The usable in home and at work contour is about 20% inside the innermost red radio locator contour. RL is clearly marked as being for amusement purposes only.
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Songs You Remember And Like But Never Get Played
- Thread starter R_F_Burns
- Start date
The usable in home and at work contour is about 20% inside the innermost red radio locator contour. RL is clearly marked as being for amusement purposes only.
O
ok walters
Guest
No, they either don't or won't understand no matter how many times or who explains it. Who cares about the 244 million weekly listeners despite all of the other options? They are still doing it wrong says the peanut gallery. No numbers, no nothing - just a bunch of emotion. Numbers would prove their point but those numbers just don't exist, so it becomes an attack on the messenger and his motives. Those of us in the business have to separate emotion from fact as we are profit based, but music fans do not have to worry about profit so it is all emotion and name calling.
No, YOU said that the station "failed." And you used that as "proof" that classic hits won't work. Blah blah blah. I pointed out that the station was a bust under any format, and David actually backed me up on that. Sorry, but self-fulfilling prophecies (which are all you have) are not proof of anything. You asked for facts, I gave you facts, then you accused me of "ranting." Accusations of "ranting" are just your way of saying "I can't refute anything that you have posted, firepoint525, so I will just change the subject and make it about you instead, and hope that you don't notice." Well, I did. You also attributed my statements to other writers on this board, which tells me that you really weren't paying attention to begin with. It's all there in this thread. All you've got to do is read it.
And some of those stations that I mentioned are in markets in which I don't live, so I cannot comment on their day-to-day programming.
So why don't you give us the names of some "C"-named corporation stations that are running classic hits formats successfully, and NOT trying to intentionally sabotage them.
In this day and age of "rimshots," "move-ins," translators, repeaters, boosters, etc., very FEW stations are going to be able to serve an entire MSA. Looks like the CITY got covered well. The southern counties are in reach of WKOM. We don't all need "city" stations.
Now you are contradicting yourself. You previously said that the station was a bust with any format. I don't recall ANY marketing effort for them for the last FIVE YEARS that Come-in-last owned them, and I doubt that it was in a trust for that long.
If the signal were that good, it certainly would have been good enough for the urban format, but instead, they kept it where it was, on a signal that even I can't get here, less than mile from the metro Nashville-Davidson county line. (And their dial position (92.1), while not in the non-coms, is right adjacent to the non-com frequencies, and probably would have made more sense for K-Love.)
But again, they did NO marketing for about the last five years that they owned the station. Better to have turned it off and just saved the money on electricity. Not even any promotion of it when they were the flagship station for Vandy sports. And I could (and still can) receive them here in my neighboring county.
O
ok walters
Guest
Don't know of any that are successful with your recipe. Lots of successful ones out there - just not any that i know of playing Disco Duck and Brand New Key etc. like you demand.
YOU brought up the station that failed - not me. YOU talked about how bad it was,how it wasn't promoted, how they played the same song four times in a row, etc.. YOU chose that example and it actually is a good one. Signal covers a major market on FM and is now something else - that was YOUR choice as an example not mine. Your argument is that your recipe would work but you somehow can't find anywhere it is actually working well, and now you are asking me to find it for you. I would also imagine your definition of "working well" is just staying on the air, but mine would be solid ratings and revenue, but that is just the business side of me and the emotional side of you talking. Go figure.
There is nothing to "refute" that you have said - the lost hits/deep cuts oldies format that includes Disco Duck and Brand New Key don't and won't work for a commercial radio station in a major market. Radio is a for profit business and you just flat out refuse to accept that your format is not mainstream enough to work. Just like BigA said - our income depends on it so we do what generates the most revenue. You decide everything on emotion as you have no stake in the game which is understandable, but your refusal to accept what has been proven time and time again is unfortunate. Once again, load up that Ipod with Disco Duck and Brand New Key and you should be fine - we just can't subject everyone to that and expect to survive. I know you don't like that, but it is what it is and will likely stay that way as radio is doing fine appealing to the masses and not the niche listeners. 244 million listeners a week can't be wrong.
And many of them are not hearing their OWN favorites, just the same 400 songs you shove down our throats.
And many of them don't listen to just one format either.
And no one is "shoving" anything. Listening to radio is a choice.
And the truth is it doesn't matter how many songs we play...it will never be enough, and you'll always find something to complain about.
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ok walters
Guest
But somehow the number is up to 244 million despite radio doing it all wrong according to you guys. Their "favorites" must not be the same favorites that the majority have or they would be on. The Ipod is still an option, but not a free option like radio.
