Holy fuck, man, I can’t beleive you posted that. Yeah, I saw your explaination a little later in the thread, but this was priceless.
Anyhoo, I just wanted to plug xmradio, like I always do in these types of threads.
Coupla possible factors in the popularity of Live and Let Die on current playlists. (1) Paul McCartney is touring. (2) New Bond flick in the theaters.
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.
Once, when I was about 10 years old and just being introduced to Stairway to Heaven, I called up the Oldies station my mom listened to and asked them if they could please play it. In a very snotty voice, the DJ said “That’s classic rock, not oldies!”
Amusingly, one of my local classic rock stations not only calls itself K-Rock (crock), but also has the call letters KRKA (cracker radio - for aging white folks only!). 
What DoctorJ said about Boston but you can also add Led Zeppelin and Lynard Skynard. Virtually impossible to turn on the radio in Little Rock and not be able to find a Skynard song. You would think the assholes at the Slayer concert yelling “play some Skynard!!!” were joking, sadly…
Well, maybe not. But I’ve been working in radio for about 17 years. Before that, it was college radio ASF. My first paying radio job was with WGN of Chicago.
But seeing that I live in Sweden, I’m only responsible for what’s happening here. But it’s the same as over there. So you guys want a crash course in radio programming? I’ll try to keep it short.
Why does the station play the same songs over and over?
When we get the ratings, we get a lot of information. Among that is time spent listening, TSL, which is an average. So station WXYZ has a TSL of 120 minutes. The station knows that there is a constant turnover of listeners. Listener a will tune in between 8-8.45 AM and and Listener b will tune in between 9-12 AM. In order to keep these guys happy, and play a mix of songs both agree on, any station will play it’s hottest songs (a-list), mixed with some new stuff, on the way up the charts (b-list), mixed with the odd favourite from last year (c-list), mixed with a song from ten years ago (d-list). The idea behind repeating songs is:
If the average listeners tunes in for two hours, we can have 5 songs on the a-list. That means the very same song will come back every five hours. It also means that every hour will have one of the most popular songs right now. For the guy who listens for 45 minutes or three hours, this is fine. The guy listening for six hours might get annoyed.
However most people will not get annoyed if they hear the favourite song twice a day. It’s just songs that they don’t like, which rubs them the wrong way.
So the songs are rated?
Yup. You bet. Most radio stations test the songs in the music library on focus groups. Typically, the focus group will answer questions like:
- How high do you rate this song (1-4)
- Are you tired of hearing the song (1-4, where for is a score that means they are indeed sick of it, also known as ‘burn’)
- Familiarity (1-4)
- What station would you think plays this song.
There are a number of other questions, but these are the most important.
So let’s take Aguilera’s Dirty. Station WXYZ is thinking of putting on their playlist. It rates quite high (3.56) and has a low burn factor (1.23). However, almost 80 percent of the respondents asociate it with station WQPR. So, that means it won’t get played on XYZ. Playing a song that people connect with QPR might give the competition a point in the rating game.
But why no other tracks from that same artist? Stones has made loads of good stuff
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. So, if we decide to play Get off my cloud, which rates at 2.47 (it being the fourth highest ranking song by the Stones), we’re gonna play it for fewer people which rate it with a 4, and for more people which give it a 1. It might even be that it rates high, but also have a high ‘burn’.
Playing songs that don’t rate high, means more songs that people won’t like, means increasing risk that they flip the dial and go to another station. As a programmer, you only want to play the songs that rate the best for your audience.
Wait a minute - did you just say 384 songs? I’ve got that many albums at home.
Again - yup. Actually. 384 is a bit high, depending on the format. I used to work for a soft rock station. We had about 320 songs. Had there been 500 songs that reated above 3, we would’ve played them. Simple fact is - there aren’t.
What about record companies telling you what to play?
Oh, they wish. But no - it aint happening. The focus group decides. The record company sends out their new songs. So every day, we open the mail and check: Eminem (throws away), Dido (we’ll give her a try with the focus group). Great new song by artist no one has heard of (wary reaction - it’s hard to sell on the air. The DJ shouting “up next, a great new song by Paulina Rubio” - your reaction: “Who the fuck is what’s her face.” DJ: “up next, the brand new song by Madonna, featured in the new James Bond movie.”)
But I keep hearing the same damned song when I drive to work every morning.
That ain’t supposed to happen. Sloppy programming by your station. The reason for five songs on the a-list, remember, the songs that get the most airplay right now, is that you can’t devide 5 in 24 for an even hour. So if Dirty gets played somewhere between 8-9 AM today, it should show up between 9-10 AM tomorrow. We have computer programs that - normally - keep track on these things.
