WHY CORPORATE RADIO IS KILLING OLDIES

[doowopvault]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

 

[michael hagerty]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Tools to help understand the information the audience is giving you, that's all.

What's sad is when you misinterpret, misapply or don't bother to get the information in the first place and your ratings, followed by your revenue, start falling. It's one thing to build an audience. It's hell bringing them back when you lose them. At risk? Jobs, paychecks and benefits for your employees and their families.

That's a lot to risk because you think someone out there might like to hear "Jimmy Loves MaryAnne" by Looking Glass, or because you're tired of "Jet Airliner".

 

[davideduardo]

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Sad that stations would spend tens of thousands of dollars to find out truthfully (and not anecdotally) what listeners want?

Sad that stations would make sure that every part of the audience is "heard" (including the listeners that don't or can't go to station events and shows) rather than just chatting up the vocal minority?

Sad that stations would use valid information to keep from playing songs that few, if any people actually like today even if they showed up on some highly distorted and jaded chart 60 years ago?

 

[TheFonz]

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Sad that stations would spend tens of thousands of dollars to find out truthfully (and not anecdotally) what listeners want?

Sad that stations would make sure that every part of the audience is "heard" (including the listeners that don't or can't go to station events and shows) rather than just chatting up the vocal minority?

Sad that stations would use valid information to keep from playing songs that few, if any people actually like today even if they showed up on some highly distorted and jaded chart 60 years ago?

Sad that few people care.................most gave up on commercial music radio long ago.

 

[davideduardo]

Sad that few people care.................most gave up on commercial music radio long ago.

Saying that over and over does not make it true.

 

[doowopvault]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Tools to help understand the information the audience is giving you, that's all.

What's sad is when you misinterpret, misapply or don't bother to get the information in the first place and your ratings, followed by your revenue, start falling. It's one thing to build an audience. It's hell bringing them back when you lose them. At risk? Jobs, paychecks and benefits for your employees and their families.

That's a lot to risk because you think someone out there might like to hear "Jimmy Loves MaryAnne" by Looking Glass, or because you're tired of "Jet Airliner".

What "jobs and paychecks" at an automated station!!! lol lol

 

[michael hagerty]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Tools to help understand the information the audience is giving you, that's all.

What's sad is when you misinterpret, misapply or don't bother to get the information in the first place and your ratings, followed by your revenue, start falling. It's one thing to build an audience. It's hell bringing them back when you lose them. At risk? Jobs, paychecks and benefits for your employees and their families.

That's a lot to risk because you think someone out there might like to hear "Jimmy Loves MaryAnne" by Looking Glass, or because you're tired of "Jet Airliner".

What "jobs and paychecks" at an automated station!!! lol lol

Not all stations are automated.

Even at those that are, you have receptionists, traffic people (commercial scheduling), accounting, sales people, IT people, engineers, the program director and the general manager.

They're people. Many have families. They need the paycheck, they need the health and life insurance.

It's a lot harder than playing oldies from your mom's basement. You're responsible for other people.

 

[davideduardo]

What "jobs and paychecks" at an automated station!!! lol lol

Expanding on Michael's answer:

I looked back at a major market combo (market 15) that I managed in the 70's where the AM was live AC and the FM was automated Beautiful Music. The total head count was consistently between 26 and 28 people. Only 4 full-timers were on air besides the PD (who you would have, automated or not). There were another 3 or 4 part time air staff folks.

So, out of 26 or so fulltime people, only 4 would be eliminated were automation employed 100% of the time.

The rest of the staff included 5 to 6 sellers, a business manager, an accountant, an office manager, a receptionist, a production person, a traffic person, two engineers, a janitor / odd jobs / messinger person, a manager, a sales manager, a street team (promotions, surveys, etc) and an NSM.

I'm amazed how many comments are posted on these boards that reflect a totally oblivious attitude towards the many hard working and dedicated people in radio who are not on the air... and who represent 80% or more of the staff at most stations.

 

[michael hagerty]

It's not Wolfman Jack, alone by himself in a shack at the edge of town, eating popsicles and spinning the hits, waiting for Richard Dreyfus to come to him for advice about girls.







Never was.

 

[Tom Wells]

It's not Wolfman Jack, alone by himself in a shack at the edge of town, eating popsicles and spinning the hits, waiting for Richard Dreyfus to come to him for advice about girls.







Never was.

There were a lot of those elements that certainly were true.

And while art is cheap, if it is acclaimed it can become profitable.

There are limits, and I have enjoyed many a 1 lung nowhere station in sticks.
Always more than commodified radio available everywhere, no matter how bad.

