We have a station in Nashville that at one point had four different music formats in four years. It wasn't until they went sports/talk that they finally settled on a format. Not sure how they are doing (because I deleted them from my presets once they deleted music from their airwaves), but they have stayed with it for a decade now. Yeah, radio is definitely NOT in the music business.
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Station vs. personal library size
- Thread starter PirateJohnny
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This is the part that people who campaign for "deep cuts" don't understand. Radio stations don't own the music. They own the way it's presented. News/talk and sports/talk stations own the content (unless it's owned by the leagues or specific teams). So when radio stations play songs, they pay royalties to the copyright owners. When they do talk formats, they don't. So there's more money to be made, especially when you talk about digital content, when you don't play music.
What about the stuff they use for "bumper music"? I have had to fill out those BMI logs, so I know all about that.
I worked for one (the old WDXN in Clarksville, TN) which, as far as I know, covered the city well, even at night. The problem was that it was an AM station, and this was 1993, and most Clarksvillians got their music from the Nashville stations. Nearly every GM that I have ever worked for has had an exaggerated sense of the importance (or worth) of his own station. The then-GM of WDXN was no exception. He wanted me to come in from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Sundays to "play the hits." He just KNEW that there was some old-timer out there who would call in to hear Hank Snow. (This was a country station, at the time.) I tried to tell him that we just did not have the listenership to support having a live dj there at that time, but he would not hear of it. I begged them to let me carry some syndicated programming, so the shift would not be so boring! They would not hear of that, either. Save for Country Crossroads at 5:30 a.m., the shift was live. We never got any listener feedback during that time. Even when an FM sister station was added which simulcast the AM station's programming, it still did not make a difference. The transmitter site was an hour away from Clarksville, aimed at a rural area. And residents of that rural area evidently did not tune us in during that time frame.
CHRs, whether in a Top 10 market or market 150, target 18-34 women primary and 25-44 women secondary. CHR has not been a teenybopper format for decades. I simply picked the top two radio markets because most are familiar with the stations and, also, the samples for the ratings are larger.
It's aimed at women for the most part, so it's likely that if you are a male it will be less appealing.
But no Spanish language station in the US plays any of that stuff any longer. Just like their general market counterparts, Spanish language stations in the major markets do research, have playlists adjusted to PPM methodology and those lists are, format by format, no longer than those general market equivalents.
"Mary es mi amor" was mid-60's. Leo Dan was about 62-67, with the big hits in the 63-64 period.
La Nueva Ola was about '61 to '67. By '67, it had moved on to the second wave of pop artists like Sandro et. al.
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They pay, but it's a much smaller amount than music stations.
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The problem is that you folks regard music as "formats" while those of us who enjoy listening to music classify music by "genres". "Urban" stations play a genre of music that I simply don't like. I never have and never will. Large numbers of people share my opinion, large numbers of people disagree with it. I like music of several genres. Genre is defined by the sound of the music, not the date it was recorded or written. Rock songs written and recorded in the last ten years are still rock songs. They're part of the same genre as rock songs of two, three, four, or five decades ago. Rock is rock.
The thing is, and the part of my post that you ignored is this emphasised part: "I still love hearing a good sounding song for the first time." I often hear good-sounding songs for the first time when a modern rock band is the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Now you tell me, what "format" do I need to listen to in order to hear good sounding new rock songs? What format includes the same genre of music (based on sound) as classic rock or the classic rock hits of the 60s/70's/80s?
Back in the 70's, I didn't like disco. Lots of us didn't. Lots of us did. Nothing wrong with that either way. When I have tuned in stations that play a "modern" music format, there are too many new songs that sound like disco mixed in with the new songs that sound like rock to make that station an entertaining choice.
What I keep hearing is that some country music today seems to sound like 70s and 80s rock. Now most people will say they don't like the country genre. I was one of them. But the music they play on country radio seems to appeal to a broad range of people. It's no surprise that someone like Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish, is having huge success as a country solo artist.
I was a fan of Darius back in the day, and I am now that he's having country airplay. And if you think classic hits/rock fans get all riled up about what's "real" music and what isn't, start talking to some classic country fans.
Some of today's country does sound a lot like classic rock, IMO. Consider that the people in the center of country's target demo (25-54) grew up with not just country songs, but also rock, pop and hip-hop, and like songs from all those genres. It's no surprise to me that there's some fusion of styles going on. (We now leave this tangent to return to our regularly-scheduled thread.)
