Radio Musings

[MisterNews]

'FLZ plays mostly dreck. They could play cutting-edge House, Trance, and other forms of ultra chic electronica, but that would not be mainstream (read: tested, approved, and boring) enough.

In other words they could transform a highly rated, very profitable station into a 1-share but they choose not to. How unhip.

Gosh how stupid of me! I forgot that RATINGS and PROFITS are the sole driving force behind commercial programming, and that playing any music that's not thoroughly tested and predicable could result in total audience abandonment of the frequency, followed by floods, earthquakes, locusts, plagues and LAYOFFS. Oh wait, that's already happened (or will soon). Come on, think outside the box: maybe a station that programmed in some cool, but untested and non-commercial-mainstream music might actually survive. Or do even better. Or even broaden its listener base? Or possibly even open people's ears to some hip new sounds (instead of sticking to the Billboard chart robotics [it is only good/acceptable if it sells/spins a lot]).

Must stick to playlist; Must kill Nordberg.....

 

[meanspirit]

'FLZ plays mostly dreck. They could play cutting-edge House, Trance, and other forms of ultra chic electronica, but that would not be mainstream (read: tested, approved, and boring) enough.

In other words they could transform a highly rated, very profitable station into a 1-share but they choose not to. How unhip.

Gosh how stupid of me! I forgot that RATINGS and PROFITS are the sole driving force behind commercial programming, and that playing any music that's not thoroughly tested and predicable could result in total audience abandonment of the frequency, followed by floods, earthquakes, locusts, plagues and LAYOFFS. Oh wait, that's already happened (or will soon). Come on, think outside the box: maybe a station that programmed in some cool, but untested and non-commercial-mainstream music might actually survive. Or do even better. Or even broaden its listener base? Or possibly even open people's ears to some hip new sounds (instead of sticking to the Billboard chart robotics [it is only good/acceptable if it sells/spins a lot]).

Must stick to playlist; Must kill Nordberg.....

There are plenty of stations programmed with "cool," untested and non-commercial-mainstream music. They are usually found at the lower end of the dial and broadcast from a college campus. And no, their ratings are rarely good. Why? Because this music doesn't attract a large audience.

Here is the part of posts like this that I hate. If a song is GOOD, then it attracts an audience and creates demand for airplay and sales. That means it becomes COMMERCIAL, which makes the song EVIL!

 

[MisterNews]

Here is the part of posts like this that I hate. If a song is GOOD, then it attracts an audience and creates demand for airplay and sales. That means it becomes COMMERCIAL, which makes the song EVIL!

You are partially right, but the word is not "evil". Perhaps more like "mainstream". Popularity and huge sales do not imply quality (like Walmart maybe?). It's a "chicken or the egg" argument: heavy airplay (pushed hard by record company reps) can drive sales, and "create" popularity. Sometimes a song is really "good", but that's somewhat subjective (music "critics" aside). I am not an apologist for non-commercial radio by any means, but worked in that side of the business about 25 years ago. I loved playing unusual new music, and several record stores in our city specialized in finding and carrying those releases, which listeners would buy. But the PD and "cool" jocks at my non-commercial station hated my show, because I also played some of the forbidden "mainstream" tunes. Because they sounded good. <sigh>

"Commercial" does not equate to "evil": it just means that a song gets a lot of airplay and sells a lot of copies. Okay fine, if a song's really catchy and/or good, nothing wrong with hearing it repeatedly. It's just that some of the unusual music I was referring to in my earlier post would be GREAT on 'FLZ, the audience would love it, and might even try to find out where to buy it, like, tomorrow!! But because it's on a small label with no marketing clout, it'll never reach the 'FLZ xmitter. I can just hear the MD now: "Your record isn't even ON the Billboard chart, no one's heard of it, I can't POSSIBLY play this". If they even take the call.

It's just a shame that commercial radio can't be more broad-minded about their content. Include some small-label, unusual, obscure release (but format-related) tunes that, yes, could be considered "GOOD" by anyone's standards (for that genre). But there's a lot of money thrown around by the huge labels, and why should an MD/PD care about playing obscure label stuff? Unless it was because they were really impassioned about the genre....

Further comments?

 

[Parttimer]

I happen to think there's room in some of these mega-clusters for more adventurous programming, but not at the expense of sacrificing an icon like FLZ. I mean, does Cox really need DUV, Warm, and the Point? One of those would be a good candidate for an untouched market segment.... same goes for Mix, although I still think its future is as WFLA-FM with the talk lineup and the Rays games. (That's becoming the trend around the country).

 

[MsMusicRadio]

If CC flips Mix to FLA-FM, that would really help Cox. WWRM would be top AC and WPOI could flip to HOT AC .

 

[barfly2]

I happen to think there's room in some of these mega-clusters for more adventurous programming, but not at the expense of sacrificing an icon like FLZ. I mean, does Cox really need DUV, Warm, and the Point? One of those would be a good candidate for an untouched market segment.... same goes for Mix, although I still think its future is as WFLA-FM with the talk lineup and the Rays games. (That's becoming the trend around the country).

97X has a tiny, little bit of adventurous programming on Sunday Nights with old alternative music and local motion .... but.....