Which is the bigger "tune out" factor?

[davideduardo]

It tells me that there are a lot of people who still aren't sick of Brown Eyed Girl, My Girl, Maggie May, American Pie, Baby Love, California Dreamin', Doo Wah Diddy Diddy, Oh Pretty Woman, Unchained Melody and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. How many more years will it take?

That's what research helps tell us. That list is awfully 60s heavy, by the way. Meantime, KRTH is playing the music its audience wants to hear and not sabotaging themselves by ignoring the research.

KRTH has a real and immediate problem in that just a couple of ticks less than 50% of its audience is over 55. That means that in this very agency driven town, half their audience is not wanted by advertisers.

They will soon have to adjust in order to try to put a higher percentage of the listening in the 25-54 demo. Obviously, that mid-60's stuff has to go soon.

 

[davideduardo]

K-Earth 101 is notorious for "fake" weekends like that. Back in the mid 80's though, KRTH used to have incredible feature weekends, especially during holiday weekends throughout the year, such as playing every LA radio survey #1 song in chronological order, from 1955 to 1985...seriously! It was a blast! Have not heard anything remotely similiar to that since.

Those things worked in the diary but don't work at all well in the PPM.

 

[davideduardo]

David about the Mil/Chi-
You are wrong. Both stations are individual (one Chicago, one Milwaukee) both owned by Clear Channel with local hosts. However, their playlists (especially noticeable at Christmas and during the workday) mirror each other perfectly. I mentioned this because this is one reason I don't see how there is all this testing going on. Companies like CC are just greed-machines, so it appears they just copy all their formats everywhere.

I've done testing for classic hits in markets as "different" as Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, LA and Chicago. With the exception of a few songs that ranked down around or below 1000 (out of 1200 songs tested) the results, divided into quintiles, were identical in all 5 markets... which happen to be 5 of the top 10 national markets, too.

Each of the 4 music tests a year were done half in one market, half in another, covering all the markets every 9 months. One very talented PD scheduled music for all the stations... because there was no meaningful difference between the markets so the skills of a highly talented person could be used best that way.

So having near-identical playlists in two contiguous markets is not at all surprising.

 

[michael hagerty]

I think a true "parade of hits" would feature the songs in chronological order.

Here's the problem: Let's say you do that. The younger half of your audience hears nothing but the older half of your library for half the weekend. And the older half of your audience hears nothing but the younger half of your library for the other half.

 

[oldies76]

Mr. Hagerty, did you by chance happen to check out the link I provided about a special KRTH did in 1985? It should be on page 47 after the Biondi4Mayor posts. Just wanted to hear your take on this special, the songs and the possibilites of anyone airing it today. Could a small market station get away with this (even if it were modified into a national #1 survey, instead of the LA radio surveys)?

 

[CTListener]

I think a true "parade of hits" would feature the songs in chronological order.

Here's the problem: Let's say you do that. The younger half of your audience hears nothing but the older half of your library for half the weekend. And the older half of your audience hears nothing but the younger half of your library for the other half.

Well, you could always do it alphabetically, weeding out titles to make sure you don't play the same artist three or four times in two hours.

 

[michael hagerty]

Mr. Hagerty, did you by chance happen to check out the link I provided about a special KRTH did in 1985? It should be on page 47 after the Biondi4Mayor posts. Just wanted to hear your take on this special, the songs and the possibilites of anyone airing it today. Could a small market station get away with this (even if it were modified into a national #1 survey, instead of the LA radio surveys)?

Depends on the market, the direct competition or lack thereof and whether it's a rated market. But as I noted above, anything chronological is deadly to chunks of your audience for hours at a time throughout the weekend.

 

[michael hagerty]

I think a true "parade of hits" would feature the songs in chronological order.

Here's the problem: Let's say you do that. The younger half of your audience hears nothing but the older half of your library for half the weekend. And the older half of your audience hears nothing but the younger half of your library for the other half.

Well, you could always do it alphabetically, weeding out titles to make sure you don't play the same artist three or four times in two hours.

Or you could do it the way KRTH does it now, which seems to be working just fine.

 

[CTListener]

It tells me that there are a lot of people who still aren't sick of Brown Eyed Girl, My Girl, Maggie May, American Pie, Baby Love, California Dreamin', Doo Wah Diddy Diddy, Oh Pretty Woman, Unchained Melody and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. How many more years will it take?

