Why don't AC stations play the WHOLE spectrum of soft rock?

[wpb1999]

AC has always had a wide variety of music, it still does. Our local Atlanta AC station here, B98.5, refuses to play any 70s or slower 80s songs. They are too busy playing the current songs, that everybody seems to love. The thing is, though, B is down to a 4.4 from a 6.4 pre-chrismas. Everyone says they are just keeping with the actual AC format. But, in previous years, AC stations have stayed away from current songs. Why all the sudden change. I just don't like hearing Jessie J, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry on my "listen at work" station. My Question is this: Why do AC stations not play the whole spectrum of soft rock (by this, I mean, 70s music with 80s, 90s, y2k, and a few currents. Have the variety.


Bill Bradley
[email protected]

 

[borderblaster]

Because the 35 year old woman they are targeting doesn't remember Anne Murray from 1971.

 

[wpb1999]

Because the 35 year old woman they are targeting doesn't remember Anne Murray from 1971.

Wont you listen to the same station, even if you are older?

 

[carolinaradio]

Just as 60s music aged out of AC and in to oldies/classic hits, the same is happening with 70s - it's the nature of the format. 80s are now what 70s were 10 years ago on the format. If they would pick the right variety of songs (I've pounded over and over on here that there are TONS of 90s songs that were popular on Hot AC that AC is ignoring), there could be plenty of variety. There was way, way more to the 90s than Celine Dion, Melissa Etheridge, and Shania Twain.

 

[landtuna]

Because the 35 year old woman they are targeting doesn't remember Anne Murray from 1971.

What's the difference if that 35-year old hears Gaga's latest or Murray's classic? If she has never heard either one before it's all the same - unless, of course, she is influenced by the clown costumes of current performers.

 

[imhomerjay]

The difference is she won't listen to antiques like Ann Murray (moldy Christmas suff aside). Play what the target audience wants....simple as that.

 

[borderblaster]

It's really not rocket science. You don't try to force the audience that didn't grow up with Anne Murray to embrace her. Play what the audience wants PERIOD. Don't try to make your station a museum.

 

[imhomerjay]

Oh come now, we can't apply logic to the "get off my lawn" contingent.

 

[firepoint525]

I just don't like hearing Jessie J, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry on my "listen at work" station.

In this day and age, you don't have to listen to what everyone else in the office is listening to. You can dial up the internet stream of your favorite station.

Oh come now, we can't apply logic to the "get off my lawn" contingent.

"Logic" and female-dominated formats don't mix. Women make decisions based on emotions, not logic. (There, I said it!) I used to like AC back in the '80s because of the escape from all the Quiet Riot, AC/DC, and other "metal" bands that were dominating top 40 back about that time. But now I would need an escape from AC radio itself if I were still listening to them. I still have Mix 92.9 in my presets, but I hardly ever listen to them anymore.

 

[imhomerjay]

I just don't like hearing Jessie J, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry on my "listen at work" station.

In this day and age, you don't have to listen to what everyone else in the office is listening to. You can dial up the internet stream of your favorite station.

To an extent, but not always (just as it has been for many years). There are employers who block streaming, workplaces without individual web access, and environments where you can't have dozens of people tuned to different audio streams and where headphones aren't, for whatever reason, viable.

 

[carolinaradio]

But now I would need an escape from AC radio itself if I were still listening to them.

I would need an escape from AC because the repetitiveness and the way the same "current" AC songs are hashed over and over for months on end just bore me to death these days. The format has just grown too stagnant for my tastes.

As I've said many times, I'd love for the AC format to broaden the selection of 90s music played and play more of the songs currently on the AC chart, but most just won't. Something about the format just lacks compared to 5 years ago even. I guess I listen to way more Alternative and CHR now than I did then, and since most of the AC "hits" are burned out CHR tracks, I'm already tired of them once they hit AC.

