Payola's Dead...

[p_herring]

...why does radio still suck?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...dead-so-why-does-radio-remain-a-wasteland.ars

That is, even by the "play unknown songs by unknown aritsts" crowd's standards, an amazingly disingenuous article.

The part that says, "FMC doesn't chalk this up to continued payola. Instead, the data "reinforce the notion made earlier that major labels' longstanding relationships with radio, and their tacit promise to devote additional resources to a release (tour support, retail placement, ads, sponsorships) incentivizes radio to play their songs more frequently than those of indie labels.""

I have never paid any attention to the retail actdivities of any record company (tour support, retail placements, ads, etc.) as it is irrelevant to the programming of music on the radio. I've never been told "we have prime display space" at WalMart by a record promoter or via record company press releases. Nor do I know anyone who has.

Programmers add new songs based on how good the songs are for their formats.

A few things do matter... if there are too many fast songs, or slow songs, on the list already, that fast or slow song may have to wait a week or two so the total station sound does not get unbalanced. An artist with a history of many hits will have a better chance of immediate adds than an artist with a few hits or none. And, of course, if we are unsure of a song have been holding onto it, but we see some stations we respect add it, we may go on it too. But if we see the song stiffing elsewhere, we may not add it.

More important, new adds are pretty much made by gut feeling, experience and skill as a programmer. But within a few weeks, bigger stations have listener feedback from callout or web-based research and they know whether a song is a keeper or not.

And in most formats, new or current songs are either not part of the format or only a component in it, not the whole base of the format. So stations like that will be by nature conservative in adds because the listeners have proven to be conservative in acceptance of new music.

In the PPM ratings era, all one has to do is look at a station's "dial count" as each song is played and it's easy to realize that 1) all new music is pretty negative at first, and 2) bad songs are easy to spot, and they hurt ratings.

But, the bottom line is that most PDs are blind to the label. The artist is important, the recent history of the artist is important, the sound of the song is important. The size of the label isn't important; radio is in the ad sales business, not the music sales business.

Thanks, David, for stating what I've been too lazy to articulate in these pages.

There's another reason the process favors major label releases over independents: In marketing it's called profile.

Atlantic sends me three or four CD pros of each song they're working. I get numerous weekly calls, voicemails and email updates from national and local label reps. The artist swings by the station with lunch for the staff, plays a mini-concert in our conference room and, if warranted, makes an on-air appearance. I'm invited to see the band play at a local venue. Every one of these impressions impacts my awareness of the act and brings that record's profile to top-of-mind in my next music meeting. This is the nature of effective promotion and the costs are enormous.

Your typical indie label sends me a copy of the full CD in a mailer with a printed one-sheet directing me to a lead track or two. I might get a call from an under-informed "head of promotion" who knows little or nothing about my station, and rarely is there any follow-up. The result is little or no profile. By the way, I take or return all calls regardless of label. The point is that most independent labels are ill equipped to compete in the marketplace. They don't wield the budgets or experience to impact the programming community. They simply lack the resources to run with the big dogs.

And before you jump up and assert that it's our job to give all this music the attention it deserves, know that we're overwhelmed with multiple station responsibilities, airshifts, promotional appearances, meetings, airchecks, and the list goes on. There literally aren't enough hours in the day to screen every record that comes through the door And if your indie band is blowing up at iTunes, it's your job to make us aware of it. If there's something going on with a record, I want to know about it. I like breaking records; who doesn't?

Oh, and for the record, radio's problems today are more a function of mismanaged debt and a weakened economy than its failure to embrace every new record that every indie label can churn out. Look at which channels on satellite radio garner the highest ratings. It's not the boutique formats; it's the channels that present a mass appeal product.

So, go ahead and tell me how much I suck for participating in such an evil and corrupt system. It is what it is and all the whining won't change a thing.

Shouldn't an "add" depend on how well a song fits in with the stations playlist/audience rather than if the band does a private lunch-in with the radio staff?