That's what research helps tell us. That list is awfully 60s heavy, by the way. Meantime, KRTH is playing the music its audience wants to hear and not sabotaging themselves by ignoring the research.

KRTH has a real and immediate problem in that just a couple of ticks less than 50% of its audience is over 55. That means that in this very agency driven town, half their audience is not wanted by advertisers.

They will soon have to adjust in order to try to put a higher percentage of the listening in the 25-54 demo. Obviously, that mid-60's stuff has to go soon.

Everything but "Unchained Melody" and "Oh Pretty Woman," that is, which are loved by people whom the alleged human beings (I have my doubts about this...hopefully they are incapable of breeding.) who populate Madison Avenue don't want to curl up and die just yet, thanks to exposure in late-20th-century movies.

 

[michael hagerty]

It tells me that there are a lot of people who still aren't sick of Brown Eyed Girl, My Girl, Maggie May, American Pie, Baby Love, California Dreamin', Doo Wah Diddy Diddy, Oh Pretty Woman, Unchained Melody and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. How many more years will it take?

That's what research helps tell us. That list is awfully 60s heavy, by the way. Meantime, KRTH is playing the music its audience wants to hear and not sabotaging themselves by ignoring the research.

KRTH has a real and immediate problem in that just a couple of ticks less than 50% of its audience is over 55. That means that in this very agency driven town, half their audience is not wanted by advertisers.

They will soon have to adjust in order to try to put a higher percentage of the listening in the 25-54 demo. Obviously, that mid-60's stuff has to go soon.

Everything but "Unchained Melody" and "Oh Pretty Woman," that is, which are loved by people whom the alleged human beings (I have my doubts about this...hopefully they are incapable of breeding.) who populate Madison Avenue don't want to curl up and die just yet, thanks to exposure in late-20th-century movies.

The late 20th century was 14 years or more ago. Unless those songs show up in a movie this year, they're no fresher than anything else from the mid-60s.

 

[oldies76]

Depends on the market, the direct competition or lack thereof and whether it's a rated market.

Is that all you can provide? Sounds short-changed. Did you see the actual list and selections? I was hoping for a little more depth from you on this.

 

[CTListener]

It tells me that there are a lot of people who still aren't sick of Brown Eyed Girl, My Girl, Maggie May, American Pie, Baby Love, California Dreamin', Doo Wah Diddy Diddy, Oh Pretty Woman, Unchained Melody and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. How many more years will it take?

That's what research helps tell us. That list is awfully 60s heavy, by the way. Meantime, KRTH is playing the music its audience wants to hear and not sabotaging themselves by ignoring the research.

KRTH has a real and immediate problem in that just a couple of ticks less than 50% of its audience is over 55. That means that in this very agency driven town, half their audience is not wanted by advertisers.

They will soon have to adjust in order to try to put a higher percentage of the listening in the 25-54 demo. Obviously, that mid-60's stuff has to go soon.

Everything but "Unchained Melody" and "Oh Pretty Woman," that is, which are loved by people whom the alleged human beings (I have my doubts about this...hopefully they are incapable of breeding.) who populate Madison Avenue don't want to curl up and die just yet, thanks to exposure in late-20th-century movies.

The late 20th century was 14 years or more ago. Unless those songs show up in a movie this year, they're no fresher than anything else from the mid-60s.

The movies they were in were popular with teens and 20s, especially females, in the late '80s/early '90s. They have positives with today's 30-45 listener that "Baby Love" and "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" do not, I would think.

 

[michael hagerty]

Depends on the market, the direct competition or lack thereof and whether it's a rated market.

Is that all you can provide? Sounds short-changed. Did you see the actual list and selections? I was hoping for a little more depth from you on this.

My gut would be that playing a bunch of songs just because they were #1 as long as 57 years ago doesn't get you much. When KRTH did that originally, even people who remembered the oldest song were still in the desired demo. And that generation was more oriented toward chart numbers.

As we've discussed before, chart performance (even if and when it was legitimate) is irrelevant. The target listener doesn't care. I think you'd be miles ahead with a KRTH regular weekend of today, which is playing the songs the target listeners want to hear and are least likely to tune out from.

