What part of BS do you not understand?
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Why did AC stop being soft?
- Thread starter nd2023
- Start date
What part of BS do you not understand?
M
Music Lover
Guest
That quote from Chuck didn't say anything about overlooking the ratings, facts, studies. He's a radio guy programming a standards station, so he's obviously aware that standards appeals mostly to geezers.
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M
Music Lover
Guest
Actually, I just went through his other posts. Sounds like he's a small broadcaster: http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?669848-Kebe&p=5998101#post5998101
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I thought I recognized his website: http://www.qx-fm.com/
It's one of the Easy Listening stations I've seen on StreamLicensing.com. Their Terms of Service information states that they provide affordable royalty and performance fee licensing services for small to medium-sized Internet Broadcasters.
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Great. It works for him. I wish him well, whoever he is.
A lot of people make their living playing popular music from China. That doesn't mean I'm going to change what I do. For me to take notice, I need more than an anonymous post on a message board. And internet broadcasters are playing in a very different ballgame. No comparison.
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M
Music Lover
Guest
From what I've learned since switching from listening to terrestrial radio to listening to web radio is that the small broadcasters don't have to worry about the ratings game and they can provide music to listeners with special interests that are often not adequately served by local radio stations. For example, if you're interested in folk, classical, jazz or something like that, you have to turn to alternate sources for that.
My guess is that those who aren't interested in CHR-AC are tuning to web radio instead. A Soft AC station I listen to online has a chat feature. I encountered someone in the chat besides myself who is a '90s child and enjoyed the station.
While I don't think that terrestrial radio won’t completely die – it will continue on life support like newspapers and network TV - I do think internet radio is the future.
My guess is that those who aren't interested in CHR-AC are tuning to web radio instead. A Soft AC station I listen to online has a chat feature. I encountered someone in the chat besides myself who is a '90s child and enjoyed the station.
While I don't think that terrestrial radio won’t completely die – it will continue on life support like newspapers and network TV - I do think internet radio is the future.
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Here's what I've learned: Going after listeners with special interests is a great hobby if you've got spare time and another source of income. If you hope to make radio a full time job, you aim for the big mass. And that's what OTA radio is doing, and doing just fine. It's also streaming and is very competitive there. You're a listener, and you don't care about anything except being able to hear what you like.
If internet radio is the future, it won't stay the way it is right now. The smaller stations are either going to ask you for your credit card number at some point, or they're going to change their music mix away from what you prefer. How do I know this? Because once upon a time, cable was the future, FM was the future, and satellite was the future. They all changed their business plan, and they all changed their music focus.
M
Music Lover
Guest
We'll see. But, with the way certain kinds of music are disappearing from commercial radio, I very highly doubt music focus on the web will change.
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As the royalty and licensing rates continue to go up (and they will), the internet radio operators will see their current revenue stream become inadequate. Add to that the proposal that the government wants to allow telecom companies to charge web site owners a higher rate to get faster internet speeds for uploading. So costs for operating internet radio stations are going up. They will be faced with either raising their ad rates (which will be difficult given their narrow audience), asking current listeners to pay, or shifting the music focus to a wider appeal format. When one thing changes, everything changes. That's how the game is played.
M
Music Lover
Guest
There's already a wider variety of genres to choose from besides rock, pop, country, and urban. That's what I like about it.
Many stations are operated by big companies such as 181.fm, Sky.fm, Accuradio, etc.
There are services such as Pandora, Spotify, etc. where listeners can be their own DJ.
If any stations or services ask for payment, it's optional.
Many stations are operated by big companies such as 181.fm, Sky.fm, Accuradio, etc.
There are services such as Pandora, Spotify, etc. where listeners can be their own DJ.
If any stations or services ask for payment, it's optional.
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You're talking about now. I'm talking about in a few years.
M
Music Lover
Guest
I'm ok with paying for something.
M
Music Lover
Guest
I had mentioned earlier about my friends. My friends are my co-workers and they are close to pushing 50. They're closer to aging out of the AC demo. That's another reason why what's played on today's AC doesn't appeal to them.
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There are a couple of things I've been meaning to say but my computer's been down and for some reason, haven't been able to post on this website with the computer I was using. Hopefully, this is the right thread. It has been mentioned that before AC went soft in the early 80s, it was very close in tempo to Top 40, without the most extreme songs. What I recall was that it wasn't particularly "gold heavy" either, not more so than Top 40 was. Page Two, as Paul Harvey would say: For over a decade, I've heard professional broadcasters on this website repeatedly explain to listeners that the average listener doesn't hear a song multiple times per day because they don't listen that way. The other day, I heard the new Taylor Swift song, "Shake It Off", five times in less than an hour and a half, between three stations, twice on one CHR, once on the other and twice on the mainstream AC. The latter is the one that got my attention. I mentioned it to my 15 year-old granddaughter and she said that it was my own fault for changing stations but that an hour and a half was a perfectly reasonable amount of time between airings of the same song because the same people wouldn't be listening at both times. I said that it was pretty amazing that she had figured this out by herself and she said, "Well, it's only common sense".
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No comment about this at all? I thought it would set up at least five more pages by now!
Maybe it is because there are now FOUR (yes, FOUR) different active threads about the SAME topic (soft music on AC radio) here. Are our attention spans THAT short? Does anyone ever check for existing active threads before starting new ones? No wonder they get away with playing the same song every 90 minutes. No one is paying any attention!
M
Music Lover
Guest
According to the Wikipedia article about AC, the format had it's roots in easy listening and soft rock. That's why I've always considered it synonymous with soft and lite. It wasn't until the late 1990s that I ever heard of Hot AC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_contemporary_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_contemporary_music
For whatever it's worth, I have to agree with the granddaughter, at least to the extent that each station was "doing its own thing" and the fact that you caught the same song repeatedly was due to your channel-flipping. The 90-minute time block does seem too short though; is there a chance that at least one of these "plays" was on a syndicated or packaged show (a countdown show, etc.) and the other part of the station's own programming?
The Wikipedia article reads like it was written by someone who wasn't there at the time. The earliest practioners of AC (WGAR, Cleveland, KFMB, San Diego) were huge steps away from MOR stations, playing most of the same records as Top 40 and taking their gold from the rock and roll era.
No, it was regular daytime programing. I only mentioned the "five times" part because I thought it was interesting. I fully expect CHR to play the "powers" every 70 minutes or so but didn't figure on an AC running that short. Not long ago, it was more like four hours between plays.
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