As indeed I am. But I am also older than the age ranges that you give here, but not the ones that you mentioned earlier. Still amazes me that I was able to listen to the old Y-107 when I first moved to Nashville in the early '90s. I was not yet 30 at the time.
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What's with "What I keep hearing"? If you're working in radio, surely you have enough of an ear for music that you can listen for yourself and determine using your own two ears if country music today sounds like 70's and 80's rock. If you have to rely on someone else to tell you that, if you can't research that fact using your own ears, you're in the wrong business.
I'm talking about people who enjoy listening and are fans of classic hits.....there's a ton of them out there.
That's a misconception.
It is not necessary for everyone in radio to have an "ear" for music. Mangers, salespersons, engineers, office staff and other positions require skills that require an ear for music.
And people who work in one format do not need to have an intimate knowledge or understanding of the music in other formats. That's why we learn to listen to what the street says because it's most important to get listener feedback so as not to breed an "insider" perspective.
I first mentioned the broad sales demos: 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. Speaking of 25-54, the most common sales "buying" demo, stations in competitive markets tend to target just a portion of that broad range. KIIS can be #2 in 25-54 in LA because it is so strong in the lower part of that demo, from 25 to 44.
What you are describing is more semantics than any misunderstanding of listener wants.
"Format" is a term of the trade that describes not just the kind or mix of music on a station, but also the execution elements such as use of jocks and personalities, jingles, service elements, commercial load, stopset placement, etc. These are all part of "formatics" which is both based on the science of research and the art of flow, fit and feel.
Most listeners don't even define music by genres. The describe music in terms of songs they like and songs they do not like, and the terms they use for kinds of music often differ from the insider terms. An example: 70's and 80's based pop gold stations use the term "classic hits" for sales and management purposes and they may use "oldies" on the air. Another example: the format of the majority of Spanish language stations in the US is Regional Mexican, yet they never ever use that term on the air as it is meaningless to listeners.
In fact, the labels for many formats come from the music industry, not from radio. Radio picks up these terms as we need a lingua franca to communicate within the industry.
You are opening a needless can of worms here. Top 40 / CHR stands for a kind of music, and that music can be divided into genres like Motown, British Invasion, Disco, etc. Many of those genres are very dependent on date as well as sound. In other words, all the terms are vague and fuzzy at the edges and it really does not matter as all the words do is create a broad frame of reference.
But Steppenwolf is not the same as Imagine Dragons. Rock is a broad term and no radio station plays all the kinds of rock. Again, we use names to help locate a station (or even CD in a music store) in the broad spectrum of all music.
That is like saying that the Autobahn is the same as a mountain trail. Both are roads, of course.
We have ignored that because we know that all but a select amount of new music is a station killer and a career killer.
Yes I know, and they all enjoy listening to their favorite personalities present them on the radio. They've driven those stations to ratings success. Unfortunately, you're not one of them. I know the difference.
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Here's the thing, David. Even a niche formatted station in LA or NYC probably has more listeners than the entire population of your average town out here in the heartland trying to support a station. Some such stations would never be able to make it out here because the specific demographic is just not large enough to support them.
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I won't dispute that. But, anyone who represents himself to the world as an expert on music sound and the programming of radio stations, including selecting content, is not a mangers, salesperson, engineer, office staffer or other position. If one presents information as "facts" based on one's personal expertise, then one should have the expertise to back what one presents.
Let me explain: When I say I hear that from a lot of people, I'm including artists and listeners. I get comments from listeners who say "I don't like country, but I like Jason Aldean" or comments like that. It's important for me to remain open about music and formats and genres, so I'm not ignoring music that the country audience sees as country because of my own personal biases. I can't program from a personal bias. If I did, then a lot of changes in music that were accepted, such as Bob Dylan's electric sound on "Like a Rolling Stone" or Kenny Rogers recording a song written by Lionel Richie, would not have received airplay. If I am just a gatekeeper, then I'm not doing right by my audience. So yes, I keep hearing people say today's country sounds like 70s and 80s rock. I hear artists talk about that in interviews, I see it in listener feedback, and perhaps I hear it in certain songs. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. I certainly have the experience and knowledge to make that judgment. But it doesn't matter to me, because I'm not trying to program based on that. Make sense? There are a lot of people involved. What makes a song a hit is when we achieve consensus, and we all agree. I think it's a lot more human than relying on some genome at Pandora.
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