As I have said before, that is absolutely not true.
No station can test new songs. If the format includes new releases, we depend on gut feel and experience and we watch other stations of our type in other markets. And as soon as we can, we research to see if we were right. Even the best of us get averages like baseball players... more misses than hits.
Of course, Top 40 and other hit based formats have been researching ever since Todd Storz watched jukebox play in Omaha in the very early 60's. We called record shops and one-stops, and had tabulations of requests. And then we eliminated the funny business in depending on the record industry and its retailers by doing call-out, dating back to the middle of the 70's.
But we can't test new songs. It takes enough plays for our "heavy listener" to have heard it 5 or 6 times at least to know if it is "nice" or a real hit. That means two, three, even four weeks and in the meantime the airplay is based on the PD's gut... or the national PD's gut. That is why so many new songs that get airplay don't make it past the first month.
"World Famous" is certainly an exaggeration. Among some band, maybe. Among record promoters, yes. But ask an average Alt listener in Daytona Beach about KROQ and you'll get a blank share.
And as BigA has said over and over, the labels supported KROQ in its glory days. They did street events. They supported big concerts. They brought the artists to the station, and backed the releases with promotions of all kinds.
Wrong. The labels have abandoned the genre as it takes too much work for rapidly declining sales. The music is not big among 18-34's and that is where music sells in any delivery system. So the labels pay more attention to Country, Hip Hop, Reggaeton, Pop and genres that sell and where the artists are cooperative and responsive.
I don't understand why you base your critique on something that is not true. There is no testing of new music until it has played enough to be familiar... as I said, three to four weeks in the typical new song rotation.
There are all kinds of other factors involved, too. Let's start with the fact that there is less new material from the labels that are capable of producing national hits. There are fewer real labels recording and promoting. There is little support for stations compared with the past. And there are far fewer people attached to the genre than a decade, two decades ago as the genre is in rather precipitous decline. It's niche, not mainstream now.
A niche is still viable for radio... Smooth Jazz lived as a nice niche for two decades or more in some markets. But don't blame radio for this. Blame changing tastes.
It's dying because the newer generations... teens and 18-34's... are interested in much smaller numbers than in the 80's and 90's. There is a declining fan base.
Machines don't program today, either. But when there was more new music, lots of label support, and many, many, many more Alt followers and fans, there was simply a lot more good new music.
I've seen Alt tests. You find there are at least three different groups for every song or artist... one that like / loves it, one that says it is okay, and one that detests it. Nearly every song is fragged that way. Since you can't have three different Alt stations in a market, we end up playing only the songs that at least are not highly negative to anyone. That thins the herd a lot.
You are blaming radio. Radio is not at fault. Fragmented taste within a declining music genre make it hard to find new music that the whole audience will like. Lack of label support not only stigmatizes the format, it is a big hint that the ship is taking on water.
Don't blame the messenger.