 

[michael hagerty]

It tells me that there are a lot of people who still aren't sick of Brown Eyed Girl, My Girl, Maggie May, American Pie, Baby Love, California Dreamin', Doo Wah Diddy Diddy, Oh Pretty Woman, Unchained Melody and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. How many more years will it take?

That's what research helps tell us. That list is awfully 60s heavy, by the way. Meantime, KRTH is playing the music its audience wants to hear and not sabotaging themselves by ignoring the research.

KRTH has a real and immediate problem in that just a couple of ticks less than 50% of its audience is over 55. That means that in this very agency driven town, half their audience is not wanted by advertisers.

They will soon have to adjust in order to try to put a higher percentage of the listening in the 25-54 demo. Obviously, that mid-60's stuff has to go soon.

Everything but "Unchained Melody" and "Oh Pretty Woman," that is, which are loved by people whom the alleged human beings (I have my doubts about this...hopefully they are incapable of breeding.) who populate Madison Avenue don't want to curl up and die just yet, thanks to exposure in late-20th-century movies.

The late 20th century was 14 years or more ago. Unless those songs show up in a movie this year, they're no fresher than anything else from the mid-60s.

The movies they were in were popular with teens and 20s, especially females, in the late '80s/early '90s. They have positives with today's 30-45 listener that "Baby Love" and "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" do not, I would think.

Good point. If they're still with us in 2015, it will be because they test well, and that will likely be the reason why.

 

[firepoint525]

I cut it out because it didn't answer the question. I didn't ask about your musical tastes. The question was and is:
Are you suggesting that, if not for peer pressure, everyone would like everything they hear always and forever?

Actually, I believe I DID answer that question, TWICE now. But don't worry, in about five years, I will age out of the coveted demo, but you will have to flip your station to sports and/or talk (depending on what your market will bear), because:

1. Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z are smaller (in population) demo than baby boomers, and a smaller percentage of them rely on radio than we do. They listen to their ipods and their own sources of music. Their tastes are also much more fragmented than even ours have ever been! Good luck programming something that ALL of them can listen to!

2. Most '90s songs STILL don't test well. Better hold on to the '80s for as long as you can. And many '90s songs (particularly rap) became hits WITHOUT airplay. But they basically had to. They had language in them that you couldn't play on the radio, even if you wanted to.

The good news for you is that I still like most of the music from the '80s, so you might be able to hang on to me (albeit by a toenail!) as a listener for the next five years.

 

[michael hagerty]

I cut it out because it didn't answer the question. I didn't ask about your musical tastes. The question was and is:
Are you suggesting that, if not for peer pressure, everyone would like everything they hear always and forever?

Actually, I believe I DID answer that question, TWICE now. But don't worry, in about five years, I will age out of the coveted demo, but you will have to flip your station to sports and/or talk (depending on what your market will bear), because:

1. Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z are smaller (in population) demo than baby boomers, and a smaller percentage of them rely on radio than we do. They listen to their ipods and their own sources of music. Their tastes are also much more fragmented than even ours have ever been! Good luck programming something that ALL of them can listen to!

2. Most '90s songs STILL don't test well. Better hold on to the '80s for as long as you can. And many '90s songs (particularly rap) became hits WITHOUT airplay. But they basically had to. They had language in them that you couldn't play on the radio, even if you wanted to.

The good news for you is that I still like most of the music from the '80s, so you might be able to hang on to me (albeit by a toenail!) as a listener for the next five years.

Wow. That's three times.

Here's your initial remark:

If late-night comics (among other people) would not mock the tastes of others, people would not develop "convenient amnesia" and forget them. It's a form of "peer pressure" that creates guilty pleasures and causes people to deny their own tastes in music.

It's really easy to mock something once it's no longer in style.

I then asked, as seen above:

Are you suggesting that, if not for peer pressure, everyone would like everything they hear always and forever?

Your responses have all been about your taste in music. Not a single thing that answers my question or attempts to support your assertion that if Leno, Letterman, Conan and Fallon (and everyone else) would stop mocking other people's tastes, people wouldn't forget their favorite music or consider it a guilty pleasure.

Your assertion wasn't about you (at least not on the surface). The answer shouldn't be either.

So, one more time:

Are you suggesting that, if not for peer pressure, everyone would like everything they hear always and forever?

