Why is soft AC so unpopular

[Avid Listener]

If you mention those artists, then you are on the wrong board. Adult Contemporary is that way.

If you automatically pigeonhole artists into any format, instead of just treating each song as an individual song, then you need to learn more about music.

 

[CarolinaFM]

I think the labels stopped promoting the kind of artists that filled the soft AC playlists in the 80's.

But these type of formats can work in areas with a large retirement population. The problem is that
most station operators don't know how to sell the format. In smaller markets, where local sales are
a larger percentage than agency buys, it can be a cash cow.

 

[Avid Listener]

I think the labels stopped promoting the kind of artists that filled the soft AC playlists in the 80's.

But these type of formats can work in areas with a large retirement population. The problem is that
most station operators don't know how to sell the format. In smaller markets, where local sales are
a larger percentage than agency buys, it can be a cash cow.

The labels stopped promoting artists. Period. Or, to be more accurate, they cut way back on all promotion.

The biggest problems are that the definition of what constitutes "soft", "adult", and "contemporary" are vague.

Then there's the lack of understanding of basic human nature that people have different moods at different times, and often seek entertainment (including music) that suits their mood at the time. This isn't something that is universal for all people. It doesn't lend itself to day-parting. But if a company owns multiple stations, they could do well to have one station people switch to when they're in the mood for mellow, and another station they switch to when they're in the mood for not-mellow.

There's no reason why younger adults wouldn't listen to soft, mellow songs when they're in the mood for soft mellow songs.

You are right about the station operators not knowing how to sell the format. They don't know how to sell it to advertisers, and they don't know how to sell it to listeners.

 

[davideduardo]

The labels stopped promoting artists. Period. Or, to be more accurate, they cut way back on all promotion.
Then there's the lack of understanding of basic human nature that people have different moods at different times, and often seek entertainment (including music) that suits their mood at the time.

There is a total understanding of this, and that is why stations have a signature sound identity: a kind of music, a mood, a feel. They play songs that fit that mood and which create flow from song to song and enhances the listener's experience and satisfies the reason why they came to that station at any given moment.

This isn't something that is universal for all people. It doesn't lend itself to day-parting. But if a company owns multiple stations, they could do well to have one station people switch to when they're in the mood for mellow, and another station they switch to when they're in the mood for not-mellow.

There are mood targets, age targets, lifestyle targets and music genre targets. It's three dimensional chess, and each station picks a combination of those factors that fits the competition, market composition and sales potential of the individual situation.

You forgot entirely the big part of "mood": there is, at any given time, a national mood and even a mood for specific audience segments. Today, the mood favors more upbeat music and the desire for slower, softer music currently has less appeal in the sales demos... witness the shortage of slow jams on CHR and other more contemporary stations.

I had a cluster of 9 stations in one market of about 1 million in the late 60's. We programmed to all the mentioned aspects: age, gender, ethnic group, mood and even income/lifestyle. There was nothing novel about doing that 50 years ago... I learned it from the cluster I interned in before becoming an owner.

There's no reason why younger adults wouldn't listen to soft, mellow songs when they're in the mood for soft mellow songs.

Yes there is. Ratings.

In markets where soft AC has been done recently, the younger adults are notoriously absent. The best known soft AC is WDUV in the Tampa market, where it is consistently #1 in 12+. But it is below 15th in 18-24, 18-34 and 25-44. Similar results were attained at WFEZ in Miami, forcing the station to up the tempo and cut the older music back.

You are right about the station operators not knowing how to sell the format. They don't know how to sell it to advertisers, and they don't know how to sell it to listeners.

Here, again, is the urban legend that it's the sales department's fault that the sales staff "can't sell" older skewing stations. The reason is, simply, that nobody is buying 55+ in the transitional markets.

 

[Unregistered]

"mood and feel?"

Come on.

I've heard more stations do song liner song liner or whiplash segues. It's almost treated as criminal to do a decent segue any more.

But I guess you'd have to have someone actually give a flip in programming to accomplish that..

