Which is the bigger "tune out" factor?

[oldies76]

And, of course, when talking about the charts from the 50's and 60's, there were many outside influences and statistical issues that make them imperfect in any event.

The average radio listener could care less what the "dark side" of chart history is. They just want to hear the music and some that collect older music will use some chart reference for their collections.

Those comments usually come when a station plays songs that shouldn't be played at all.

Not true....complaints about repetition relate to playing "Low Rider" and other overplayed songs 10 times a week. How could a rarely played "stiff" be complained upon, as "too much repetition"?
Impossible David.

if a station does get requests they come via email and text messages, not the phone.

Today, so-called requests are only songs that are upcoming on a playlist. Otherwise radio will never play a true request by a loyal listener, which is a big shame. And yes, people still call on the phone....most radio stations have request lines.

Where do so many people get the "350" number from? While 300 is an average library size for a traditional AC station that also plays currents, it is not the size of a classic hits library... those tend to be in the 700 to 800 song range.

Actually, the library size is unlimited (thousands of songs) but radio only chooses to play the same few hundred songs during the week, and every week!

Are you enjoying the CBS-FM countdown tonight??? You should listen.

 

[oldies76]

All this so called research makes rocket science out of something that isn't..Use the charts as your reference.If it was a top 10 hit in the era your station plays you probably should play it too..There are also a good number of top 20 songs people can recognize..There is really no perfect answer to this but I will say in almost 30 years of radio the biggest compliant I hear is" I'm tired of hearing the same songs over and over" and then there is always a few people who call for the same tunes everyday. This has been an issue with programmers since radio began and it will continue to be. I just think a station with a 350 song playlist that doesn't manage its library well gets very boring very quickly..

You know that maybe, just maybe about 10% or less of all the charting songs in the top 20 from the 60's to 1989 ever get aired today??? Unbelievable huh? Try listening to the top 20 countdown on WCBS 101.1 Sunday nights hosted by Dick Bartley to get some much needed relief from the same ole, same ole..

 

[CTListener]

To be fair to David and other radio pros who swear by the research, people who call radio stations are a tiny minority of the radio-listening universe, and the ones who do tend to be have a more obsessive connection to the music than those who don't. And those who don't are the people who don't mind hearing "Low Rider" and the like 10 times a week. Nobody posting to a radio message board will ever be able to get into the mind of the average radio listener; we aren't them, and they don't care enough about radio or the music it plays to post in forums like this. They just want tunes they like as background music while working or driving. They're not tuning in to weekend specialty shows and reaching a state of bliss when "Winchester Cathedral" gets played.

 

[PirateJohnny]

This is one of the points I was trying to make about chart history. When I was a teen (in the early 70s) listening to the radio I never did anything that would have influenced the charts - I didn't buy records and I never called in requests. Back then I was glued to the radio almost every night. There are a lot of songs I heard back then that I liked, that I never hear anymore unless I buy a 45, an LP, or compilation CD to add those songs to my library. But these sales don't influence any chart, anywhere.

The charts from back then don't really reflect my tastes because I didn't do anything back then to influence the charts. And I'm sure I'm not the only person this applies to.

I did some math relating to library size. Assuming a 40 song playlist from 1964 (Beatles) to 1975 (Disco) and adding 5 new songs a week, someone listening during that 12 year span heard 3160 songs.

 

[davideduardo]

To be fair to David and other radio pros who swear by the research, people who call radio stations are a tiny minority of the radio-listening universe, and the ones who do tend to be have a more obsessive connection to the music than those who don't.

And where has anyone said that request calls form any part of radio station research?

The fact is that calls are generally not even tabulated and this has been the case for many decades. Callers are not a representative sample of the actual and perspective audience; anyone in radio has countless stories of people calling to a request a song that was just played a few minutes ago... or which is playing at that very moment.

And those who don't are the people who don't mind hearing "Low Rider" and the like 10 times a week.

And you know this how?

Nobody posting to a radio message board will ever be able to get into the mind of the average radio listener; we aren't them, and they don't care enough about radio or the music it plays to post in forums like this.

Some of those who post have done music research. Some have done hundreds of AMTs and have looked at hundreds of thousands of callout responses. And, thus, we knew, at any given time, what the audience wanted to hear and did not want to hear on the radio.

They just want tunes they like as background music while working or driving.

Radio, for the most part, ceased being a foreground medium in the 50's when TV took over. Yet many people listen actively to music formats and most news and talk and sports listeners are quite engaged.

They're not tuning in to weekend specialty shows and reaching a state of bliss when "Winchester Cathedral" gets played.

A few of them do... and that is why those shows late on Saturdays and Sundays run when there are normally very, very few listeners... because such shows attract a fringe listener group who will seek out certain specialty shows.

 

[davideduardo]

There is no right or wrong answer to this. I will say less and less music decisions are actually made by the PD or in house and too me that's a problem.

