Not including lunar spins, in both current and gold based formats how often do these get "refreshed?" It seems like occasionally I start hearing different gold tracks that weren't on the playlist on gold-based and current-based stations that appear after a while, which become part of the regular playlist for a while. Essentially, how often do stations bring in or add a new selection of gold titles on stations which aren't the same ones?
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Rotation of gold songs in regular playlist
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
The usual answer, my friend. Music tests (done routinely for current-based formats, less often for gold-based) will often include songs not in the present rotation. Usually, any such "new" title will be tested because of its exposure elsewhere which may make it viable.
A recent example is the 1989 song "The Best" by Tina Turner, which had a very low amount of airplay, eclipsed mostly by "What's Love Got To Do With It" and "We Don't Need Another Hero" (with some play for "Better Be Good To Me" in the mix ... mostly in smaller markets). Then it was featured in the fifth and sixth episodes of last year's television biography of Formula One race driver Ayrton Senna (who had made a surprise appearance on stage with Turner in 1993 at the Australian Grand Prix). Apparently it resonated well with test audiences because it now gets better play than any other Tina Turner song other than "What's Love ..."
But for the most part, there is very little actual turnover in gold-based libraries. You can't "refresh" in those because they aren't making new gold titles. The most that happens is songs may increase in popularity and be played more often, or they may lose ground and gradually fall off the active playlist.
Your use of the word "occasionally" in your question pretty much tells the story.
A recent example is the 1989 song "The Best" by Tina Turner, which had a very low amount of airplay, eclipsed mostly by "What's Love Got To Do With It" and "We Don't Need Another Hero" (with some play for "Better Be Good To Me" in the mix ... mostly in smaller markets). Then it was featured in the fifth and sixth episodes of last year's television biography of Formula One race driver Ayrton Senna (who had made a surprise appearance on stage with Turner in 1993 at the Australian Grand Prix). Apparently it resonated well with test audiences because it now gets better play than any other Tina Turner song other than "What's Love ..."
But for the most part, there is very little actual turnover in gold-based libraries. You can't "refresh" in those because they aren't making new gold titles. The most that happens is songs may increase in popularity and be played more often, or they may lose ground and gradually fall off the active playlist.
Your use of the word "occasionally" in your question pretty much tells the story.
Yes, feels like once in a blue moon, I turn on a station with gold library and think "I haven't heard them play that before." Then I start hearing that more as part of their library, and it seems like its a small group of songs they've added like that at the same time.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
That sounds like platooning to me, and it frequently is used for what @tall_guy1 called Lunar rotations. You aren't going to see that happen with any of the primary rotations.
I use a form of that in programming my "Forgotten 45" feature.
Yes, I'm more referring to, for instance, classic hits add some '90s tracks or 70s-80s they never played and start hearing them regularly, or pop stations (either CHR or Hot AC) start playing a different set of golds regularly.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
What size market are we talking about? The smaller the market, the more likely a PD will take some risks and change out some gold without much research.
Mid to large market.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Then it's one of a handful of possibles: Testing the waters for expanding into the 90s (I have previously discussed the difficulties of doing that, given CHR fragmentation in that decade), music testing of older songs (again, there is a danger in going backwards because those songs may well not resonate with the audience if they aren't ones that have gotten regular airplay in the recent past), or the PD is an idiot.
I know of one internet station and a show on a Community Radio station whose playlists tend to follow the times they were actually on the charts originally.
For example, if Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" was originally on the Top 40 charts over the Summer of 1977, you would hear them play that song more often than around the holidays.
It's a lot more work for programming and scheduling, but it provides for a natural rotation for older music and gave songs a rest while others had their chance to be heard again for a limited time.
Of course there are exceptions: they still don't/won't play "Feelings" in heavy rotation because it was big for 6+ months in the second half of 1975.
For example, if Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" was originally on the Top 40 charts over the Summer of 1977, you would hear them play that song more often than around the holidays.
It's a lot more work for programming and scheduling, but it provides for a natural rotation for older music and gave songs a rest while others had their chance to be heard again for a limited time.
Of course there are exceptions: they still don't/won't play "Feelings" in heavy rotation because it was big for 6+ months in the second half of 1975.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Community non-profit stations can get away with that. Commercial operations can't because we have a different listening situation (the audience comes and goes during the day, for brief listening periods each time) and we have to maintain consistency to keep them coming back.
It's what I have said about Classic Hits being a "consensus favorites" format. The audience expects to hear familiar music, from a set of immediately recognizable songs, every time they tune in. The approach you described is counter to that, because it depends on songs coming and going based on what time of the year it is. Someone who wanted to hear the Marvin Gaye song you referenced doesn't want it to play often in the summer and then almost disappear the rest of the year, and someone who isn't that entranced by it would find the heavier airplay to be a reason not to listen.
As I said, commercial and non-commercial stations play by different rules, because listeners have different mindsets about each.
Can I ask what lunar rotations are? Super Power, Power Gold and Library Gold are general categories?
Probably Spotify.
Not very often spins, another name for.
Good question!
One thing I’d like to also ask is that sometimes in the past when we’ve had more “variety”, we’d get good feedback from listeners - but this goes against the tight focused playlist model. In the UK, Radio 2 has variety but is the also the most listened to music station, could it be different in the UK as a whole? (Even though brands like Heart, Smooth etc remain tight).
If you had power gold, library gold, lunar and super powers - what in your view would a typical clock look like?
Gold titles would reoccur semi-regularly, currents or recurrents would be the main focus, and lunar would hardly happen.
In the days before the internet (and with a research budget of zero dollars and zero cents) when I was programming a gold-based AC format I'd emphasize airplay of gold titles that were getting exposure through movie soundtracks, commercials and the like. Sometimes that would result in a song being resurrected on the Hot 100 such as "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong and "Do You Love Me" by The Contours. More recently we've seen this occur with Kate Bush and "Running Up That Hill" which made the Top 30 in 1985 but was too much of an oddity to be a gold staple, only to see it blow up when it was featured in Stranger Things and became a phenomenon in the summer of 2022.
Here, again, we have the misconception of what the word “variety” means. When one does focus groups or one on ones they discover that variety really means “none of the songs I don’t like and only songs I do like”.
Then, when you find out which songs each person likes, you end up with very few songs. Depending on the age of the person and their preferred music style those favorites may only be 100 to 200 songs.
This is verified by finding out how many songs the quote average” person has on their digital device. Again, it is only a few hundred songs or less!