1-20-2014
In all popular music formats like Top 40, Rhythmic, County, Hot AC, etc., playing the current hits is what most of people tune into radio to hear. However, radio playlists today are mostly controlled by the same format playlists, instead of sales. We have forgotten all about sales.
Sales used to mean a great deal to what a radio station played. We always wanted an accurate measurement of the music weekly ?box office.? Today, we have a daily legit sales report available from iTunes.com. Even the Top 20 daily sellers from individual markets are available daily, from Shazam.com. Unfortunately, many programmers are so busy running too many stations, they simply take the easy way out and use the format airplay charts to make airplay rotation decisions instead of national and/or local sales. And because stations are keeping former hit music in heavy rotation longer, this causes the appearance of too much repetition for the listeners. The songs that are really currently selling and are the hits are not the problem. It is the repetition of the songs that have just finished being big hits are still being over-played that is the problem.
FM radio today is making the same mistake AM stations made many years ago when FM was the new kid on the block. AM tried to sound like FM and outdo FM, and AM lost.
Today, partly because of the enormous amount of money these large company?s owe the lenders, they have cut, fired, and gotten rid of a ton of great talent. While this may make sense in the short run, it only makes FM radio sound like they are following Pandora, RDIO, and the others instead of being the leaders.
What goes on between the music is just as important as the music! People enjoy listening to fun, energetic, slightly crazy personalities, that speak to the audience on their level, about the music, their city, and the fun of listening to the station; at the same time giving the listeners the basics.
The most devastating problem for FM radio is the over commercialization of almost all stations. This is a major problem. I understand they have to pay the bills, but stations are selling everything except the toilet seat. In the Drake era, when most songs, for the most part, were no longer that three minutes, the maximum spot load was 12 minutes an hour. I believe today, with the average song almost four minutes, the spot load should be no more that eight minutes per hour. And stations with numbers could charge much more for their inventory, so they could afford to run less. Have more listening and make more money. I must confess, I have never understood why agencies buy time on stations that run seven- and eight-minute spot clusters at a time. The agency?s could single-handedly bring back the music flow clock with shorter stop sets.
Bill Hennes is President of FreshlySqueezedMusic.net and Bill Hennes Media. He can be reached at bhennes105@aol.com
(1/20/2014 7:49:52 AM)
I have an old "station demo" at home from the first FM top 40 station in my hometown.
They explained it like this: "WXXX plays a maximum of eight minutes of commercials every hour. That means when you're advertising message plays, it is heard."
The advertiser apparently understood that he or she was paying a little more in spot rate to offset the total number of commercials on the air.
Or: "He who does not learn from the mistakes of the past is doomed to repeat them."
Thanks for your display of common sense in an area where it is sadly lacking.
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