I’m not saying I like it. It used to be fun, working in radio. Now it’s more mathematical and engineering. However - it works. Ratings go up.
Any more questions - fire away.
In my previous thread where I mentioned “counting down the days” before the classic rock station in my town starts playing Nirvana and Pearl Jam, it wasn’t because I resented their eventual intrusion into the category of “classic rock” but rather, as Neurotik mentioned earlier, a sign that I was now an old man.
Anyway, the classic rock format is a direct descendant of the old “free-form” and “Album Oriented Rock” (AOR) formats of the 1970’s. However, these formats differed in that their song and artist playlists were a lot broader than the limited selection available on most classic rock stations now. For example, unlike today’s typical classic rock artist playlist which is almost all white except for Jimi Hendrix, it was not uncommon to hear cuts from Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Motown, Aretha Franklin, Sly and the Family Stone, and even Gil Scott Heron. Then, of course, the format programmers came in during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and “whitened up” the playlists and narrowed the number of songs that could be played. (It used to be that all cuts on an album–provided into wasn’t indecent according to the FCC rules–were played. That changed around 1980 supposedly for the reason that people were taping these songs off the radio instead of buying the album.) From there it was all downhill with playlists being constantly shrunk until we have the Clear Channel dominated situation we have today.
As for me, I listen to NPR a lot more. If I want to hear music, I often tune in on the internet to KUT which is a public radio station out of Austin. It’s probably the closest thing I’ve heard to an old “free-form” FM station.
I hate “Get the Led Out.” What the fuck is the big deal about Zeppelin. Guess what? I hate Zeppelin.
(Deep breath. Center.)
Okay, there’s an oldies station here called “The Drive.” Pretty much totally automated, with really stupid promos. They do play some good music, so I listen now and then. However, they have a bizarre idea about what constitutes “obscure” classic rock. One day the promo went something like:
“At the drive, we know the best cuts on albums are sometimes buried deep in the tracks. We dig deep.” Then, “Here’s the Doors, Soul Kitchen.”
Now, call me crazy, but, Soul Kitchen isn’t exactly “digging deep.” It’s one of the 3 or 4 Doors song I always hear on the radio.
Gah! Radio programmers are idiots.
Some science for y’all.
A couple of years ago, I was working in a lab on a project that was in a pretty remote area of California. We were in this lab 8-5, every day, on 10-day rotations. We only got one radio station sans static and it was a ClearChannel classic rock station. After listening to this station continuously for a month or so, my co-worker and I raised all of the above arguments and complained endlessly, although we never actually turned the radio off.
We then decided to do an experiment. Starting Monday morning at 8 am on the first day of a rotation, we wrote down the name of the band that played every song that came on. We then counted how many times over the next ten days that each band (not counting individual songs) was played. At the end of the rotation there were only approximately 30 singers/bands on the list.
At 8am on Monday morning of the next rotation, we wrote down every song by the top 10 most played singers/bands (as determined by the previous rotation’s analysis). We did this for about a month.
Results…the most played song by the most played band on this radio station was Don’t Stop Beliving by Journey followed in a close second by Hotel California by the Eagles. Total crap.
I haven’t listened to classic rock since that project.
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.
Down hea’ in the Grand Ol’ South, we get a steady bombardment of second-division Southern Rock bands on the classic rock station (i.e. Molly Hatchett, .38 Special, etc.). That is annoying enough. What really drives me bananas is their apparent conviction that “Gimme Three Steps” is the only song Lynyrd Skynyrd ever wrote. Same goes for the Allman Bros. “Statesboro Blues”.
I love Skynyrd and the Brothers, but I wish the station would quit driving the same songs down our throats all the time. Gee Whiz, people!
Well, the DJ:s haven’t been able to pick their own songs for over 15 years, so that’s not news. And what’s so strange about the DJ being told when to break the music flow and speak? Or, since you work in TV - does the newscaster get to decide which segment to run first, and when to make a joking remark to the co-anchor.
It’s a business. Like it or not. Most radio stations don’t play music for people interested in music, seeing that the devouted fans are a minority. Radio stations play songs for people who like music, but won’t care much about which artist or album it is. People who are into music buy cd’s.
As an aside - I never wanted to work in TV.
I too worked in radio, albeit very briefly, at a small town station in Iowa, so I think it’s clear-not big time.
After about 8 months the station was purchased by a guy from Illinois who owned several small stations. He brought in his nephew to manage the station. The first thing he said was “there won’t be any major changes.” Seeing as how I was seventeen, I believed him.
A little background on the station. It was bankrupt when I started there. It was a country music station with an AP teletype, the bill for which went unpaid until it was shut off. I worked there weekends and basically ran everything while I was there. I convinced the manager to let me run a classic rock show, because there were all these old rock tapes around getting dusty.
