Per R & R

[toddjammin]

I sure miss those days of double X with the great punk 80's music they had.

 

[cingram]

I realize radio people don't pay any real attention to the music, to them it's just a commodity to be dispensed by the shovelful.

Sorry, but I have to take issue with this statement. I spent 20 years in music radio (not counting 620/770 which are mainly brokered) and we always spent a lot of time, money and research trying to determine what types of music the audience wanted. Yes, it's a commodity (as is radio), but it isn't "dispensed" without careful thought. Not if you want ratings and listeners.

 

[cingram]

How many stations can play 80's music and still do well in Pittsburgh?

One. Maybe two. And even then, not forever. Bob is an interesting station, but they lost me at "Karma Chameleon."

 

[cingram]

That's four distinctly different "sounds of the 80's" stations that could each find its own unique niche.

Which would be about a one share each.

I don't mean to disillusion anyone, but I could prove statistically that polkas are more popular than punk music in Pittsburgh if I had the money to do the research. Totally different demographics, of course.

 

[Radio_Realist]

we always spent a lot of time, money and research trying to determine what types of music the audience wanted.

That's my point. Music selection was carefully researched, over-analyzed, homogenized, and watered down to appeal to the least common denominator. To radio professionals, it was the right thing to do to make money. To musicians and serious music fans, it was to music what McDonalds was to fine food.

"Which would be about a one share each."

You know, for someone who is regarded as some sort of "living legend" among radio people, I would think you'd be better able to pick up on illustrations and examples and grasp the point behind them instead of simply taking those illustrations so literally. Have you no imagination? Can't you see the point about there being different styles of music co-existing in various eras instead of nitpicking each little detail?

Have you ever seen a forest, or have all the trees blocked your view?

 

[Boss Radio]

Yes, I think they should let the DJs bring in their own CDs and play whatever the hell they want, in whatever order they want to play it.

[EDIT]
[EDIT= personal attack.]

 

[Radio_Realist]

Yes, I think they should let the DJs bring in their own CDs and play whatever the hell they want, in whatever order they want to play it.

That's yet another thing we differ on. I think that the music director should determine what songs are in the station's playlist, but the DJ should have some flexibility in deciding the sequence of the songs on his own show. Then again, I also think stations should only hire DJ's with enough expertise and talent to come up with a good sequence to the songs. If a station can't trust a particular DJ to pick the right sequence of songs out of a collection that the station provides, then the station should replace that DJ with someone that they can trust.

[EDIT] The days when the market was divided strictly by age are over. Most adults today have been listening for most of their lives to radio stations that played a selection of music based on musical genre instead of date recorded. If you actually knew any teenagers, you'd know that today some of them like one kid of music, and others like another. The teenagers today who like headbanger music like to listen to all headbanger music, not just the new stuff. The same goes for kids who like other genres.

[EDIT]
[EDIT=personal attacks.]

 

[Johnny Morgan]

but the DJ should have some flexibility in deciding the sequence of the songs on his own show.

You mean like they did in the 1960s? EVERY major Top 40 station left the music selection to the jocks. There was the survey list and the top 10-15 that were heavies on the playlist, but the jock had the decision when to play them (provided #1 was played x so often, #2 y so often, etc.) The jocks also chose the goldens that played once every 1/2 hour or so (depending on the PD--Drake, for example had 3 goldens (5-10 years old) an hour).

Funny, your "2006" programming was done 40 years ago. How odd--for you.

 

[cingram]

Music selection was carefully researched, over-analyzed, homogenized, and watered down to appeal to the least common denominator. To radio professionals, it was the right thing to do to make money. To musicians and serious music fans, it was to music what McDonalds was to fine food.

Radio doesn't program to musicians and "serious music fans," not in the sense I think you're using that phrase (Britney Spears had "serious music fans," too, just at a different level). Radio has to program to a mass audience in order to survive. It's a mass medium, after all. This is changing a bit with satellite radio, which has so many channels that it can afford to serve some pretty minor niches, and the business model is different (subscriptions).

McDonald's and fine food both have their place. As a former Top 40 guy, I'm probably responsible for more McDonald's than a lot of people, but there are lots of listeners in the audience who want that, and I was more than happy to make it for them.

