Re: obsession with inaccurate charts
> [Listeners don't care about "the charts"- why do you?]
>
>
> Exactly which listeners are you talking about? If it's the
> listener whose perception of a good "oldie" is a song some
> Oldies radio P.D. has decided he should hear for the last 20
> years, then you are correct.
No significant market PD does this. They test the songs with local lsiteners. If you truly believe otherwise, you are building a case on a totaally false premise.
> But if you're talking about
> the listener who actually participated in that chart (i.e.,
> bought the record or played it on the juke box) then the
> chart is extremely important. "Jack" radio has finally
> figured this out.
In the 50's and 60's, the charts were highly manipulated, by a variety of factors. First was the habit of labels of overshiping product, to produce apparent sales. Second was station reporting that included paper adds, payola and other problems of the 50's and 60's. Third was the fact that not everyone is a record buyer, then or now. Charts of the 50's and 60's are very, very, very suspect. Third was a label trick of giving free product if the store reported sales on a record that was not selling. In other words, the charts from that era were near BS on anything outside the Top 15 to 20 songs.
Today, we find out what songs to play not from charts or sales figures but by asking the listener to sample every song and getting a score that indicates how much a listener "would like to hear a song on the radio today." This is exactly what the Jack stations have done, too.
Yesterday does not matter. Desire to hear today makes a song a hit or not a hit.
>