 

[TheBigA]

Shouldn't an "add" depend on how well a song fits in with the stations playlist/audience rather than if the band does a private lunch-in with the radio staff?

Speaking for myself and not for Dick, I can say that a private lunch does not result in an add, and I can point out hundreds of songs by artists who've done the lunch thing who have not seen their song added. But if the goal is to get the attention of a PD, and at least have the opportunity for an audition, it might be worth their while, especially since the airplay might result in money or attention for that artist.

When a radio station "adds" a new song, that is a commitment for airplay even though the song hasn't been around long enough to become popular with fans. The commitment means a station is taking three minutes away from someone else and giving it to that artist. There is no shortage of artists who seek airplay on radio. If an artist seeks to stand out from the crowd, a little personal touch might help. But if the song sucks or doesn't fit the format, it won't make a bit of difference.

 

[davideduardo]

Shouldn't an "add" depend on how well a song fits in with the stations playlist/audience rather than if the band does a private lunch-in with the radio staff?

A lunch for station staff is rather uncommon. Artists don't generally even hit the cities where most of America's radio stations are, like Prescott, AZ or Traverse City, MI. And the larger market stations are generally quite slow in adding.

Besides, record lunches are generally the PD with a record promoter, not the band. And the economy has changed that... there are fewer promoters, not much budget for lunch, and the PD has an airshift or too much other work to take the time. Many stations have policies against them, too.

 

[Silkie]

Shouldn't an "add" depend on how well a song fits in with the stations playlist/audience rather than if the band does a private lunch-in with the radio staff?

A lunch for station staff is rather uncommon. Artists don't generally even hit the cities where most of America's radio stations are, like Prescott, AZ or Traverse City, MI. And the larger market stations are generally quite slow in adding.

Besides, record lunches are generally the PD with a record promoter, not the band. And the economy has changed that... there are fewer promoters, not much budget for lunch, and the PD has an airshift or too much other work to take the time. Many stations have policies against them, too.

You are correct. The bands don't do radio station lunches. Why? Because they are partying with the listeners. Woo hoo!!! I was just going gaga over a picture of a member of the Spiral Starecase with whom my friends and I had occasion to have lunch many moons ago - in a park.

 

[adma]

Woo hoo!!! I was just going gaga over a picture of a member of the Spiral Starecase with whom my friends and I had occasion to have lunch many moons ago - in a park.

Lady Gaga doing "More Today Than Yesterday"? Sounds inspired...

 

[neo11]

When a radio station "adds" a new song, that is a commitment for airplay even though the song hasn't been around long enough to become popular with fans. The commitment means a station is taking three minutes away from someone else and giving it to that artist. There is no shortage of artists who seek airplay on radio. If an artist seeks to stand out from the crowd, a little personal touch might help. But if the song sucks or doesn't fit the format, it won't make a bit of difference.

But wait, I thought you said earlier in this thread that today's music sucks. I guess you still haven't made up your mind.

 

[TheBigA]

But wait, I thought you said earlier in this thread that today's music sucks. I guess you still haven't made up your mind.

You're not reading what I wrote. As I said, if the song sucks, then it won't make a difference if they buy lunch. And for the most part, take it from me, usually the song sucks.

 

[neo11]

But wait, I thought you said earlier in this thread that today's music sucks. I guess you still haven't made up your mind.

You're not reading what I wrote. As I said, if the song sucks, then it won't make a difference if they buy lunch. And for the most part, take it from me, usually the song sucks.

No, I'm going much further than just bands treating station managers to lunch. Earlier in the thread you said that today's music sucks, as a general statement and as a way to illustrate radio's woes presently. But when you say "But if the song sucks or doesn't fit the format, it won't make a bit of difference," that implies that there's music out there that doesn't suck, and that radio is playing it.

 

[TheBigA]

that implies that there's music out there that doesn't suck, and that radio is playing it.

Once again, you parse my words instead of dealing with the issues.

