# There is NO EXCUSE for this lack of variety on a "classic rock" station! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 15, 2002, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918 "2002-12-15T18:48:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/61 "2002-12-17T16:59:54Z")
The radio station I listen to rotates its selection every three hours!-DEADLYACCURATE Heh. That reminds me of Chicagos Loop 97.9fm. The Drive 97.1 isn’t too annoying so i listen to them often too. ---
**Author:** ![Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/db5fbb/32.png) [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/62 "2002-12-17T21:27:52Z")
**Cisco:** I still don’t know whether we agree or disagree. 🙂 The thing for me is that hip-hop, like any other musical business, has always been filled with businessmen. There have always been rappers willing to make whatever sells the most records. The only difference between then and now is that most of these records will be sold to the whites. It’s not like hip-hop used to be a pure, artistic genre and once the suburbs started paying attention the artists sold out. The artists are still being artists. The rappers that make music solely to sell records are doing the same thing they’ve always done. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/63 "2002-12-17T23:02:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > \*\*At my TV station, the anchors can argue to move things around in the newscast during the course of the day, and if they ad-lib on air, they ad-lib on-air. They aren’t tethered to a machine. > > That’s the point of this whole thread **Gaspode**! Devoted fans are a minority of the audience _because anyone who develops mature tastes can’t stand listening to radio_. Just think of the audience you could get if you catered to them-- or at least included them in your programming. > \*\* I’m not sure I follow you on your second point. By catering to people with more special tastes in music, which are known to be a minorty, the station will increase its ratings? Huh? Also - tje DJ can talk to the music or prrgramming director if s/he wants to change something in the playlist. The computer doesn’t tell them when to speak. It’s just a tool. Of course, it depends on what station you work for. Some are more strict, other give the DJ more liberty. But we do know hos DJ’s think. I was one myself for way too many years. I want to play the hottest new single on my hours and so does the next guy. If the station decides to go with a strict format, and a limited playlist, it needs to keep track on when songs are played. For more info on the software - check out [RCS](http://www.rcsworks.com/products/default.asp?t=r), which is indurty leader with their softwares **selector** (for chosing the order of songs) and **MasterControll** , which is the software in the studio. Please remember - software is only a tool. If rotations of songs is sloppy or the DJ’s bitch about not being able to be creative, it’s decisions and/or sloppy work by manegment. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/64 "2002-12-18T06:04:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cisco \* > \*\*\ I thought it was funny that he called them African **Americans** when he’s talking about Canadians. Will the ridiculousness that is this term never cease? But seriously Jimbo, do they actually use that term in Canada? And no offense man. I love your user name. \*\* Um, where do you think the “America” in United States of America comes from? It is North America, and Canada is part of it. All Canadians are actually Americans, if you want to go down that road. Citizens of the USA are just hogging the term for themselves. You should actually call yourselves “United Statesians”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/65 "2002-12-18T06:28:41Z")
I have decided that radio has officially gone to hell in a handbasket. At home, we have _one_ rock station WZZL 106.7 (The Best New Rock and Killer Classics), which plays a steady diet of: Pink Floyd Rush Led Zeppelin The Doors Def Leppard and the occasional new song. This is not a classic rock station, this is a rock station. Tell me, is “Pour Some Sugar on Me” “Best New Rock” or a “Killer Classic?” Compare this to Z-Rock 103 in Lexington, which I love now. Their typical playlist: Pearl Jam Alice in Chains RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! Nirvana Metallica Megadeth and the occasional older tune from the other group, as well as new stuff. The Clear Channel station (Double-Q) is an unappealing mixture of the two other stations. It sucks, pretty much. -brianjedi ---
**Author:** ![Junior\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/66 "2002-12-18T08:51:27Z")
I’m not really the target audience for classic rock radio stations, but I had a funny listening experience the other day, hearing **REM’s** _Everybody Hurts_, followed by the DJ’s “GOLD-FM, nothing but good times and classic rock”. I really struggled to see how that song fit either of those categories 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/67 "2002-12-18T14:58:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by featherlou \* > \*\*You should actually call yourselves “United Statesians”. 😃 \*\* Eh, like the United States of Mexico? Darlin’, we’ve done this _ad infinitum_ in GQ. The upshot is that Merkins _don’t have a unique name._ Anything you could logically call us (`American,' `United Statesian,’ `Anglo,’ etc.) is claimed by a close neighbor. (I realize **featherlou** probably participated in one of those threads. I’m posting this as a courtesy to newbies.) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/68 "2002-12-18T15:00:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > \*\*Like **Gaspode** , I used to work in radio, although not for nearly as long since I switched over to TV. > > And I have to say it’s an industry for the brain dead. First off, despite the image radio projects, it has nothing to do with entertainment or fun. Every single DJ I’ve ever met has been the most miserable fucker to walk the face of the earth. They universally despise their jobs. > > And it’s gotten worse. DJs don’t even select songs anymore-- they’ve got a computer program running through the song list that’s programmed a week in advance, and it _tells them when to speak!