumer of the format? Then yes, you might want to hear black cow instead of reeling in the years, tangerine instead of whole lotta love, etc...
But my question then becomes how many extremely heavy consumers do I have versus light users? Where are the bulk of my quarter hour listeners coming from? And are those users I have enough of the right type/quantity that I can sell...
(and don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to program from a purely artistic viewpoint, a la just so that it 'sounds' good, but 90% of us have that [EDIT] telling us to get ratings or else...)

But back to my point, if my ratings are good and I have a lot of heavy users, yeah, play the deep cuts. But if I have a lot of light users, I need to hold them as long as possible. And that usually means playing the hits...If a song isn't known, it's a potential punch out...potential punch out means lost listeners, no?

So put your job on the line with the above scenario- you've got high cume, but low TSL...you know that tangerine, black cow, etc don't score nearly as well with your target market as WLLove and RITYr's...Do you play them anyway...knowing that that might be your one shot as being a major market PD? Or do you play the safe cuts that are more likely to keep what audience you do have longer, therefore increasing your ratings, therfore allowing you to keep your job?


[EDIT-vulgar content]

 

[pittdave]

To answer your first question... Don't you think my member name gave it away??
What's goin on there Steve??

I guess the point I am trying to make is, I believe there are enough listeners out there who are tired of all of the same ol, same ol from AOR stations, that a deep cuts station could work. I admit, it would take a lot of guts and a lot of down books before it would start to show well. Maybe I have a distorted view of "joe radio guy," but I feel that if you can give a listener a good feeling whilst on your station, then they will stick around. And I can think of no better feeling on a station then saying, "Man, I haven't heard that song on the radio for a long time." The only station I have been around that does that consistently is WEGR 102.7 Rock 103 in Memphis. But going by thier last few books, maybe I've answered my own question.

Stay hard ya'll
PD

 

[little1]

Like I said, I'd love to be able to program a station like that- but then reality sinks in...

I think the problem is that if you have a dominant rock station, with long TSL, you can afford to play deep cuts- but if you're fighting for every 10th of a point, you're cutting your own throat (short term) to play deep cuts...

And yes, maybe long term it would work, but how many of us have multi year contracts and that much leeway to take those chances?