You also assume all PDs are selective about what they play. Or share my view of keeping the suckitude to a minimum. What you don't play can't hurt you.

 

[neo11]

You also assume all PDs are selective about what they play. Or share my view of keeping the suckitude to a minimum.

In your posts, you've been waffling between characterizing the radio industry as a whole, to characterizing the music industry as a whole, to characterizing listeners as a whole, to breaking any of the above into indistinct parts without any elaboration. Tell us, then, which PD's you feel "suck" and which you feel do not. Or, for that matter, what music today you feel doesn't suck, since earlier in the thread you seemed to imply that all of today's music "sucks."

What you don't play can't hurt you.

Au contraire. What you don't play *can* hurt you, if you're not playing something the listeners wants to hear.

 

[TheBigA]

In your posts, you've been waffling between characterizing the radio industry as a whole, to characterizing the music industry as a whole, to characterizing listeners as a whole,

I think I was pretty direct and simple.

But once again, you seem to be parsing my words, rather than dealing with the issues.

Au contraire. What you don't play *can* hurt you, if you're not playing something the listeners wants to hear.

A tune out for music they don't like is a very direct action. Not hearing something they do like is very different.

 

[neo11]

I think I was pretty direct and simple.

But once again, you seem to be parsing my words, rather than dealing with the issues.

Another non-answer. I think you'd be a fantastic politician.

Au contraire. What you don't play *can* hurt you, if you're not playing something the listeners wants to hear.

A tune out for music they don't like is a very direct action. Not hearing something they do like is very different.

Not very different at all if the listener tunes out and goes elsewhere to hear that music...whether it is to another station or to their mp3 or CD players. As you said earlier, listeners have "alternatives."

 

[TheBigA]

Another non-answer. I think you'd be a fantastic politician.

As long as you insist on picking apart what I say instead of dealing with issues, that's the answer you get. So try to move on.

Not very different at all if the listener tunes out and goes elsewhere to hear that music...whether it is to another station or to their mp3 or CD players. As you said earlier, listeners have "alternatives."

And there is absolutely no way that radio can cover every song desired by every individual listener at the exact moment they want to hear it. That's the difference between a mass medium and a personal music device.

 

[adma]

Regarding TheBigA's "non-answers", one dodgy issue I find is that his point-blank declaration that today's music "sucks" compared to the past is generic, i.e. I have no clear idea of what specific music he's talking about, past or present. I mean, is it a matter of it sucking altogether, or just sucking relative to commercial radio airplay? Because maybe when it comes to the latter, it could well be a deliberate gesture, and a measure of how truly low-valued the commercial radio realm and those who aspire to it are in certain creative circles--at this point, as anachronistic as the Hollyridge Strings. Though maybe it's not that new; if I think back to certain radio-station "homegrown talent contests" of 30 or so years ago, all I can say is if you think corporate rock and "Have A Nice Day" schlock was bad, imagine what the wannabes were like. The *real* grassroots action that mattered was--especially following the punk revolution--increasingly elsewhere and off that particular orbit. So maybe, in TheBigA's case, it's also that the music he's being approached with sucks, because it's only the backwoods who'd approach him these days; otherwise, he's been factored out of the equation.

Now if you want to know how "sucking relative to airplay" is a complicated matter, let's take a classic case of the deep dark past: Van Morrison. "Brown-Eyed Girl" vs Astral Weeks. Now, the former is a timeless Top 40-and-oldies classic; the latter (and not as any dis on "Brown-Eyed Girl", either) has been universally embraced by the in-the-know as a different kind of "timeless classic". Yet, in its day, it was a total commercial flop--though it's endured as a consistent seller among the Starbucks-and-beyond crowd; and if anything, much of today's musical "creative class" is still more likely to value Astral Weeks as a model to follow. "Brown-Eyed Girl": it made sense at the time, it still sounds delightful, but the cultural rationale behind making 60s-style 2-3-minute pop radio songs is obsolete except from a "creative anachronism" standpoint. And it's much less "representative" of Van The Man's total oeuvre.

