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When you PLAY IT, SAY IT

raccoonradio

raccoonradio

We used to have stickers on promo albums that said "When you PLAY IT, SAY IT". The record labels wanted us as a college radio station to let people know what song we just played, the artist, etc. Gee isn't that was DJs are supposed to do? But maybe on some big conglomerate radio, or even smaller stations/ colleges, etc., you don't get it. I have heard there have been surveys saying listeners do want to know...
and it really helps the bands.

BRING BACK THE DJ
http://www.radioinfo.com/2013/07/29/bring-back-the-disc-jockey-2/
 
raccoonradio said:
We used to have stickers on promo albums that said "When you PLAY IT, SAY IT". The record labels wanted us as a college radio station to let people know what song we just played, the artist, etc. Gee isn't that was DJs are supposed to do? But maybe on some big conglomerate radio, or even smaller stations/ colleges, etc., you don't get it. I have heard there have been surveys saying listeners do want to know...
and it really helps the bands.

BRING BACK THE DJ
http://www.radioinfo.com/2013/07/29/bring-back-the-disc-jockey-2/
Click to expand...

This hasn't happened reliably in decades. ReelRadio has an exhibit from the mid 1960s that's a Memo from a PD at KYA-AM to his DJs ordering them NOT to announce artists and titles of anything but recently released hits because it takes too much air time that is better used by promoting the station, and the listeners know most of the records anyway.

Then stations that play a number of back to back records stopped back announcing, then voice-tracking kill it off entirely, and generaly insert station ID bumpers instead. The exceptions are jazz and classical stations. Interestingly enough, I've noticed that Ryan Seacrest will supply artist and title IDs to the stations that play his syndicated voice-tracked show.
 
raccoonradio said:
I have heard there have been surveys saying listeners do want to know...
and it really helps the bands.
Click to expand...

Yes, lots of station research projects do show that people want to know the names of songs. But they want to know the names of songs they are unfamiliar with... but not the names of artists and songs they already know, which annoys them.

The problem is that each person does not know the artist and title of a different batch of songs. So one person's desirable info is negative to another 10 people. Which is why stations tend to announce newer songs, and nothing else.
 
The one that really annoys me is when the announcer will hype an upcoming song, but then play two other songs before getting to that one. That seems to be the norm at WUMB (Boston).
 
I must be very unusual as a radio listener but my favorite stations both announced the title and artist and usually a short tidbit about either the song or artist. There are still DJ's doing that today and it still sounds much better than the ancient practice of calls/time/temp all day long.
 
The Fish (Christian music station here in Nashville) has a generic-sounding voice-track that gives title and artist of literally EVERY song that they play. It sounds (literally) phoned-in. And this plays even before the announcer talks!
 
Keep in mind that most stations now post sing titles and artists on their website, and also run them on digital radio dials - if you have a new or recent radio.

More than once, I've heard a song I really liked in the car, then looked it up on the station's website when I got home. Typically they post at least the last 10 songs played, and most will post the preceding 12 or 24 hours.
 
The automated FM station in Martin, TN, used to have a voice-track which back-announced at least the then-current songs that they used to play. One particularly funny (but unintentionally so) voice-track from back in the early '80s: "I ran from a flock of seagulls."
 
firepoint525 said:
The Fish (Christian music station here in Nashville) has a generic-sounding voice-track that gives title and artist of literally EVERY song that they play. It sounds (literally) phoned-in. And this plays even before the announcer talks!
Click to expand...

Yes, They also do this on their "Today's Christian Music" national network and on their "Solid Gospel" Southern Gospel format too.

Also Way FM in Nashville (and their other markets) now back sell songs with an artist-title after them.
 
When 93.7 in Lawrence MA (now WEEI-FM sports) was WCGY, owned by Curt Gowdy, they would play automated music but with an announcer voice pre-recorded, cutting in: "The Beatles. Magical Mystery Tour. Before that, Elton John. Saturday Night's Alright for
Fighting. This is the Rock Garden. WCGY."
 
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