Have you no imagination? Can't you see the point about there being different styles of music co-existing in various eras instead of nitpicking each little detail?

Of course I see that. I'm just trying to point out that you couldn't differentiate those styles into four or five different radio formats and draw enough ratings with each station to be viable. Heck, Pittsburgh hasn't even had *one* entirely 80's station yet, although I think Star has fulfilled that function for many listeners.

 

[corporateradiosucks]

Heck, Pittsburgh hasn't even had *one* entirely 80's station yet, although I think Star has fulfilled that function for many listeners.

Oh God, don't make me cry. That's what I'm talking about when I say dreck. Star on Fridays consists of going to Best Buy, purchasing all the 80's compilations and putting them on shuffle. It's the top 20, maybe 30 of each year. It's all the songs I was excited to hear for the first time in 15 years, now I can't stand them because they're so overplayed. Anyone who calls Star "that awesome station that plays all the awesome 80's stuff!" either wasn't alive in the 80's or doesn't care much about music.

I don't think a hair metal station would make it, but I definitely think if WXXP came back and widened their net a little (i.e. Culture Club, a-ha, and things like that) they would make out fine.

 

[toddjammin]

I couldn't agree with you more corporateradio about star playing the same 80's songs over and over. I have the joel whitburn book of pop songs annual. I looked at all the songs that hit the top 40 in the 80's and I got to tell you, Star doesn't play about 60 or 70% of the songs that were on the chart.

It is very disappointing that Star doesn't have more of an 80's selection on their flashback Fridays. If star were to play every 80's song that hit the charts on their flashback Fridays, they could probably go without repeating a song for an entire month. I guess star has to play what corporate tells them to.

 

[corporateradiosucks]

I have the joel whitburn book of pop songs annual.

This sounds like something I should have.

Where does one purchase it?

 

[cingram]

Oh God, don't make me cry. That's what I'm talking about when I say dreck. Star on Fridays consists of going to Best Buy, purchasing all the 80's compilations and putting them on shuffle. It's the top 20, maybe 30 of each year. It's all the songs I was excited to hear for the first time in 15 years, now I can't stand them because they're so overplayed. Anyone who calls Star "that awesome station that plays all the awesome 80's stuff!" either wasn't alive in the 80's or doesn't care much about music.

I don't think a hair metal station would make it, but I definitely think if WXXP came back and widened their net a little (i.e. Culture Club, a-ha, and things like that) they would make out fine.

"Awesome" is in the ear of the beholder. I don't think Star is "awesome," but they play the most popular 80s songs - and playing the most popular songs is what it's about, folks. Casting a wide net to catch the most listeners. Even BOB does this, only in a different manner.

I am plenty burned out on 80s songs; I played them as currents, and if I never hear John Cougar Mellencamp again as long as I live, it'll be too soon. But, it seems to me that most of the people who post here want a station meeting their own personal tastes, and that's not going to happen.

WXXP is one of those stations that is fondly remembered but never had ratings, even when that music was current. The demand for what WXXP played was pretty low at the time and it's even lower today. I hear they had a nice 20th anniversary reunion, though (more power to them).

 

[cingram]

If star were to play every 80's song that hit the charts on their flashback Fridays, they could probably go without repeating a song for an entire month.

If Star were to play every 80s song that hit the charts, they could, conceivably, get a one share doing that. Don't make me list titles.

 

[toddjammin]

Clarke,
I bought the joel whitburn book on the internet. He does have a lot of interesting books. As soon as I find the website, I will let you know.

 

[Radio_Realist]

"You mean like they did in the 1960s?"

Yes, that was one aspect of radio in the 1960's. Of course, getting to pick the sequence of only 40 songs wasn't much of a challenge, was it? The thing is that there are several different issues at play in this discussion, and we all know we'll see some lawyerish courtroom tactics in replies to obscure points and cloud the issues.

There's the issue of selecting what genre or genres of music to play on your station. That's one thing. You can decide what genres to play based on something meaningful, like the sound of the songs, and decide to play mostly rock, or mostly urban, or mostly pop, or any other appropriate subdivision of music based on the sound of the music. Or, you can approach the issue from a different angle and base your decisions on something meaningless and arbitrary, like what year the song was recorded, or only playing songs released by record companies that have offices in New York, or only playing songs by bands that included a left handed guitar player.