But even if Astral Weeks has musically endured, it still "sucks" relative to commercial radio airplay: too solipsistic, too alienating, and to force the issue is presumptious.

But does that make it suck altogether? What are you? Some kind of philistine? :

Sometimes, I'm scared that "radio types" are the sort who really would take that kind of tyranny-of-the-majority standpoint. But then, remember--this is commercial radio, with certain audience targets. If Astral Weeks sucks relative to commercial music radio, it's just like lefty-liberal issues like gay rights and multiculturalism "suck" relative to commercial talk radio. It alienates the available "mass" audience.

And if one considers that talk radio parallel, you can see why, in the post-Limbaugh era especially, plenty of musicians have increasingly factored radio out of the picture. They think of it as the realm of redneck hillbillies, sleazy vulgarians, and the sort of people who make Kelsey Grammer look like Woody Harrelson, politically speaking.

 

[TheBigA]

Regarding TheBigA's "non-answers", one dodgy issue I find is that his point-blank declaration that today's music "sucks" compared to the past is generic, i.e. I have no clear idea of what specific music he's talking about, past or present.

Good point. That's fair. I'll grant you it was a generalization, and I don't like making them. Obviously meant to be rhetorical rather than factual. One can't argue that quantity, in terms of the number of artists and genres available now, hasn't led to quality. My main point however was criticizing music radio for only the radio half of the equation, ignoring the role the music plays.

Sometimes, I'm scared that "radio types" are the sort who really would take that kind of tyranny-of-the-majority standpoint. But then, remember--this is commercial radio, with certain audience targets.

That's true. How many radio hits did Astral Weeks have? The only one I ever heard was Slim Slow Slider. Radio's job isn't to satisfy critics but the masses. That's something organizations like the Future of Music Coalition have trouble with. Because the "tyranny of the majority" only exists because it's how you pay the bills.

 

[adma]

Sometimes, I'm scared that "radio types" are the sort who really would take that kind of tyranny-of-the-majority standpoint. But then, remember--this is commercial radio, with certain audience targets.

That's true. How many radio hits did Astral Weeks have? The only one I ever heard was Slim Slow Slider. Radio's job isn't to satisfy critics but the masses. That's something organizations like the Future of Music Coalition have trouble with. Because the "tyranny of the majority" only exists because it's how you pay the bills.

But also consider my talk-radio corollary, i.e. it isn't so much "the masses" as the kinds of "certain audience targets" you've boxed yourself in with. Otherwise, if it were all about radio-style "masses", McCain-Palin would have swept everything but DC. You've created an ugliest-conceivable-specimens-of-listenership Frankenstein, bucko.

I find at times that it seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, i.e. justifying music radio's commercial rationale as a "success", yet crying music radio's doom because, among other things, the music that comes your way these days is crap. Well, maybe crap breedeth crap, so don't say you didn't have it coming...

 

[TheBigA]

You've created an ugliest-conceivable-specimens-of-listenership Frankenstein, bucko.

Oh well. Ugly people buy stuff too.

I find at times that it seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, i.e. justifying music radio's commercial rationale as a "success", yet crying music radio's doom because, among other things, the music that comes your way these days is crap. Well, maybe crap breedeth crap, so don't say you didn't have it coming...

Maybe. Nothing is black and white. But to say it's all radio's fault ignores half of the problem, don't you think? We don't sing the songs or sign the acts.

 

[adma]

I find at times that it seems like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, i.e. justifying music radio's commercial rationale as a "success", yet crying music radio's doom because, among other things, the music that comes your way these days is crap. Well, maybe crap breedeth crap, so don't say you didn't have it coming...

Maybe. Nothing is black and white. But to say it's all radio's fault ignores half of the problem, don't you think? We don't sing the songs or sign the acts.

