Do most radio DJs actually enjoy the music their station plays?

In My Humble Opinion
1

More of an IMHO than a GQ, so I’m sticking it here. I’ve been listening to the radio in the car a lot lately, and it occurred to me that if I were a DJ looking for employment, I’d take pretty much whatever job presented itself, whether I cared for the type of music played at the station or not. Is this accurate? Do the guys DJ’ing the alternative station really honestly dig Weezer, Beck, and the Violent Femmes? Do the Top 40 guys love hearing Destiny’s Child, Coldplay, and the Pussycat Dolls nonstop all day long? Or do they just play what they’re told to play regardless of personal preference? How much does this have to do with whether they’re an independent station or not?

Any theories or personal experience welcome. This was triggered by the fact that I heard a morning DJ on our local top-40 station kill a song halfway through this morning, announcing, “God, I hate that song.” Which is not something you hear all that often on the radio.

2

No answer, but a piggyback pair of questions, because I know there are at least two Dopers in radio who may wander by and answer…

Do the DJ’s actually listen to the music they play? Or do they press a button, go make a sandwhich, and come back and talk when the little light goes on? Do they have any say whatsoever about what they play anymore, or is it all preprogrammed?

3

One of the DJs on a local station once said (on air) that if you were to ever become a DJ, make sure you don’t work at a station that plays music you like, as it will lead to burnout, because you not only have to play the songs you like, but also the songs you can’t stand, which will somehow lead to you no longer liking that genre of music.

I didn’t quite understand her logic, but that’s a paraphrase of what she said.

4

While we’re waiting for a professional to come along, I’ll not that in my experience, DJ’s are by no means wedded to format. In the early '90’s the most successful DJ’s in my town were Brian and Joe who were lured from a Top 40 station to the Alternative station, which at the time was ruled by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. After a couple years they were axed, ostensibly because the administration wanted talent that was more interested in the type of music the station played, although I understand that was largely spin. They then moved to a copycat alternative station with a less interesting playlist (which had until a year or two prior been pop/rock).

In D.C., the station my wife listens to recently changed format from a toothless mix of contemporary hits of the last decade to a more interesting but still relatively toothless mix of “everything,” including classic rock and pop. From time to time you hear the talent muse on how much more interesting they find the new playlist, so either they’re lying, in which case they’re sticking with music they don’t like, or they’re sincere, in which case they were working at a station that didn’t play the music they’d have wanted to hear.

–Cliffy

5

Odds are, some DJ’s like the music their station plays, others hate it, and most are probably OK with it. I also tend to think that the more pop and top 40 music a station plays, the less likely a DJ will like the music, or at least like all/most of the music. Especially since top 40 stations tend to be the ones to play the same songs over and over again the most, it seems that the DJ’s would get sick of those songs a lot quicker. On the opposite end of the spectrum, DJ’s at a “niche” station, like a classical music or jazz station, are much more likely to like the songs, and in general have a much wider base of sogns to chose from.

In addition, stations owned by Clear Channel or other large companies are more likely going to play songs that are barely in the spectrum of their stations genre (like eminem on an alternative station), because they try to play the hottest, most current music regardless of its genre, so I imagine a DJ at a clear channel station is also less likely to enjoy all the music he/she is playing.

6

the DJs at WROR in Boston , Loren and Wally, refer to the years they had to host a C & W show on the network as “The Dark Years”. I’m guessing that they weren’t too fond of that style. They’re back to doing “classic” rock now.

7

I suppose I’m qualified to offer an opinion, with 30 years of radio behind me and hopefully 30 more in front of me.

The modern equivalent of Top 40 stations play music for the youngest demographic, but mainly 18-25. You have to have been working in radio for a significant amount of time before you can work at a “powerhouse” station in a big market, so if you’re between 30 and 40, you are out of that demographic, and the music may not appeal to you, if it ever did. If you’re a country music expert, you may seek out work in that area and be successful and like the music. However, there are a number of bumps in the road to continuing employment in radio. You want to work in it, you have to play the format of the station where you work, regardless of whether you like it.

In my experience, not a lot of guys who are in the demographic are playing music for audiences of their age, they’re usually older. This is because all the young guys and girls are still slogging away at broadcasting school, or working the board at a 1000-watt AM out in the sticks. Radio jobs where it’s all done by live people are rapidly disappearing, as Clear Channel and Infinity and the big guns are buying up multiple stations in a given market, sending the music and the DJ in by satellite. So the guy who does that voice in your city is also heard elsewhere in the country. He never heard any of the music. He went into a studio and did his announcing and went home. Somebody else edits him, and sticks his voice track into the preprogrammed music log.