Music decisions are based on listener input.

See http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm for one form of testing.

Or see http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_callout.htm

Stations consult with listeners and play the songs that a consensus of the target listener group wants to hear on the radio today.

 

[davideduardo]

Those comments (about repetition) usually come when a station plays songs that shouldn't be played at all.

Not true....complaints about repetition relate to playing "Low Rider" and other overplayed songs 10 times a week. How could a rarely played "stiff" be complained upon, as "too much repetition"?
Impossible David.

No, you are just simply wrong.

In extensive research, including thousands of personal one on one interviews, I have seen that digging beyond "repetition" complaints always results in an explanation that the objectionable "repeated" songs are ones that the listener does not want to hear even once, let alone at even distant intervals.

When asked about songs a listener likes, the general response in adult stations is anything between "every time I listen" to "every few times I listen."

In more contemporary formats, like CHR, listeners who are asked how often a favorite song should be played, answer in an overwhelming majority, "about once an hour".

Today, so-called requests are only songs that are upcoming on a playlist. Otherwise radio will never play a true request by a loyal listener, which is a big shame. And yes, people still call on the phone....most radio stations have request lines.

Most stations have studio lines, not request lines per se. The lines are for contests, listener participation in morning shows, etc. Of course, many contests are now done exclusively via messaging, email and other newer technologies and Internet-only contesting is becoming more and more common.

In a way, you are right about requests. Stations will "stage" request shows and only play a request if someone requests the song they were going to play anyway... it is theater, and shows that the station cares about listener opinions. Of course, the reality is that stations use more scientific research to determine what to play, and requests are not among the methods used.

Where do so many people get the "350" number from? While 300 is an average library size for a traditional AC station that also plays currents, it is not the size of a classic hits library... those tend to be in the 700 to 800 song range.

Actually, the library size is unlimited (thousands of songs) but radio only chooses to play the same few hundred songs during the week, and every week!

Wrong-oh again.

Stations play as many songs as listeners, today, indicate that they want to hear, on the radio, today. If there are thousands of songs from a genre or era that could be played, the determining factor is whether there is a consensus desire to hear the song today. Very few old songs meet that criteria.

 

[allenv]

My head hurts.Most of this stuff is smoke & mirrors. This research is done so radio companies will buy it and and radio feels if they are spending the big bucks it must be accurate. I don't gulp the consultant kool aid. You have some valid points but alot of good radio programing is simply common sense and not a 5 page report on why Mandy didn't test well. My head still hurts.

 

[PirateJohnny]

Here's something I've never seen addressed. If you are watching PPMs and know to the minute when people turn off your station, how do you know if they are turning off a house radio to go to the car to go to work? How do you know if they are turning off the car radio because they have reached their destination? If a large part of the PPM audience reaches work at XX:53 and turns off their radio just after a song starts, how do you make the distinction that they didn't turn off the radio because they don't like the song?

 

[landtuna]

I'm thinking both you recent posters have a good point.

In the old days the DJ's actually went out and met their listeners. I remember going to private parties where a real radio jock was also the party jock. They would take requests and actually ask what we liked and didn't like.

Frank Kalil, who was the PD at KTKT for a long time, used to hold DJ meetings where this information would come together and they would decide what to play.

Those seem a lot more accurate than an automated system that cannot reason.

 

[davideduardo]

Here's something I've never seen addressed. If you are watching PPMs and know to the minute when people turn off your station, how do you know if they are turning off a house radio to go to the car to go to work? How do you know if they are turning off the car radio because they have reached their destination? If a large part of the PPM audience reaches work at XX:53 and turns off their radio just after a song starts, how do you make the distinction that they didn't turn off the radio because they don't like the song?

Stations using MScore from MediaMonitors look at multiple song plays across many days and dayparts, not individual plays.

So a station might look at the tune-out for a particular song across 20, 30, 40 plays at different times. If the song consistently loses a certain percentage of meters, no matter when it is played, it is kicked off the playlist.

 

[davideduardo]

My head hurts.Most of this stuff is smoke & mirrors. This research is done so radio companies will buy it and and radio feels if they are spending the big bucks it must be accurate. I don't gulp the consultant kool aid. You have some valid points but alot of good radio programing is simply common sense and not a 5 page report on why Mandy didn't test well. My head still hurts.

That's just not the way it works.

Music research is custom research. Nobody goes out and conducts research and then offers it for sale to all comers.

A station determines when they want to do research for their station and their playlist. They determine the recruit specifications as to how many P1's, how many P2's, percentage of sample by age and gender, etc. Then they decide what research company to use to do the test (although some companies actually do the work in-house with a research staff).

Data is presented with the ability to rank songs by different demos and listening characteristics, and factor/cluster analysis is often used to find affinity relationships between song types or styles.

It's not smoke and mirrors. It is simply organized collection of data from a group of listeners (or potential listeners) selected in proportion to the actual station audience in its target demo.