 

[vchimpanzee]

If you automatically pigeonhole artists into any format, instead of just treating each song as an individual song, then you need to learn more about music.

John Mellencamp, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Men at Work are not played and should not be played on stations considered to be standards. Some Madonna songs ("Borderline", "Cherish", "Crazy for You", "I'll Remember", "Live to Tell", "Take a Bow", "True Blue") would fit on soft AC, but once you add John Mellencamp, you're talking about AC, which has a different board.

Okay, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" has potential on a standards station. Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" has made it into standards playlists.

Also, for some reason that defies logic, "Material Girl" is in the playlist of the local morning show on my station.

I don't want to learn more about music. I want to listen to a radio station that plays music I like. Every time an AC starts out as "soft", it seems to end up as an AC.

 

[davideduardo]

"mood and feel?"

Come on.

I've heard more stations do song liner song liner or whiplash segues. It's almost treated as criminal to do a decent segue any more.

But I guess you'd have to have someone actually give a flip in programming to accomplish that..

"Mood and feel" are broad based averages of whole sweeps, hours, days.

I think that listeners now, over twelve years after the iPod was introduced, are more accustomed to "train wreck" segues because that is what the iPod on shuffle produced.

Matched flow was a concept that came out of Schule's SRP Beautiful Music system in the 70's. It was adopted to AC and other adult formats over time.

Top 40 was always full of train wrecks; with the iPod listeners now seem to perceive that mis-matched segues indicate "variety" and thus may be a good thing.

 

[Avid Listener]

once you add John Mellencamp, you're talking about AC, which has a different board.

Which is, I think, one of the biggest problems with radio today. There is too much of a slavish devotion to preconceived ideas of "formats", with tight and restrictive reins that force all thinking into confined little boxes.

 

[TheBigA]

Which is, I think, one of the biggest problems with radio today. There is too much of a slavish devotion to preconceived ideas of "formats", with tight and restrictive reins that force all thinking into confined little boxes.

No one is forced into listening. Radio is an all-volunteer medium. We build a restaurant that sells pizza. You want to be able to go there and get sushi.

 

[CarolinaFM]

No one is forced into listening. Radio is an all-volunteer medium. We build a restaurant that sells pizza. You want to be able to go there and get sushi.

wow. not sure I'm reading this right. If so, I'm glad you're not in the restaurant business.

 

[TheBigA]

wow. not sure I'm reading this right. If so, I'm glad you're not in the restaurant business.

Why? Do you ask the Pizza Hut folks why they don't sell sushi?

 

[Avid Listener]

No one is forced into listening. Radio is an all-volunteer medium. We build a restaurant that sells pizza. You want to be able to go there and get sushi.

Actually, you build a restaurant that sells pizza, and I would like the option of getting my pizza with anchovies.

Or, to put it more accurately, you have a license to use a small portion of the finite amount of RF bandwidth devoted to operating a radio station for the public good. It's not like there's room for an infinite number of OTA radio stations. The government regulates them, because there are only a limited number of channels. You want to build a "restaurant" called a "radio station" and use the public's airwaves to make your self a profit, fine and dandy. But though you might own the equipment and transmitter, you don't own the airwaves. You hold them in trust.

So, that means that I am part owner of those airwaves, the same as everyone else. The gives me the right to request that sometimes, every now and then, I'd like some freakin' anchovies on my pizza. I don't insist that everyone be forced to eat anchovies. And sometimes I might only want mushrooms and pepperoni.

 

[TheBigA]

So, that means that I am part owner of those airwaves, the same as everyone else. The gives me the right to request that sometimes,

You can "request" all you like. But we don't put fish on our pizza.

And your so-called "part ownership" in the airwaves gives you no rights regarding what music we play on it. You can also buy stock in a radio company, which also makes you a part owner, and once again gives you no rights over the company's programming.

 

[davideduardo]

So, that means that I am part owner of those airwaves, the same as everyone else. The gives me the right to request that sometimes, every now and then, I'd like some freakin' anchovies on my pizza. I don't insist that everyone be forced to eat anchovies. And sometimes I might only want mushrooms and pepperoni.