_ :eek: > > As for music selection, it routinely falls down to what one person likes. Yeah, they can use focus groups, and the 1-4 rating system, but what the music programmer likes is what gets on air. Point finale! (That’s french.) > > If the music programmer dislikes a particular band (maybe they snubbed him at a concert), he decides they don’t meet the station’s subjective format. > > The people who actually own and run radio stations are soulless husks of humanity, who failed to make it in television and are reminded of that every time they go to work. They are functionally incapable of recognizing creativity. \*\* There goes the last DJ who plays what he wants to play and says what he wants to say, hey hey hey. And there goes your freedom of choice, there goes the last human voice. There goes the last DJ. –Tom Petty ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/69 "2002-12-18T15:09:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Gaspode \* > \*\*By catering to people with more special tastes in music, which are known to be a minorty, the station will increase its ratings? Huh? > \*\* Perhaps catered is the wrong word, and included is a better choice. Don’t play _just_ the most popular songs of any one band, or have a limited playlist. Play those now unfortunately rarely heard songs. As for people with broader tastes being the minority, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point. I think it’s a well-hidden fact that most TV and radio rating systems actually work to exclude a large part of the target audience (Fr’ instance, Neilsen’s not available to anyone who’s moved in the past 5 years, or who rents…) With audiences tending to shrink, what has a station got to lose by coming up with a new format, instead of blindly playing the same stuff as the next station on the dial? And hey-- with that whole “African-American” thing. North of the border we use the terms black, white (occasionally caucasian), Asian, and Indo-canadian. Of the 6 people I’ve met who were actually born in Africa, 4 of 'em are white… ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918/70 "2002-12-18T19:46:58Z")
**Gaspode** : > [@](#): > > By catering to people with more special tastes in music, which are known to be a minorty, the station will increase its ratings? I think what we’ve got here is one of those situations where, if everyone acts in their self-interest, it’s bad for the group as a whole. Like you said: > [@](#): > > When compiling the playlists for the station, you want to use the songs that rate the highest. When we check with the focus group, we find 384 songs that rate above 3. A lower average means fewer people give it a four. I can also mean that fewer people even know of the song. Unfamiliar songs generally rate very low. The best bet for a radio station, on any given day, is to play those familiar songs, because they score high. But my understanding is that overall radio listenership is dropping; anecdotal evidence, at least, suggests that part of the reason is the mind-numbing repetition, and little chance to hear anything genuinely new. So there’s my claim: a bit more variety would be good for radio in general (as well as for us listeners), while in the short run, at least, it’s bad for each individual station. What’s the way out? I think it’s pretty obvious. At one time, radio wasn’t quite such a big business - as recently as 20 years ago, one licensee could own no more than 7 radio stations. This allowed a lot of smaller operators into commercial radio. And the musical ferment of the 1960s was aided by the existence of the FM airwaves that were, for a time at least, shunned by the commercial broadcasters, allowing people into the business who were totally there for the music, and considered themselves successful if they could pay the station’s electric bill and keep the FCC filings current. A fair amount of music popularized on FM radio when AM was king, eventually found its way onto the commercial airwaves. That freshened the music supply, and was good for everyone. We need that again - a place where people with a few thousand bucks and a bit of practical experience can run a radio station for the fun of it, and introduce us to some music we’re not already hearing, so we get a chance to _get_ familiar with some new stuff. Low-power radio within the FM band had the chance to be that, but it was killed. Commercial radio in the USA has been confined to the same AM and FM frequencies for the last eon; why not open up a piece of new frequency for radio, setting aside part of it for low-power radio, with nobody allowed to own multiple stations of that kind at all? Maybe Internet radio will fill this role. But I’m still thinking that, what with drive-time still being the key radio-listening time, opening up the broadcast airwaves would still be the best way to go. > [@](#): > > ## \*Originally posted by neutron star \* I’d wager it had something to do with Elvis being popular in the 50s. From what I’ve heard on the radio, most of the classic rock seems to be 70s stuff, with some late 60s thrown in. > > Um, because they’re not rock musicians? Motown does not equal classic rock. That’s not to say that those artists weren’t incredibly talented, just that you’d have a much better chance of hearing them on the oldies station. So what you’re saying is that Elvis, James Brown, Smokey, and Aretha aren’t “classic rock” because they’re part of some other format? It seems to me that that boils down to a tautology: they’re not “classic rock” because they’re not “classic rock”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-excuse-for-this-lack-of-variety-on-a-classic-rock-station/142918.md?page=3)