Once servicing the debt became the watchword, the stereotypical imagery/fantasy from Amercian Grafiti could not be permitted to exist.


People have been conditioned to see radio as a commodity, and this quite excludes meaningful attention to risk being quirky or
having any real individuality.

I will recall an advertising sign on a baseball field backwall as drawn in a late 50s Mad magazine.
" The man who thinks for himself smokes Vicejoys........because everybody else does."

Have a nice safe radio day. I'm going to go play something mellow AND abrasive.

 

[oldies76]

The average listener needs to hear their 10s on a fairly regular basis, which is why rotations are structured so that the average listener hears the biggest records roughly every three weeks.

And as I've said before (more than 10 times now), many "10's" are never aired to begin with.

If my "10's" (assuming I'm an average listener) were "Close the Door", "Dust in the Wind" or "Couldn't Get It Right" , I'd be very disappointed in the only classic hits station in town for not playing my "10's".

Everyone has their "10's" and many of them are dust in the wind............

 

[doowopvault]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Tools to help understand the information the audience is giving you, that's all.

What's sad is when you misinterpret, misapply or don't bother to get the information in the first place and your ratings, followed by your revenue, start falling. It's one thing to build an audience. It's hell bringing them back when you lose them. At risk? Jobs, paychecks and benefits for your employees and their families.

That's a lot to risk because you think someone out there might like to hear "Jimmy Loves MaryAnne" by Looking Glass, or because you're tired of "Jet Airliner".

What "jobs and paychecks" at an automated station!!! lol lol

Not all stations are automated.

Even at those that are, you have receptionists, traffic people (commercial scheduling), accounting, sales people, IT people, engineers, the program director and the general manager.

They're people. Many have families. They need the paycheck, they need the health and life insurance.

It's a lot harder than playing oldies from your mom's basement. You're responsible for other people.

Hey Mike, you like making assumptions I see. And by the way my man, I've listened to some of the shows that those guys in the basement are broadcasting, let me tell you...A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN WHAT THE CORPORATE CLOWNS ARE BROADCASTING!!!

Plus, again, you are assuming that business cares about it's employees. If they did care so, so much, they wouldn't turn to automation which they know is going to destroy jobs to begin with.

 

[michael hagerty]

The average listener needs to hear their 10s on a fairly regular basis, which is why rotations are structured so that the average listener hears the biggest records roughly every three weeks.

And as I've said before (more than 10 times now), many "10's" are never aired to begin with.

If my "10's" (assuming I'm an average listener) were "Close the Door", "Dust in the Wind" or "Couldn't Get It Right" , I'd be very disappointed in the only classic hits station in town for not playing my "10's".

Everyone has their "10's" and many of them are dust in the wind............

And as I said in the part that didn't get quoted, they don't expect to hear them all. They're tuning in for a mood for a brief period of time. They need to hear some of them. And those are the ones that the greatest number of them share in common.

It works.

The other way doesn't, in a competitive market.

 

[michael hagerty]

What we've said is that stations play (using your scale) the songs that the greatest percentage of listeners and likely listeners have in common as their 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s and maybe 6s.

Exactly.

Now, with results being computer tabulated, we generally look at a variety of subsets together. Commonly viewed would be heavier and lighter users, the younger and older halves, male and female, ethnic subsets if any, and cluster analysis groups.

And another technique is to plot each song with a distribution graph. This allows us to see the statistically significant high and low score range and other characteristics.

A lot of this is done so songs that have a big like component but also a large hate component can be seen, and, usually, not played.

Read the above....LOL LOL then you will know why radio SUCKS. "Hate component, Like component, Distribution Graphs, cluster analysis groups, computer tabulated results". So, so sad.

Tools to help understand the information the audience is giving you, that's all.

What's sad is when you misinterpret, misapply or don't bother to get the information in the first place and your ratings, followed by your revenue, start falling. It's one thing to build an audience. It's hell bringing them back when you lose them. At risk? Jobs, paychecks and benefits for your employees and their families.

That's a lot to risk because you think someone out there might like to hear "Jimmy Loves MaryAnne" by Looking Glass, or because you're tired of "Jet Airliner".

What "jobs and paychecks" at an automated station!!! lol lol

Not all stations are automated.

Even at those that are, you have receptionists, traffic people (commercial scheduling), accounting, sales people, IT people, engineers, the program director and the general manager.

They're people. Many have families. They need the paycheck, they need the health and life insurance.

It's a lot harder than playing oldies from your mom's basement. You're responsible for other people.

