MUSICAL MUSINGS
June 10, 2002
WE WANT MORE VARIETY!
More variety. Pop radio listeners say they want it, but what do they mean by that? Do they want to hear different songs from the ones you’re playing now? It’s natural to jump to the conclusion that “more variety” means “different songs,” but put yourself in a listener’s shoes for a moment.
Imagine that you’re a 31-year-old woman who just heard three of her favorite songs in a row, but they’re by Train, Goo Goo Dolls, and The Calling. Furthermore, you heard that same Train song four times this week. Is it any wonder you want “more variety”?
OK, so now you’re no longer a listener who’s ready to change the station; you’re a program director with the power to keep her listening. No matter how successful your station is, the majority of your listeners don’t listen for long. You can give them the variety they crave in that little chunk of time, and you don’t have to add songs that don’t test well in order to do it!
When was the last time you recoded your library? Does it still have a “Country” code, from when Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and Lonestar all had CHR hits at the same time? Or even a “Swing” code from the days of Brian Setzer and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies? Trends change quickly, and coding must change along with them. If you haven’t recoded your library in the past six months—be honest, now—the coding may have become obsolete.
Before I sit down to recode, I ask myself this question: “What is my primary objective in recoding the library this time?” Recently, a Hot AC client was concerned that his listeners were hearing too much Rock. Instead of replacing Staind with that second Sense Field single, I resolved to never allow Staind and Puddle of Mudd to play back to back. In another situation, one of my CHR clients ran a wide playlist that included both the Goo Goo Dolls and Fat Joe. My primary objective in this case was to make every three-song set represent the overall sound of the station.
Setting aside the primary objective for a moment, I sit down and sort every song into one of only two categories: Pop-Dance and Pop-Rock. Sound too simple? It is, but it’s a great place to start. Your listeners may like variety, but each of them probably prefers one of these two sounds to the other.
After this, I add a level of sub-coding. Here’s a list of the sub-codes I use:
Black. All R&B and Hip-Hop songs fall into this category.
Country. This isn’t a necessary code for CHRs anymore, but some Hot ACs still have a use for it.
Teen Pop. As Britney Spears and ’N Sync fall out of public favor, this code is more crucial than ever before.
Heavy Rock. This is where Staind and Puddle of Mudd fall.
Latin. There are just enough of these left that it’s worth coding for.
I always limit myself to zero or one sub-code per song. It doesn’t help to clog the scheduler with too many codes.
Now my primary objective comes in. In the situation where I never want to hear Staind next to Puddle of Mudd, I never allow two Heavy Rock codes in a row. When going for a good three-song representation, I never allow three Pop-Rock codes or three Pop-Dance codes in a row. I set the rules idealistically and then schedule, but I’m always ready to make concessions. Sometimes I have to admit that my primary objective is mathematically impossible. If my client’s library is three-quarters Pop-Rock, I may sometimes have to allow four or five of those in a row before a Pop-Dance song can come up. If this happens, I try to go for variety within Pop-Rock, so it’s not all vanilla.
Recoding can be monotonous, but it’s the #1 key to achieving true variety without adding bad songs!
Now imagine you’re that 31-year-old listener again. You drive to work every day between 7:35 and 8:15, and you come home every day between 5:15 and 5:55. Two days in a row, you hear the same song. You’re familiar with the song—you even like the song—but the repetition annoys you. What do you want? More variety! Does that mean you never want to hear that song again? Of course not.
I’m sure I don’t need to go into great detail about the importance of Hour Rotation rules. But review these rules as often as you review your sound codes, if not more often.
FEWER SONGS (LIKE IT OR NOT!)
It’s worth mentioning here that the golden rule of all music radio is to play as few songs as you can get away with. The smallest number of songs may vary from one format to another and from one market to the next, but the rule remains solid. It’s not a popular rule, especially among music buffs.
Why is the short playlist an unfortunate necessity? You can demonstrate it by getting five friends together, giving them a list of twenty songs, and asking them how many of those songs they all agree are good. It’s hard enough to get five people to agree about a short list of tunes; think about the hundreds or thousands who are sampling your station every day! Each individual has a list of songs she’d rather hear on the radio, but it’s a different list from everybody else’s. To get a large number of people to keep on listening, only play the songs they most closely agree on. It’s never a big list.
The point is that, assuming you’re playing a tight, well-researched library, your listeners’ perception of “not enough variety” probably has more to do with sound coding and hour rotation problems than with not hearing enough different titles. Be sure that every song in your library is solid, and then rotate that short list effectively.
Some PDs allow the size of each scheduled category to fluctuate, moving songs to Recurrent every week and cleaning out the Recurrents every time they update the gold. I’ve found it more effective to keep the categories exactly the same size from one gold update to the next, with the exception of the deepest gold categories. This way, I can set up an optimum Hour Rotation pattern and trust that it won’t suddenly stop working.
Of course, even among that short playlist of yours, there are songs that test better than others. The upper echelons of your playlist should always be scheduled for airplay. But the bottom third or so is probably full of songs that are OK to play once in a while, but that don’t test remarkably well. I’ve found that it helps to make platooning a regular part of my programming.
I update my gold three or four times a year, but I keep a category of songs ready for active duty and make some minor alterations once a month. This is especially important with Recurrents; they’re at once the best-testing and most burned songs in the format. Resting the most burned songs for a month can make them sound fresh when they come back. It’s important, of course, not to go too deep in order to find songs with platoon potential.
Even your die-hard fans don’t really listen to your station all day, much as you might want them to. They listen in chunks, and each of those chunks (read: quarter-hours) should each be a solid, compelling show with a true variety of music. If you make this happen, and if you make sure all those songs are hits, you’ll see your Time Spent Listening go up even as the number of titles in your library shrinks.