Tom ~ your post does bring up a pretty good point on new music. If you are a "commodity listener", how do you get exposed to new music? If you are in a test group, and you are playing
the cat and mouse game of listening to 8-10 seconds of rapid fire songs, are you unintentionally "conditioned" to quick respond to the songs you KNOW the best vs. LIKE the best? And if it's a song you have very little or no exposure to, you may not or simply just don't respond positively because you have a sense of being one of those "not in the know."
Listen to Lightning 100 (and even now on The River) and they really tell you that the next song is new or exclusive, etc. "New music by...." I seriously wonder if, with PPM, new music will take a backseat to tried and true because new music may cause listeners to go elsewhere, even for a few minutes, etc. I know I will listen to Lighning 100 and when new music is played, I WILL give it 8-10 seconds and may choose to switch. It's not a right decision, because I may miss the best
part of the song, but it is what it is. I am a different kind of listener. I scan and check out stations ten times a minute! Flip side of new ,,, Mix was castrated for not playing Kings of Leon for months after it was all over the charts. It's this gray area of to soon or tooooo late that I think most PD/MD can't get a read on and certainly it's an imperfect science. But, it's going to be crucial to ratings in the next few weeks. As for your desire for "new" older tunes being played that haven't been played a million times before, lottery had better odds! ;D
Where does radio in Nashville evolve, as PPM takes off? Is this the chance to recapture the lost art of radio at the expense of new technology that basically allows online listeners to be their own
station or iPods, etc? Or does it just accept the idea that radio is for the masses and those that
listen, but not closely, and don't need or expect anything other than average will continue to get just that?