Then, when you've decided what genres to play, you have to decide how deep to make your playlist of songs. You can decide that since you're pursuing an audience that really likes the genre you're playing, and can therefore go deep into the lists of available recordings. Or, if you believe that your audience is nothing but a bunch of drooling idiots, then you only need a short little playlist you can repeat over and over and over and over and over and over.

Then there's the issue of the sequence in which you play the songs. You can either pay some consultant a huge sum of money to make his best guess, or you can trust the people you've hired to make the decision. If you believe you've hired good people, then you can trust their judgement. But, if you think that your employees are almost as much a bunch of drooling idiots as your listeners, then you'll remove them from making those tough calls.

"Radio has to program to a mass audience in order to survive. It's a mass medium, after all."

And, it's a rapidly changing medium whose operators refuse to accept as having changed since LBJ was President.

"Heck, Pittsburgh hasn't even had *one* entirely 80's station yet,"

Like I said, picking what songs to play based on the date they were recorded makes as much sense as picking songs based on whether the bands have a left-handed guitar player. My point was that in the 80's there were many different genres of music, all of which were popular. And since there have been very few stations that only played new music over the past few decades, most listeners today have been exposed to all the good, popular music that's out there. If people like the punk music of the 80's, they'll also like the punk music of the 70's, 90's, and today, as well as the punkish music of the 60's.

And, when you only played the top 40 hits, with representation from multiple genres, you couldn't go deep into the various genres because even though a rock music fan might like the entire top 40 of rock songs, soul music fans would only put up with the top 10 rock songs, and vice-versa. So a top 40 station like KQV isn't really playing the top 40. They were playing the top 15 rock songs, the top 15 soul songs, and the top 10 "pop/bubblegum" songs.

By specializing in a particular genre of music, one station could play the top 40 rock songs, and another station owned by the same company could play the top 40 soul/R&B songs, and another station owned by the same company could play the top 40 pop/bubblegum songs. That's a top 120 for that company.

But, since rock fans won't be chased away by soul/R&B "deep cuts" on an all rock station, and soul/R&B fans won't be chased away by rock songs on an all soul/R&B station, and no one would be chased away by Brittany Spears songs on either of those stations, those two hypothetical stations could get away with going much deeper into their respective genres.

The truth of the 60's about "mass audience appeal" has now turned into the myth of the third millennium. Times have changed. Audiences have changed. Radio programmers have not changed. Paying attention to the subjective quality of the music and worrying about appealing to large numbers of listeners are not mutually exclusive things. There are other, better ways of appealing to a large and profitable audience than simply pandering to the lowest common denominator.

And as for playing "the hits", I believe that when I mentioned the book "The Hit Men", which was the story of how record company executives manufactured hit records, at least one radio pro in here who had read that book said it made him want to take a bath.

"If Star were to play every 80s song that hit the charts, they could, conceivably, get a one share doing that."

No dispute on that statement. But, if Star (or any other station) were to combine the hit songs they currently are playing with a reasonable number of additional cuts from the albums that their hit songs came from, they'd keep the same audience they have, and they'd keep it a lot longer.

"I never hear John Cougar Mellencamp again as long as I live, it'll be too soon."

Are you talking about hearing one of his "hits" again, or something from one of his albums that you hadn't heard before?

 

[Johnny Morgan]

we all know we'll see some lawyerish courtroom tactics in replies to obscure points and cloud the issues.

Yes, we all really wish you would stop doing that.

 

[cingram]

You know, sometimes I wonder why I do this, but here goes:

You can decide what genres to play based on something meaningful, like the sound of the songs, and decide to play mostly rock, or mostly urban, or mostly pop, or any other appropriate subdivision of music based on the sound of the music.

Which isn't a bad idea.

Or, you can approach the issue from a different angle and base your decisions on something meaningless and arbitrary, like what year the song was recorded, or only playing songs released by record companies that have offices in New York, or only playing songs by bands that included a left handed guitar player.

