Question about burn/rotation/turnover.

[nocternal_freek]

Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long do you keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it 2 years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?

I realize it's almost always track-dependent and on how much that particular track has burned. But....2 years with that kind of turnover? It's just irking me and I'm wondering if I'm all alone on this island.....

 

[KMRichards]

> Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long do you
> keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it 2
> years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?
>
> I realize it's almost always track-dependent and on how much
> that particular track has burned. But....2 years with that
> kind of turnover? It's just irking me and I'm wondering if
> I'm all alone on this island.....

You're not alone. Two years is way too long for any song to be a recurrent. I wouldn't go more than nine months on the outside before moving the song to a "power gold" category, with a two or three day turnover.

But that's just me.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>

 

[scottm1025]

Do you use any music research (like Mediabase)?

I don't think there's a certain drop dead date to move a song from one category to another. You spin it until there's a better song to replace it.. I would restrict my power recurrents to a specific number of songs. By using research to determine the top recurrents, songs move in and out of that category fairly regularly. Obviously some have longer staying power than others.


> > Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long do
> you
> > keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it 2
> > years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?
> >
> > I realize it's almost always track-dependent and on how
> much
> > that particular track has burned. But....2 years with
> that
> > kind of turnover? It's just irking me and I'm wondering
> if
> > I'm all alone on this island.....
>
> You're not alone. Two years is way too long for any song to
> be a recurrent. I wouldn't go more than nine months on the
> outside before moving the song to a "power gold" category,
> with a two or three day turnover.
>
> But that's just me.
>

 

[DavidEduardo]

> > Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long do
> you
> > keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it 2
> > years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?
> >
> > I realize it's almost always track-dependent and on how
> much
> > that particular track has burned. But....2 years with
> that
> > kind of turnover? It's just irking me and I'm wondering
> if
> > I'm all alone on this island.....
>
> You're not alone. Two years is way too long for any song to
> be a recurrent. I wouldn't go more than nine months on the
> outside before moving the song to a "power gold" category,
> with a two or three day turnover.
>
> But that's just me.

Among other items, some anatomical, we all have opinions. And that points out that there is no single right way to do radio.

If a station has callout, it is easy to go by the passion score (love in some systems) to know if a song has legs still and does not have burn. In that case, time may not be as relevant as score, but you do want to avoid stale songs, even if they score, being to heavy a part of the hour.

That said, KLVE in LA, an AC, had a song in power for 14 months... because it was the top song in call out for that long.

No call out? Do street surveys. Don't use requests, as that is only active listeners and they may not even be half your listeners.

 

[radiospasm]

> > > Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long do
> > you
> > > keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it 2
> > > years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?

Many years ago I was given a formula to use to figure out (generally) how many spins you should give a song each week, depending on how often you want your P1's to hear the song.

The formula was P1 Cume/P1 AQH x 3.29 = number for three exposures/wk.

So, depending on market size say you had a Cume of 250 and AQH of 35:

250/35 = 7.14 X 3.29 = 23 (approx.) - Multiple by 2 for 6 exposures/wk. = 46

Like anything else, it's not a perfect formulation, but it's a good general rule that I've tested in a few different cases, and it came out about right.

Anyone else have any "rules" like this to figure out weekly exposure?

As David Eduardo said: Person-to-person research is always a great monitor as well.

 

[DavidEduardo]

> > > > Here's my dilemma. I'm with a CHR format. How long
> do
> > > you
> > > > keep a HOT song as a heavy recurrent? Do you keep it
> 2
> > > > years with a turnover of 6-7 hours?
>
> Many years ago I was given a formula to use to figure out
> (generally) how many spins you should give a song each week,
> depending on how often you want your P1's to hear the song.
>
> The formula was P1 Cume/P1 AQH x 3.29 = number for three
> exposures/wk.
>
> So, depending on market size say you had a Cume of 250 and
> AQH of 35:
>
> 250/35 = 7.14 X 3.29 = 23 (approx.) - Multiple by 2 for 6
> exposures/wk. = 46
>
> Like anything else, it's not a perfect formulation, but it's
> a good general rule that I've tested in a few different
> cases, and it came out about right.
>
> Anyone else have any "rules" like this to figure out weekly
> exposure?
>
> As David Eduardo said: Person-to-person research is always a
> great monitor as well.

There are a couple of considerations I would keep in mind.

First, horizontal and vertical rotations. If your scheduler is not really fine tuned to create good rotation patterns... the listeners will hear different songs at different levels of repetition. I sometimes find stations I visit using thier scheduler as a lister instead of a schedule optimizer and this is often lack of either training or the fairly intense work needed to get every song in every category to get equal daypart and even hour exposure as it cycles through is scheduling.

Second is to realize that the P1s will hear everything a lot more often. In one station I did the math on recently, the difference between P1s and P2s was considerable... 15 to 18 hours was the range for 80% of the P1s... and around 5 to 6 hours for P2s. So the P1s may burn on a song, while the P2s are not hearing it very often. Obviously, this is a programming philosophy issue where you have toconsider whether you can convert P2s, and would be different for every station and format. I like to make sure that the power categories (whether it is an oldies or current based station) have songs that have decent if not parity appeal with both groups. Even if you don`t do AMTs or call out, street surveys can add the question of ¨how many hours a week do you listen¨ to get an idea of where the two groups are synchronized. Of course,t hen there are the songs the P1s love and the P2s hate... and they may be the very songs that bring thye P1s to the station.

If it were easy, we would not have jobs.

 

[radiospasm]

> If it were easy, we would not have jobs.

Bingo! The hardest part, depending on your station's specific situation, is finding that "happy medium" to try and convert P2's into P1's. This is the challenge that makes us all love our jobs!