It wasn’t much, but it was mine.
When the new people took over, they almost immediately took me off that show and in fact cut my hours back to Sunday only (so I could “get more experience”), which meant I ran a bunch of religious tape shows and then played country in the afternoon, but wasn’t to talk much at all. Didn’t do news, didn’t even do the hourly station IDs. They were taped by the owner.
Eventually I was let go, which was fine since I was barely making any money there anyway, and was already coming to understand how fucked up Radio was. The nephew was a lying bastard and the owner was a good-old-boy gladhander.
About six months later the nephew was shipped out too.
Oh, I almost forgot. The nephew lived in an apartment above the station and had us run a splitter off the cable tv line at the station, so he could get cable for free.
Even white bread artists like Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears are turning to hip-hop producers like the Neptunes and featuring rap artists in order to appeal to young whites. Check out TRL sometime and see the extent of hip-hop’s conquest of pop music. And I’m shocked – shocked!– that you’d write off an entire genre as “limited and uninventive.” Shocked! It is shocking to me.
I can’t really tell if I agree with you or disagree. I don’t understand how a genre as a whole can “abandon its roots”. If you mean that hip-hop is no longer considered merely a “black thing,” I don’t see that as anything but positive.
Have you considered the possibility that suburbia came to hip-hop, not the other way around? Sheesh, the hottest rap song right now is a Tupac cover! I don’t know if you can call that marketing to the suburbs.
Strangely enough, I’ve never heard anyone up here use the term “African-Canadian,” although many (understandably) bristle at the old “colour-coding” terms used for various races.
The radio station I listen to rotates its selection every three hours! Seriously, if you listen for more than three hours at a stretch, you’ll start to hear the same songs.
If you want a lot of variety, launch.com is great. I’ll sit at my computer for hours and not hear the same music.
No, that’s not what I mean, and I agree that that is positive. I guess I can’t really say that the entire genre has abandoned it’s roots, there are still many many good hip hop groups out there. The popular instances of the culture though, have all seemed to have fine tuned themselves into whatever the current gimmick trend is. ‘Formula rap’ that is written the way a business plan is drawn up instead of from the heart. Right now the trend is for a guy to rap while a girl sings. See: Ja-Rule, Ludacris, Pastor Troy, etc.
In fact, I don’t think Ja-Rule or Ludacris have made a normal rap song since they discovered the guy rap/girl sing thing.
Jay-Z is a business man. This song was formulated to the max. A beat so sugary sweet you could rot your teeth with it, all the ‘ghetto’ references polished off, and…:eek:…a girl singing while he raps. He even changed the lyrics around: “Down to ride to the bloody end” became “Down to ride to the very end” so it would be more radio friendly. Explain to me how the suburbs came to the song rather than Jay-Z slam dunking it in the face of the suburbs?
Hey…
…Does anyone see the connection between radio stations with restrictive playlists and “these kids today” who have never heard of The Band, don’t know that Jefferson Starship was once Jefferson Airplane, and all the other gaps in knowledge some people find so appalling?
It’s the idea that the DJ has no choice in the matter-- that a computer programmed long before dictates when everything happens.
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.
**
No worries. Most execs that I’ve met in FM Radio really want to be in TV, and moan and whine at least once a day about not being able to make it in to that field.
Me, I went to TV because it has more money for employees than print or radio.
Qadgop the Mercotan said:
Qadgop, are you talking about KLH?? If so, I’m crushed. I LOVED KLH when I lived in Milwaukee ('91-'94) - I thought it was one of the best Classic Rock stations. I even like Dave and Carol - and I HATE morning shows. I was there when they first (I think) started playing their entire play list A-Z (or Z-A) and it would take 4 days.
If KLH has gone downhill, then I’m really disappointed.
I do agree with whomever it was that said they only listen to their digital cable music channels - those channels ROCK - the Classic Rock channel is great.
Cricket
Cricket, WKLH is the station Qadgop is referring to.
Dave and Carole are still the morning DJs, and I still listen to the station in the morning just for them. It’s rare if they play even one song during my morning commute though, so clearly I’m not listening for the music.
I stopped listening to the station at all other times because their playlist is as tight as others in this thread have witnessed in their home towns.
Once a year or so, they do play their catalog from A-Z. And they occasionally have other special playlists. For example, they’re right now taking votes for the 965 (their station is 96.5 on the FM dial) best classic rock songs, which they’ll begin playing on Christmas morning (or maybe Christmas Eve morning? Whatever.).
Also, I’m one of the posters who boasted about the song selection on digital cable music channels (mine is via DirectTV). As you say, the Classic Rock channel is great.