So some people may enjoy what they play, whereas others may not, owing to the difference between their ages and interests and the station’s audience.

8

I used to be a DJ, and from my experience, none of the music programming was done locally, and very few of us liked the music we played. It was a job, and the station was there to make money by broadcasting advertising. The songs were all programmed by some “genius” in Atlanta and were done so as to maximize listenership so we could charge more for ads. It had nothing to do with music.

My time at the college station was more fun, as we had a loose playlist, but plenty of records in our library that we were free to supplement the play list with. As long as we played the 6 or so songs that were listed per hour, the rest of each hour was ours to have fun. And if you did a specialty show (I had both a regular time slot and a specialty show) you could play whatever the hell you wanted. When my station manager fired me (we never got along) I actually had several letters to the editor in the local paper bemoaning my demise. :smiley: That made me feel pretty good, even tho I wasn’t allowed back at the station.

9

Most commercial DJs have very little, if any, discretion in what gets played. Most stations have a limited library that gets developed by program directors and through focus groups and audience testing, so they’re told to play just those songs. For example, one of my local commercial stations, WRVV-FM, has what they call their “Listener Programming Board”, which is just a voluntary focus group. When songs are perceived as being “played out”, they’re replaced with other songs. When songs are particularly liked, they’re played more often.

That said, some DJs will work wherever they can find it. Automation (which WhyNot asked about, and which I will discuss) is changing the nature of radio, so live DJ jobs are becoming harder to find. Some deliberately work for stations whose music they don’t like because it’s harder to burn out. Others work for stations whose music they like because it makes the job easier. From my own experience, though, I’m too busy doing other things to really listen to what I’m playing. It’s not just sitting down and spinning records, it’s filling out logs, finding commercials, and doing show prep and talking. Believe me, it’s harder than it looks. :slight_smile:

Okay. Automation. There are different systems for that, and different stations use it differently. At its heart, automation is any system that automatically plays music according to a set schedule. Some radio stations use automation overnight, because it saves on the cost of a live DJ. A DJ on an overnight shift may make $500 a week; the station can spend that same $500 once on an automation program. Some stations use what’s called “voice tracking”, which is basically when a live person records a show in advance. A DJ might work for 5 hours a week, but be on the air for 20. Again, it saves on the payroll costs associated with paying a live human being. There are, in fact, stations that have live humans only in the mornings and afternoons to give news, weather, traffic, and other information that can’t be recorded. It’s also possible to have a station with no humans in the on-air booth at all. (For an example of the worst-case scenario, here is some interesting reading material.) Finally, some stations just rip music into a computer and use that, just as you might rip your CDs into your computer.

In terms of automation, there are arguments both for and against. For management, it’s cheaper to use an automation system than it is to pay DJs. You also have a more consistent sound, less unpredictibility (which is no small concern in the age of huge FCC indecency fines), and greater control over content.

The cons are that it’s less spontaneous, more homogeneous, and offers a lot less local color. And as the link above shows, radio is supposed to serve “the public interest”, so not having anyone at the station can be dangerous in the event of a disaster. Economically speaking, automation also means fewer jobs for DJs as material can be recycled.

So, the short answer to WhyNot’s question is, yes, it is possible that the DJ can make himself a sandwich and come back when the light’s on. It’s just as likely, though, that the DJ is home making himself that sandwich.

Robin

10

I spent most of my broadcasting career at stations with both AM and FM outlets. One played country, the other played rock. One played rock, the other played elevator music, and so on. Not to metnion that wall-to-wall Christmas music we played in December. No human being anywhere could have equally loved all the different types songs I had to play in a given week.

On the other hand, I really wanted to do news.

11

I want to do news, too. Playing music just bores the crap out of me, which is one of the reasons I don’t do it anymore.

Last December, my show was officially named the “Christmas Free Zone”, with the exception of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” which I played once per week during December.

Robin

12

In the Old Old days there were FM rock stations with DJ’s that passionately loved the music they played. in NYC it was WNEW & WPLJ
See Richard Neer’s book “FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio”

He chronicles the heyday and the fall.

13

I think WXRT in Chicago is more of a free-form program. The DJs really seem to LOVE their jobs. Most of them have been there forever. I think they may have been purchased by some bigger company, but I don’t think they’ve taken the essence of the station away. It is far and away the best station I’ve ever listened to.