 

[firepoint525]

I can't speak for everyone else. I can only speak for myself. And my answer (when applied only to me) is yes. I recall reading somewhere that whatever is a hit while you are between the ages of 12-27 is basically "your music" for life. Doesn't mean that you have to actually like all of it, and certainly doesn't mean that you can't like more recent music, or music from before your teen years, just that you will relate (more) to music from your teen years.

I was about 27 in 1991 when "grunge" came in, and while I couldn't relate to the hair metal and boy bands and teen queens of the late '80s, I really couldn't relate to grunge. And to think, I was only about three years older than Curt Cobain.

It also means that five years from now, when I am 55, you can drop the '80s from your playlist, but you won't ever hear from me again. Good luck with programming the '90s. You're gonna need it!

 

[michael hagerty]

I can't speak for everyone else. I can only speak for myself. And my answer (when applied only to me) is yes. I recall reading somewhere that whatever is a hit while you are between the ages of 12-27 is basically "your music" for life. Doesn't mean that you have to actually like all of it, and certainly doesn't mean that you can't like more recent music, or music from before your teen years, just that you will relate (more) to music from your teen years.

I was about 27 in 1991 when "grunge" came in, and while I couldn't relate to the hair metal and boy bands and teen queens of the late '80s, I really couldn't relate to grunge. And to think, I was only about three years older than Curt Cobain.

It also means that five years from now, when I am 55, you can drop the '80s from your playlist, but you won't ever hear from me again. Good luck with programming the '90s. You're gonna need it!

Thanks, Firepoint. That answered my question.

As for luck programming the 90s, that's for the active programmers. But again, remember...when aiming for 25-54, you're not trying to get 25 year olds and you're not trying to get 54 year olds. Like archery, you aim for the center. That's 39 and a half (round it up to 40). Someone born in 1973, who graduated high school in 1991 and college in 1995. 90s music will probably be a lot easier to do than the 70s and 80s music was.

The rest of the demo? It's like ripples from a rock thrown into a pond. Successfully grab that 40 year old and 35-45 is pretty much a gimme. 30-50 isn't that big a reach. But those five years on either end, that's hit and miss.

 

[radiobum]

Hearing Stevie Nicks' voice ?

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

Thanks Oldies for the link, I love hearing every #1 in order!!!

Greatest Hits related formats' biggest problem is the "age" thing. Then in this regard, testing is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The primary audience, as David pointed out, will skew "young" enough to avoid the "dreaded" 55+. What it doesn't account for are even younger listeners that would perhaps enjoy and recognize the same music. Back to the self-fulfilling prophecy part, the fact that testing could range from a few hundred to 1200 (I think David mentioned this number a while back perhaps I'm mistaken) is the problem. The playlists are no bigger than this, so essentially the only thing getting testing is what is already being played. Hence my comment on the Honey Cone song earlier, it's stuck on the "black list'' of oldies since it would appear that stations don't have the room to sufficiently test a wider multitude of hits.

About 3 years ago, I joined one of those online fan clubs for our local "oldies" station. I did it because each week there would be a song test of 30 songs that you could rate. For over the 2 years I did that, there was NEVER one song that was off their standard playlist. So, no variety or weeding out of overdone songs was apparent. Knowing this, I made sure to skew my own results. So since there was too much Elton John in my opinion, I would tell it that I "hated" the song, and wanted to "hear it less". But when a song by The Supremes (a group with a multitude of ignored hits in my opinion) would come up - usually only "Baby Love" - I would tell it that I "loved" it and wanted it more "often" - which wasn't true. I wanted variety from both acts, and saw that wasn't going to happen. My point is two-fold:
1. There is little evidence to suggest that tests are testing other similar songs and hits other than a station's current playlist. Therefore, change and addaptation is impossible and numerous songs go unplayed.

and-
2. There is no good placebo that would make testing songs are good, and conclusive scientific experiment. The people know why they are there. It is known that people take more extreme stances in groups - polarization. Therefore, songs will appear to be far more liked or unliked than they likely are. In my case, it did not take long for me to notice that the tests were far from "original", so it was the lesser of two evils - I'll take "Baby Love" for spin number 1,000 over "Crocodile Rock" 's spin number 2,000. But songs like "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone" or "Island Girl" went unplayed and untested.