I agree with the last two. But, making song decisions based on the year they were recorded is not meaningless or arbitrary. Kiss shouldn't play songs from the 60s and 3WS shouldn't play songs from the 90s (but perhaps they yet will).

if you believe that your audience is nothing but a bunch of drooling idiots, then you only need a short little playlist you can repeat over and over and over and over and over and over.

Or, you can decide that you want to CUME A LARGE AUDIENCE, and therefore, you repeat the most popular songs frequently. See, it's all in the semantics.

it's a rapidly changing medium whose operators refuse to accept as having changed since LBJ was President.

Tell you what. Go to any aircheck archive (reelradio.com would work), listen to some random tapes of radio stations from 1964, then listen to radio as it is today, and write up a list of their meaningful differences, because there are plenty.

Like I said, picking what songs to play based on the date they were recorded makes as much sense as picking songs based on whether the bands have a left-handed guitar player.

Not to the audience. It's one of their listening criteria.

If people like the punk music of the 80's, they'll also like the punk music of the 70's, 90's, and today, as well as the punkish music of the 60's.

Not necessarily. That's like saying that the Beatles' fans would also like Elvis Presley, Boston, and Quiet Riot. Maybe. Maybe not.

So a top 40 station like KQV isn't really playing the top 40. They were playing the top 15 rock songs, the top 15 soul songs, and the top 10 "pop/bubblegum" songs.

Don't forget the slow songs aimed at housewives: among the #1 songs on KQV were "For The Good Times" by Ray Price and "It's Impossible" by Perry Como. The wide (and I do mean wide) variety of music was a characteristic of most Top 40 stations back then.

hypothetical stations could get away with going much deeper into their respective genres.

No, because as soon as you hit a song which is unfamiliar or disliked by the audience, they will turn the dial, just as they would with any other station. "Deep cuts" is something of a myth, unless you are deliberately trying to be a progressive/freeform station, in which case you will get the audience levels you deserve.

Paying attention to the subjective quality of the music and worrying about appealing to large numbers of listeners are not mutually exclusive things.

Most listeners don't pay attention to the subjective quality of the music. They listen for the songs they like. They turn off the songs they don't like, don't know, or don't care about.

the book "The Hit Men"

I read it. Made me want to become a priest.

if Star (or any other station) were to combine the hit songs they currently are playing with a reasonable number of additional cuts from the albums that their hit songs came from, they'd keep the same audience they have, and they'd keep it a lot longer.

No, they wouldn't. People aren't interested in "additional album cuts"'; they're interested in hearing SONGS THEY LIKE. If you added more titles you would lose in cume anything you gained (and I am far from sure of any gains) in AQH.

Are you talking about hearing one of his "hits" again, or something from one of his albums that you hadn't heard before?

I'm talking about his hits, but I have no desire to hear cuts from his albums that I haven't heard. I have no desire to hear his music at all. Bruce Springsteen isn't far behind. I've reached saturation point on both artists.

 

[Radio_Realist]

"Kiss shouldn't play songs from the 60s and 3WS shouldn't play songs from the 90s (but perhaps they yet will)."

Those are also about the only two stations in town that identify themselves by the age of the songs they play. 3WS defines itself as the oldies station (though without using the word "oldies") and Kiss defines itself as the place that only plays the new stuff. WDVE can play any song that sounds like classic rock, regardless off when it was recorded.

The thing is, you say "shouldn't" as if it were an imperative. The truth is they've simple made a decision to take a certain path. If a station is on a path that's going nowhere, like K-Rock, then they should change their path.

"Not to the audience. It's one of their listening criteria."

You make it sound like there's only one person in the audience, or else the listening audience is a vast horde of mind-numbed robots who all think alike. Once upon a time, the date when something was recorded was incredibly important. Then, it became somewhat important to a majority of people. Then, it became the most important thing to a pluarity of the audience. Now, it's just one factor out of many, with a very, very few people regarding it as their #1 consideration. That's one of those changes in audience attitudes that radio professionals like to ignore.

"That's like saying that the Beatles' fans would also like Elvis Presley, Boston, and Quiet Riot."

