MUSICAL MUSINGS
August 17, 2004
I'M ON THE AIR AGAIN!
Well, I knew I couldn't stay away for long. Barely a month after being laid off, I'm back in radio again. No, I haven't found a job yet, but I have found something to do while I'm hunting: I've launched a broadcast on www.Live365.com.
I'm sure most of you know about the awesome power of Live365. I have to admit that when I first started exploring it, I wondered how on earth I'd be able to create something people would actually listen to. Was there any niche not yet covered in this vast army of people inflicting their personal musical tastes on the world? I mean, I have a lot of mp3s on my hard drive, enough to power a fleet of formats--but what could be done that hadn't been done before?
And then it hit me: people say they like their favorite Oldies station because it "takes them back." What if I could "take them back" as literally as possible? So here's my little Live365 contribution. You can listen as you read:
http://www.live365.com/stations/dasooperyooper?play
People often tell me that I make them feel old. That's because I have a mind for dates, and I'm constantly coming out with things like, "Yeah, I met you eight years ago this weekend." Nostalgia is all about feeling old and enjoying it, so that's what I'm trying to do here.
I imagine that if you asked people how old something must be in order to be deemed a "classic," the majority would say twenty years minimum. If that's the case, then Prince, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Huey Lewis are classics now. Next year, Tears for Fears and Wham! will join them.
So I put together my little list of about 50 songs--I'm paying for 100 megabytes--and launched it. The first time I looked at my statistics, I was ranked somewhere around #8400 in total listening, which was a little discouraging. But I'm proud to say that I'm now #3245 in just under a month. I'm ranked #252 among Oldies stations, which puts me toward the top of page 11. Twenty-seven people have assigned my station to one of their presets. I've had 149 listeners within the U.S., 29 from Canada, 10 from Germany, and 10 from Hong Kong! That's amazing. Marshall McLuhan, eat your heart out!
I'm sure the key to improving listenership on Live365 is twofold. One, keep the music fresh. Two, keep giving the people new reasons to listen by building in benchmarks. To take care of the first situation, I pull out my handy-dandy Joel Whitburn book once a week and add a few "new" songs. My 100-meg limitation is a good ceiling: it means I can rotate about three and a half hours of music without repeating any songs. (I'd like to play the top five songs of the week twice, but that's really difficult to manage without music scheduling software.) I don't expect anyone to listen for more than half an hour at a time; hopefully, next time they tune in, they'll catch a different half hour. To be safe, I completely shuffle the playlist once a week and try to spread out the secondary material.
Last week, I created several liners featuring audio clips from 1984 movies: Ghostbusters, The Terminator, Amadeus, and Police Academy. (If you can find me some audio from The Karate Kid, I'd really appreciate it!) Tonight, I added two new features: a news report and a new music spotlight. Ronald Reagan's nomination for re-election tops the news, and the new music spotlight features a hot new record by Chaka Khan called "I Feel for You." It's easy to make predictions about a song's success when you have 20-year hindsight.
It's still radio, and it's still easy to create good radio by applying a few basic principles. But what I find most fascinating about Live365 is the accountability factor. In terrestrial radio, some stations succeed despite doing many things badly; lack of competition, lingering heritage, and other factors can cause this phenomenon. Conversely, some stations fail despite doing everything right, and we never know all the factors involved. But Live365 keeps me updated on which songs in my playlist caused the most listeners to tune out. It's funny how it lines up with actual research I've seen; it seems there's a reason nobody plays "Eyes Without a Face" anymore! And some 1984 mid-charters, like "All of You" by Julio Iglesias and Diana Ross, are completely forgotten and do, indeed, cause tune-out today due to unfamiliarity.
So while internet radio captures more and more media attention, I'm already learning that it's still radio. But it's radio with far more opportunities for targeted marketing, and I'd love to get into it as a career. If you hear of any openings, let me know; in the meantime, I'll be grooming my Live365 station for more and more discerning listeners.