If you want to see a bit of how an AMT is done,

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/research_AMT.htm

In the case illustrated on the link, a station group's own staff of researchers conducted the test under the specifications agreed upon with the station itself.

 

[oldies76]

and Internet-only contesting is becoming more and more common.

Supposedly there is a time delay to online streaming vs. the signal from a radio, so participating in an internet-only contest may not be advantageous to an internet user....unless of course, the instructions were to listen and participate online only. Heck, I could have called KRTH numerous times to try to win something, but I was minutes late, since it was a stream.

By the time the 7th caller won (in real time), it was actually the 21st caller listening to the stream.

 

[Dan76]

John B Wells as am imaging voice.

 

[davideduardo]

Supposedly there is a time delay to online streaming vs. the signal from a radio, so participating in an internet-only contest may not be advantageous to an internet user....unless of course, the instructions were to listen and participate online only. Heck, I could have called KRTH numerous times to try to win something, but I was minutes late, since it was a stream.

By the time the 7th caller won (in real time), it was actually the 21st caller listening to the stream.

The whole nth caller thing is an artifact of the diary methodology, intended to create either appointment listening (big prizes) or ongoing listening (smaller ones).

Even among older demos like 45-54, the question of "have you ever" or "would you ever call a radio station for a contest" yields single digit affirmatives. However, when given the possibility of participating via a text to a particular number "to be in the drawing test to 555123" the percentage increases to high double digits.

 

[allenv]

Alot of listeners have simply given up calling for requests because they have learned half the songs they might request aren't on the playlist. I also hated when jocks would tell a listener "we'll try to get it on for you" knowing damn well they couldn't play it. That's lying to your audience pure & simple.

 

[oldies76]

Alot of listeners have simply given up calling for requests because they have learned half the songs they might request aren't on the playlist. I also hated when jocks would tell a listener "we'll try to get it on for you" knowing damn well they couldn't play it. That's lying to your audience pure & simple.

Half the songs? Try 90%, but you explained it very well. I've gotten responses such as, "I'll look around to see if we have it" or "Have to check to see if it's in our computer" and heck, even if they have it...you might have to wait all day to hear it (which no one will do), if it's scheduled to play at 847pm and you called at 11am.

I remember the Saturday Night Request show on K-Earth 101 (oldies format) in the 1980's and if you requested a song, it would play within a half-hour, as long as it was within "format". Notice I said, format. Format involves the entire library, many hundreds, if not a few thousand eligible songs from a specific time period in the rock era. A rotational playlist today would only involve 150 songs played in a day. And if you chose a song today (even if it's well-tested) and it's not on the day's playlist, you're out of luck.

Not only would that be a tuneout....I would probably never listen again to that station.

How times have changed.......

 

[allenv]

I have a friend that has an instant request policy.After a listener calls the next song is that request and they push that heavily on the air and he plays over 8,600 songs.His website is magic959online.com.Another good station is 1070wnct.com.Both are different and play a wide variety. Magic is an oldies based AC. 1070 is Beach..Boogie & Blues.

 

[davideduardo]

Alot of listeners have simply given up calling for requests because they have learned half the songs they might request aren't on the playlist. I also hated when jocks would tell a listener "we'll try to get it on for you" knowing damn well they couldn't play it. That's lying to your audience pure & simple.

You seem to put a lot of value on the input of a person who's only qualification is having a telephone.

A radio station is supposed to serve "the many" and not that one person who had the patience, free time and desire to call a radio station.

I will tell you an anecdotal experience which made me realize that requests are not suitable for making programming decisions:

Some years ago, in a top 15 market with around 30 rated stations, I did a format switch in the days when Beautiful Music was dying. The new format, which was supposed to appeal to a broader and more active listener base, played about 40% currents, 20% recurrents and 40% library cuts. After the first few days on the air, we noticed that there were no requests... despite frequent on air mentions of the phone number. Yet when we gave away stuff, we got calls. The days went by, and the station got perhaps a half-dozen requests a day. Our reaction was one of desperation and doubts about having picked the right format.... until we got, after a month on the air, our first book: the station had a 22.5 share, and beat the #2 station by nearly 50%.

Requests are meaningless... and in this case, the station got no requests because our internal systems for picking and rotating the songs turned out to be so good that nobody felt the need to request a song because every song was a good one.

For the doubters, here is the full story and the actual ratings books.

Most listeners don't call for songs. Taking requests puts in jeopardy all the carefully calculated rotations and selections in the music library, just to make one person happy for about 1/20th of an hour.

 

[davideduardo]

I have a friend that has an instant request policy.After a listener calls the next song is that request and they push that heavily on the air and he plays over 8,600 songs.His website is magic959online.com.

Ah, WPNC. Sold out of bankruptcy for $20 k about 20 years ago, and billing an estimated $50 a year today. I wonder how it remains on the air...