 

[landtuna]

The difference is she won't listen to antiques like Ann Murray (moldy Christmas suff aside). Play what the target audience wants....simple as that.

You are missing my point. If the mythical 35-year old female listener hasn't ever heard Anne Murray, or even if she has, how then is she going to think Anne is an "antique"? Anne Murray ages, as we all do, but her music does not. Neither does Sinatra, Martin, Como, Mathis, Vaughn, and many others.

Do you consider timeless music antique? Because a performer is old or no longer living their music must not, under any circumstances, be played? Would that mean that Amy Winehouse also gets no airplay? Or Whitney Houston? Just when does a deceased performer fall off the playlist?

I'm not in the biz but frankly it seems thinking like that is one large reason why radio is losing listeners.

 

[dave73]

Though I'm a male, I'm a 38 year old that doesn't want to hear Anne Murray, Bee Gees, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, or The Carpenters as examples. I barely listened to 70's music when I was in my pre-teens, & to this day still don't care for most of the 70's music. Arists from the 70's tend to appeal more to the 40+ - 50+ female (or male, though the format skews more female) than the 30+ female. AC formats did the right thing of dropping 70's music. It's like most Hot AC stations are dropping 80's music & going with music from the 1990's, 2000's, & 2010's. Eventually, I'll be listening to the oldies stations, once most of the 70's songs are dropped. For now, I have WLIT in Chicago to listen to without 70's music. WILV still plays 70's songs, despite claiming to be an 80's & 90's station (then WNND was only 80's & 90's for about a year & a half, but a poorly programmed 80's & 90's station to protect WTMX, & still done today as WILV).

 

[borderblaster]

If you're ding an NPR show about the history of music, then you can play Sinatra, Bennett, Sarah Vaughn, The Beatles, Anne Murray, The Carpenters, Nirvana and Adele. If you are programming a radio station for real people, and a real demographic, you test your music against that dempographic and play the music that will keep said dempographic tuned in the longest. Period. I don't know why this is rocket science for some of you, who isist that 20,000 song playlists with everything that was ever released since the 1930s s going ti appeal to anyone other than the most hard core music geek or collector. That is not who we are programming to. There are always exceptons to any rule; the 25 year old who loves 1960s oldies (and I know a few), someone in their teens who discovered the trumpet, plays it, and looks to Benny Goodman for inspiration, but there aren't enough to make it worthwhile for a mainstream radio station. For those folks, there are webstreams and downloads.

 

[imhomerjay]

You are missing my point. If the mythical 35-year old female listener hasn't ever heard Anne Murray, or even if she has, how then is she going to think Anne is an "antique"? Anne Murray ages, as we all do, but her music does not. Neither does Sinatra, Martin, Como, Mathis, Vaughn, and many others.

Do you consider timeless music antique? Because a performer is old or no longer living their music must not, under any circumstances, be played? Would that mean that Amy Winehouse also gets no airplay? Or Whitney Houston? Just when does a deceased performer fall off the playlist?

I'm not in the biz but frankly it seems thinking like that is one large reason why radio is losing listeners.

Perhaps if the "C" in the format stood for calcified or crusty, then Anne Murray et al would make sense. But it doesn't. The "dead vs alive" straw man (which was invoked by you) has no relevance--it's about the music, not whether one is pushing up daisies or not.

Timelessness is entirely subjective. There remains a place for it, and an audience, just as there is for classical, jazz, swing…just about anything. That home, with few meaningful or successful exceptions, is on digital platforms, not on commercial terrestrial radio. Of course the part seldom acknowledged by the “timeless” crowd is that once upon a time, those songs were new, competing for attention with what came before. To some Elvis is timeless—but once upon a time, he was the rabble-rousing, hip-swiveling harbinger of the end of society as we know it. Funny how that works.

Music certainly ages. The degree to which it ages well is in the ear of the beholder…and utterly beside the point. If you make a business decision to try to appeal to segment “X,” you play what segment “X” wants to hear. No different than running a clothing store (save for the fact that the listeners to radio are what’s sold, not the clothes)—you sell what your clientele wants to buy.

