Biondi4Mayor said:
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.
Every time you test audience groups that are not in a station's core, you get people who know a few of the songs, and either score all the rest badly or as "unfamiliar" thus making that respondent of little value.
With the number of stations available in most rated markets, trying to broaden the demos of a classic hits station is near-impossible. Music stations have a core where most see 80% of the listeners in roughly a 20-year span... to the fringes, the incidence of listening is much less.
Classic hits may look good in 35-54. Actually, they look good in 39-54, with a lot of 55-59 that we just don't look at. So the viable core is 15 years. One could test younger people, but anything we find out from that group generally would cause the 50-54 or even the 45-54 to like us less, and we won't do it anyways.
People have tried. They have failed.
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.
I mentioned 1200. For a station that played, at the time, about 800 songs. So there were about 400 each time that did not pass. Some of the borderline songs got retested later... but each successive test (at one point we did 6 a year) we put in every manner of song that might be interesting, might have recovered from earlier burn, or which had rested enough to tolerate occasional play.
Over the course of a year, probably 1000 titles that were not on the playlist got tested. Over a couple of years, the number approached 2,000. Obviously, a song that tests miserably is not going to be retested... if everyone hates it today, as time goes by it will not improve.
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.
Those listener panels where the listener self-selects themselves to 'participate are simply "loyalty" involvement moves. I don't know of one station that ever implemented anything based on those panels... but it generally made the participant loyal and encouraged them to spread the word that "KZZZ listens to its listeners".
Yeah, right.
10 years ago or so, I switched an AC station in a market of about 17 million to classic rock. We ran full page ads in a paper that had a circulation of over 1.2 million, and printed every song we might play. Listeners were to tune in and score each one. We got an amazing 80,000 back, using collection boxes at a local convenience store chain.
We also did a music test of 100 people. We implemented the 100 person test, and took pictures of the 80,000 newspaper forms to use in sales material. The station debuted at #1 with over a 20 share. And when we tabulated a small random batch of the 80,000 it turns out that the results closely paralleled the "real test."
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.
Actually, everyone tests "what if songs" and over the course of many tests they have examined every song that might be useful.
The people know why they are there.
Yes, people are told they are there because the company doing the test has been hired to help radio stations in the area provide the music they like. And they are told that there is no wrong or right answer.
It is known that people take more extreme stances in groups - polarization
There is little polarization at a music test as there is no interaction within the test group. While a focus group may create a group dynamic, including the establishing of alpha personalities and such, music tests are anonymous and the participants don't talk... usually they score the songs, today, with a dial... or they may even, once recruited, do the test at home using a computer or tablet.
. 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",...
Generally, a person attends a test once. One night (or two sessions if there are loads of songs) and then they are not asked back again. They don't know what station ordered the test (unless the station wants to send a jock to say "thanks" at the very end of the test) and they don't have time to analyze what songs were and were not there.
LOL, glad to hear someone is interested in some originality!