However, you have offered a hint earlier in this thread to the effect that maybe radio is inextricable from "the other half of the problem"...

Outside of country, most artists that have been launched in the last 15-20 years don't do a lot of radio visits or interviews. They mainly do TV, internet, and print. I notice the labels have been firing radio promo staffs. And then they wonder why radio doesn't play their music. They don't seem to work radio as hard as they once did.

Don't think that's just the labels et al being myopic.

 

[TheBigA]

However, you have offered a hint earlier in this thread to the effect that maybe radio is inextricable from "the other half of the problem"...

Outside of country, most artists that have been launched in the last 15-20 years don't do a lot of radio visits or interviews. They mainly do TV, internet, and print. I notice the labels have been firing radio promo staffs. And then they wonder why radio doesn't play their music. They don't seem to work radio as hard as they once did.

Don't think that's just the labels et al being myopic.

Where in any of what I wrote do you arrive at that conclusion?

Labels are big fat foreign conglomerates who are looking to save money. They see radio as one thing: A means to sell their new music. In the process, labels have forgotten how to do artist development, A&R, and promotion. This isn't a new problem, but began 20 years ago. So now you have a bunch of new artists who don't have any direction, who just walk on to TV shows like Leno or Letterman with no game plan other than to do whatever they want for 3 minutes. No set up and no follow through. And they wonder why no one buys their records any more.

Say what you will about radio. If labels and artists have no plan and no strategy other than "play our music," it's not up to the media to just put anyone and everyone on the air. Meanwhile, radio is inundated with hundreds of artists a week, with no way of distinguishing one from another. And the labels wonder why radio takes the easy way.

 

[adma]

However, you have offered a hint earlier in this thread to the effect that maybe radio is inextricable from "the other half of the problem"...

Outside of country, most artists that have been launched in the last 15-20 years don't do a lot of radio visits or interviews. They mainly do TV, internet, and print. I notice the labels have been firing radio promo staffs. And then they wonder why radio doesn't play their music. They don't seem to work radio as hard as they once did.

Don't think that's just the labels et al being myopic.

Where in any of what I wrote do you arrive at that conclusion?

Well, maybe it's that TV, internet, and print are viewed as "stylish", whereas radio is viewed as the retrograde, malformed domain of ugly rednecks and imbeciles--the Rush Limbaugh medium, you know.

I'm not saying there aren't perils to that value-judgment strategy--especially if they're actively wondering why radio isn't playing their music, but I'll get more into this...

Labels are big fat foreign conglomerates who are looking to save money. They see radio as one thing: A means to sell their new music. In the process, labels have forgotten how to do artist development, A&R, and promotion. This isn't a new problem, but began 20 years ago. So now you have a bunch of new artists who don't have any direction, who just walk on to TV shows like Leno or Letterman with no game plan other than to do whatever they want for 3 minutes. No set up and no follow through. And they wonder why no one buys their records any more.

Say what you will about radio. If labels and artists have no plan and no strategy other than "play our music," it's not up to the media to just put anyone and everyone on the air. Meanwhile, radio is inundated with hundreds of artists a week, with no way of distinguishing one from another. And the labels wonder why radio takes the easy way.

...but in this day and age, and this *may* vindicate your "other half of the problem" conclusion--does it matter any more? Keep in mind that groups like the Future of Music Coalition don't necessarily get much respect from the other side, either, to whom they might as well be bloated rock-era boomer sentimentalists who can't come to terms with how the paradigm's shifted away from radio and even away from music (at least in the old major-label sense) as that Big Cultural Defining Thing. It's a Hillary Rodham Clinton realm that's been nipped by the Obaman next wave, that which couldn't care less whether you play this-or-that-music because, well, iPods don't carry FM and so on and so forth.

And to be honest, in all these posts, I'm addressing you rhetorically--but in reality, I'm directing myself more at those garden-variety "radio sucks" posters who're so fond of pestering you, because all too often it's like they're offering 1979/89/99-style gripes in 2009...