Hey Mike, you like making assumptions I see. And by the way my man, I've listened to some of the shows that those guys in the basement are broadcasting, let me tell you...A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN WHAT THE CORPORATE CLOWNS ARE BROADCASTING!!!

Plus, again, you are assuming that business cares about it's employees. If they did care so, so much, they wouldn't turn to automation which they know is going to destroy jobs to begin with.

Not an assumption in there, Doo-Wop.

Let's take it piece by piece:

Not all radio stations are automated. Fact.

Even those that are have employees. Fact.

They're people. Many have families. They need the paycheck, health insurance and life insurance. Fact.

It's harder than playing oldies from your mom's basement. Fact.

You're responsible for other people. Fact.

Now, let's deal with what you're saying.

Whether "basement radio" is better than "corporate radio" is a matter of opinion. I like a lot of those shows, too. Clearly, there's still a mass audience for commercial radio.

Whether business cares about its people varies by the company and the people who run them. You can't accurately generalize.

As for "destroying jobs", these guys are providing them. You're talking about 10 or more families per station that can pay the rent, buy clothes and food, go to the doctor, maybe even save for the kids' college because of these jobs. And the money those people spend and the taxes the station pays benefit the area economies.

So they don't have six guys sitting by themselves in a room four hours a day each playing music.

When the basement broadcasters start providing jobs and making a contribution to the health, well being and livelihood of other people more than commercial radio does, then you may be able to talk about jobs with a straight face.

But that'll require making money to pay those people with. And that requires advertising. And that requires reaching a significant percentage of a demographic advertisers find desirable and.......

 

[davideduardo]

Plus, again, you are assuming that business cares about it's employees. If they did care so, so much, they wouldn't turn to automation which they know is going to destroy jobs to begin with.

You misunderstand automation. Totally.

Historically, going back to the "you lose your license if you lie" FCC financial reports in the 50's and 60's to the studies done in the 90's before consolidation, half of all US radio stations do not make money.

Automation is a viable way to provide certain types of programming at a low cost so that stations that are not otherwise viable can sustain the employment of the office, technical, management and sales staff... as well as the owner's family too.

So in many, many cases automation has benefited the listener by allowing a broader diversity of stations to stay on the air... particularly in the last five to six recession years.

 

[doowopvault]

As I've said many, many times to Podcasters and DJ's on internet stations......don't let people demean what you do by saying "you are not in the business or are unprofessional", because of where you broadcast from.
Alan Freed built a radio station in the BASEMENT because he didn't want to commute from Connecticut to New York. So he broadcasted live from his BASEMENT on 1010 WINS, probably in his jammies.
It isn't WHERE you broadcast from, it's the quality of your broadcast that makes you a professional.

 

[michael hagerty]

As I've said many, many times to Podcasters and DJ's on internet stations......don't let people demean what you do by saying "you are not in the business or are unprofessional", because of where you broadcast from.
Alan Freed built a radio station in the BASEMENT because he didn't want to commute from Connecticut to New York. So he broadcasted live from his BASEMENT on 1010 WINS, probably in his jammies.
It isn't WHERE you broadcast from, it's the quality of your broadcast that makes you a professional.

And no one said anything about the quality of the programs from those broadcasters. We were talking about the increased responsiblity for other people that comes with commercial broadcasting.

 

[davideduardo]

Alan Freed built a radio station in the BASEMENT because he didn't want to commute from Connecticut to New York. So he broadcasted live from his BASEMENT on 1010 WINS, probably in his jammies.

Was it harder to deliver a subpoena to him in his basement?

 

[doowopvault]

Alan Freed built a radio station in the BASEMENT because he didn't want to commute from Connecticut to New York. So he broadcasted live from his BASEMENT on 1010 WINS, probably in his jammies.

Was it harder to deliver a subpoena to him in his basement?

Funny David. When the money went to the DJ's it was called "Payola"...when it goes to the owners, as it does today, it's called "business".

 

[davideduardo]

Funny David. When the money went to the DJ's it was called "Payola"...when it goes to the owners, as it does today, it's called "business".

The only problem with your comeback is that record companies don't pass any money on to radio stations these days in any form.

In fact, record companies continue to lobby Congress for a near-confiscatory royalty structure for analog radio that would severely impair the survivability of music radio (including your show) as we know it.

It is, however, not a crime for record labels to buy advertising on radio stations... just as it is not a crime to advertise shampoo.

It is a crime for an employee of a radio station to "take" airtime and use it to their own personal benefit unbeknown to the owner of the station... that is the definition of payola, a specialized form of theft which is no different than the butcher at a supermarket taking home some nice steaks without paying for them.