 

[atlantaboy]

AC has always had a wide variety of music, it still does. Our local Atlanta AC station here, B98.5, refuses to play any 70s or slower 80s songs.

It's now 2012, and you want AC stations to play music which is 40 years old

In the 1980s, did AC stations play music from the 1940s?

 

[landtuna]

Perhaps if the "C" in the format stood for calcified or crusty, then Anne Murray et al would make sense. But it doesn't. The "dead vs alive" straw man (which was invoked by you) has no relevance--it's about the music, not whether one is pushing up daisies or not.

Actually, you were the first to use the term "antique" to label Anne Murray however she is still alive and making music. So is the issue just her older music or should she be banned from playlists altogether because she is *ahem* now a senior citizen? Either way it makes no sense.

Timelessness is entirely subjective.

Exactly my point. Doesn't matter if the music is new or old. If sampling proves listeners like it then the decade of its original popularity should not matter.

Music certainly ages. The degree to which it ages well is in the ear of the beholder…and utterly beside the point. [/quote]

Music doesn't age but its association with the listener does. A favorite song remains a favorite song regardless of when it was heard the first time. But feelings associated with that song do age (high school girlfriend, cruising the drive-in, marching in the Vietnam protest etc.). Not all songs are connected though. Something never heard before, depending upon its genre, may or may not be able to be associated with an event or time in the listeners past. If not, that listener will either like or dislike the song based on the song itself. Back to sampling to build a playlist and not someone's assumptions.

 

[landtuna]

AC has always had a wide variety of music, it still does. Our local Atlanta AC station here, B98.5, refuses to play any 70s or slower 80s songs.

It's now 2012, and you want AC stations to play music which is 40 years old

In the 1980s, did AC stations play music from the 1940s?

I don't know if the song "Moon River" would be considered appropriate AC fare but let's assume for this discussion it is.

"Moon River" was published in 1961 as theme music for the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's". It won an Academy Award that year and a Grammy in 1962. Today's listeners under the age of 50 may have never heard it unless they happened to watch that movie. My wife is one of those.

I played it for her this morning, without any introduction, to see her reaction and she liked it. Even though it was brand new to her and so was the singer, Andy Williams.

I would imagine that playing "Bogey Woogie Bugle Boy" by the Andrews Sisters would not have had the same effect both because the song is much different and the era from which it comes was unique (WWII). And this goes to answering your question....

Sometimes music is tied by time and/or events and seems inappropriate if played years later. Obviously music produced during WWII tended to be very different than after the war ended. Listeners would either not want to be reminded of the war years and younger listeners would not necessarily understand it. That is why 40's music wasn't played (with the exception of Big Band/Swing) in the 80's and is also why Vietnam War era music isn't popular now with listeners who didn't hear it the first time it played.

 

[imhomerjay]

Music doesn't age. That's why the Beach Boys and the Beasty Boys don't connote different eras of music. Why doo-wop isn't associated with a given period in history. Why disco sounds as fresh in 2012 as it did in 1975. Um, sure, music doesn't age. Twinkies may not age, but music most certainly does.

Moreover, antique and dead are not the same...so try again, after turning down the Victrola a bit.

As for Anne Murray, for the consistency of the thread, it has nothing to do with "banning" anyone. You survey the audience, and play what resonates best. That's not banning--that's basic economics.

 

[landtuna]

Music doesn't age. That's why the Beach Boys and the Beasty Boys don't connote different eras of music. Why doo-wop isn't associated with a given period in history. Why disco sounds as fresh in 2012 as it did in 1975. Um, sure, music doesn't age. Twinkies may not age, but music most certainly does.

You must have overlooked this in my post: "Sometimes music is tied by time and/or events and seems inappropriate if played years later."

I'm done.