No, it's not like saying that. The Beatles didn't sound like Elvis Presley (except for a few songs), or Boston, or Quiet Riot. It's more like saying that if you liked Blood, Sweat, and Tears and Chicago, you'd probably also like the Ides of March and the Grassroots. You challeneged me to listen to old airchecks and compare them to modern radio to find the differences. I challenge you to listen to at least three CD's each from the Beatles, Elvis, Boston, and Quiet Riot, and list the meaningful differences between all of them.

I said that people who liked punk music from one decade would like punk music from other decades. Listing four acts who are not similar to each other doesn't disprove my statement. People who liked the Sex Pistols would probably also like Billy Idol, Iggy Pop & the Stooges, and other punk bands. People who liked the Supremes would probably also like Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

"Don't forget the slow songs aimed at housewives: among the #1 songs on KQV were "For The Good Times" by Ray Price and "It's Impossible" by Perry Como. The wide (and I do mean wide) variety of music was a characteristic of most Top 40 stations back then."

I didn't forget those songs. I included pop/bubblegum.

"No, because as soon as you hit a song which is unfamiliar or disliked by the audience, they will turn the dial, just as they would with any other station."

Again, you're living in the past. Your statement is half right. A song that they dislike will make them turn the dial. A song that they are unfamiliar with won't, unless after hearing it the discover that they don't like it. If your station's audience likes Traffic's "Feelin' Alright", odds are they'll also like "Cring to be Heard" from the same album. If they like "I Can't Quit Her" by Blood, Sweat, and Tears, odds are that they won't change the station if they hear "Without Her" or "Just One Smile" from the same album.

Maybe back a few decades that might not have been the case. But it isn't the 70's any more.

"People aren't interested in "additional album cuts"'; they're interested in hearing SONGS THEY LIKE."

Again, you're talking from the past. Today the more accurate statement is "People are interested in hearing MUSIC THEY LIKE.

"I'm talking about his hits, but I have no desire to hear cuts from his albums that I haven't heard. I have no desire to hear his music at all."

Which only proves that even you, the defender of the "Hits, hits, and nothing but the hits", recognize that an artist's non-hit songs still sound enough like his hit songs that if you dislike all of their music, that includes the hits and the non-hits. If you recognize that you can dislike the hits and non-hits of artists you've heard far too much of, then why can't you recognize that other people would like both the hits and the non-hits of their favorite recording artists?

You also seem to recognize that over-saturation of songs can turn favorites into station changers. But isn't the over use of limited playlists the main cause of such over saturation?

 

[cingram]

Mr. Realist, you and I could go around and around on this until the wee small hours of the morning and I wouldn't change your mind, and I don't think you'd change mine, although I have conceded a few of your points on occasion. I'll leave you with a few more points of my own:

1. The listening audience is not "a vast horde of mind-numbed robots who all think alike," but it is both true (and necessary) that stations target a vast horde of listeners who DO think alike, at least where music (and, sometimes, lifestyle) is concerned.
2. The Elvis/Beatles/Boston/Quiet Riot analogy (and I could have thrown alternative rock in there too) was to illustrate the fallacy that one kind of music can cover so many years and maintain listener cohesion. It can't, and it doesn't.
3. There's a MAJOR difference between MOR (Ray Price, Perry Como) and pop/bubblegum (let's say, for argument's sake, the Monkees and the Archies). Even KQV knew that back in 1969.
4. Most people turn the dial when they hear unfamiliar music. That is why radio stations are repetitive. Repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing. People never get tired of hearing their favorite songs; it's the ones they don't like/don't care about/don't know that cause them to tune out.
5. Yes, repetition of songs by radio stations leads to burnout, but only because so many stations are repeating the same songs so many times across so many formats.
6. People do not care for non-hits (of ANY kind), unless they are by definition out of the mainstream.
7. There's no meaningful difference between "songs" and "music," except perhaps for the musicians.
8. If you truly believe year of release doesn't matter, try playing something from the 50's on WDVE, or current Top 40 hits on WJAS.
9. I am not living in the past, although I kind of like it there. (for which, listen in 5-7 PM Saturdays on 620)
10. And, you're right. Life is too short to stay in any one place very long...especially this board.