Blah blah blah. I gave you examples of maybe half a dozen stations, some of which I KNOW have held on to their format for YEARS, while stations in the corporate straitjacket change formats with the seasons. Cumulus undoubtedly jinxed 97.1 before they FINALLY let it go. I don't "demand" "Disco Duck" or anything else. I merely pointed out that a successful station played it. But again, anything outside of the huge corporate umbrella, you can't relate to. But hey, feel free to keep "cherry-picking" whatever you like out of what I post, and feel free to ignore the rest. Hell, you have done that all week. You represent what is wrong with radio today. That they talk AT people rather than TO them. But be warned, if your dumbed-down listeners will tune out for a "stiff," they will also tune out for the same song repeated four times, commercials running half an hour, and double-audio. Our Clear Channel classic rocker was guilty of that last one. I did what anyone would do. I tried to call them and tell them about it, but I could not get an answer. So I did what anyone else would do. I shut the damn thing off and gave up.
Yesterday you said what's wrong with radio was it used national music lists. Today, it's people talking AT people. Every day, you come up with something you don't like, and extrapolate it to be what's wrong with radio today. Just like my grandfather, who does the same thing, except the last words are "what's wrong with KIDS today." People reach a certain age, and they feel they, and only they, know what's wrong with stuff.
Let me ask you something: When you were a board op, and folks found out you worked in radio, how many times did people want to try and tell you how to do your job? Not just once, but consistently. And did you listen to them, and do what they said?
During the entire time that the station was in a classic hits format, it was also in a trust set up to administer the stations that had to be sold in the aftermath of the Cumulus privatization in 2007.
Since it was Cumulus' intent to sell to an operator who would remove it from direct competition, they were not very interested in spending money on promotion. Still, it averaged a 3 share in that period. Given it's limited coverage, that is the equivalent of a 5 share format for a full C signal.
Of course, now you are arguing with the laws of physics.
80% of in home and at work listening (which is 2/3 of all listening) takes place inside the 70 dbu contour. 95% takes place inside the 65 dbu contour. That is simply because weaker signals do not penetrate structures well enough for the average consumer radio of today to pick them up. The radio-locator red inner contour is roughly the 60 dbu curve... much more optimistic than reality shows is possible.
Since the Nashville Metro Survey Area is 8 counties, and the home county, Davidson, has less than half of the total, full coverage is more important in that market than in most others. 97.1, as a not even a full C2, does not make the grade in that respect.
You want to blame the format and Cumulus, when the real issues were the signal and the legal requirement to spin off the station.
I still fail to see how a station that is the bottom-"scoring" FM in its market and which underperforms in its own format in cume reach can be called "successful".
I'll bet that if they cleaned up the playlist and devoted some energy to the station it would do much better than holding down the bottom of the last Arbitron ranker.
I love it when all the "experts" try to take over each others' arguments. Because again, they cherry-pick what they can actually respond to, and ignore the rest. Radio has more than one thing wrong with it. What I said yesterday is in no way contradictory to what I have said here today. The two are not one and the same, although there may be a correlation between the two.
When I worked in radio, they told me that my stations basically sucked. And I basically agreed with them, because since I wasn't in management, I was not really in a position to change anything. And I believe that that station changed formats shortly after I left them, anyway.
So it has to be mutually exclusive? It can't make money AND be interesting to listeners like me? Y'all are trying your hardest to run me out of listening to radio. I was already chased out of working in radio YEARS ago, not because I tried to "change" things, but because I actually wanted to eat better.
They went classic hits (the first time) around Labor Day 2006. They stunted with "Na Na Hey Hey" all day.
Given the size of our metro area, there are very few stations that can cover that entire area with a COL-grade signal. Add in those translators, "move-ins," "rimshots," and everything else, and my radio dial looks and sounds a lot different from someone just across town from me.
I should further point out that the half-hour of continuous commercials was back in the Star 97 days (early 2000s) so screw-ups were nothing new for them.
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Same reason I left radio
A
Avid Listener
Guest
There are so many things wrong with radio today that several very thick books could be written. I don't know that I could rank all of them, but on any such list compiled I'd put over-reliance on flawed measuring of ratings as a sign of success. Regarding huge numbers of people having a station on as background noise to be ignored as "success" definitely belongs on the list. Once advertisers realize that subliminal exposure isn't as good as having customers actually paying attention to their commercials, high-ratings background noise stations are done.
You've talked yourself out of listening to the radio because you want stations to do what YOU want, instead of what the mass audience wants. No, stations can't make money, especially with this format, and be interesting to listeners like you. Believe me, I've tried. I even tried it with a non-commercial station that didn't have to appeal to advertisers. We tried a broader playlist of 60s & 70s hits, and the listeners didn't support it in large enough numbers to pay for it. So it went away. Any idea you or anyone else can come up with has been tried, and we have the statistics on how it did.
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