No.

Because spectrum resources are limited, the government operates as the representative of the citizens in deciding who gets a license. In recent years, the system is to sell via auction the license rights to the highest bidder who meets some minimal financial and fitness requirements.

But, other than technical operations, ownership limits and things like indecency / profanity, the FCC does not regulate content. The licensee is charged with serving an undefined "public interest" and trying to serve it. The public interest may well be playing 40 songs over and over with loud DJs; the FCC never said Top 40 was not in the community interest. The public interest, from the 60's to the 80's, was in art served by Beautiful Music stations that mostly had no staff, ran news in overnights, and programmed tapes sent from a syndicator; the FCC never said that "all day, all night, all nice" was not in the public interest.

So, if a station does not feel that a person whose sole qualification is having a telephone is entitled to program songs, they don't have to take requests. Or do any of the things you think radio should do.

No conspiracy, no agenda. Just exercising the licensee's right to freely determine the kind of programming they feel is right for the market.

 

[semoochie]

How about this idea for a Soft AC? Just play recent songs, 10-15 years or newer, mostly recurrent with a liberal supply of currents. If they like "All of Me" and "Say Something", they might like this.

 

[TheBigA]

How about this idea for a Soft AC? Just play recent songs, 10-15 years or newer, mostly recurrent with a liberal supply of currents. If they like "All of Me" and "Say Something", they might like this.

They also want to add tempo to the mix. That negates the "soft AC" name. Like adding vocals and R&B to smooth jazz changed the format.

 

[Avid Listener]

How about this idea for a Soft AC? Just play recent songs, 10-15 years or newer, mostly recurrent with a liberal supply of currents. If they like "All of Me" and "Say Something", they might like this.

I think you'll find that the people who tend to like music that is soft, aimed at adults, and "contemporary" don't much care about when a song was recorded. They care about whether it sounds pleasing. I don't think adults are worried about checking their weekly hit parade lists to make sure they're hearing only newer songs. If someone like a good song by Harry Connick, Jr. or Michael Bublé, chances are that they'd also like a good song by Jack Jones, and wouldn't care when it was recorded.

Remember, the term Soft Adult Contemporary is industry jargon. It's not something engraved in stone as some sort of magic formula for a successful radio station.

Now, if someone likes this song, would they reject this song just because it was recorded 20 years ago?

 

[semoochie]

I think you'll find that the people who tend to like music that is soft, aimed at adults, and "contemporary" don't much care about when a song was recorded. They care about whether it sounds pleasing. I don't think adults are worried about checking their weekly hit parade lists to make sure they're hearing only newer songs. If someone like a good song by Harry Connick, Jr. or Michael Bublé, chances are that they'd also like a good song by Jack Jones, and wouldn't care when it was recorded.

Remember, the term Soft Adult Contemporary is industry jargon. It's not something engraved in stone as some sort of magic formula for a successful radio station.

Now, if someone likes this song, would they reject this song just because it was recorded 20 years ago?

Michael Buble' has different influences, that Jack Jones couldn't even imagine. It isn't the same.

 

[davideduardo]

Remember, the term Soft Adult Contemporary is industry jargon. It's not something engraved in stone as some sort of magic formula for a successful radio station.

Industry terminology or jargon is just that: terms internally used to identify the things we work with every day. Most are not intended to be used in marketing and on the air.

Format terminology is used to allow advertisers to understand what they are buying, even if they are not familiar with the stations or the market competitive array.

Nielsen has a group of format names or terms; stations pick the one that comes closest to their actual implementation of programming.

Generally, advertisers know that certain formats have specific core age appeal and specific "moods", and they act accordingly when placing buys.

Nobody allows the format name to get in the way of effective programming.

 

[Avid Listener]

Michael Buble' has different influences, that Jack Jones couldn't even imagine. It isn't the same.

No, they aren't the same. But, to the average adult listener who enjoys soft music with a contemporary sound, the two are similar enough that most folks who like the one would also like the other.