KBIG however doesn’t focus on 80s titles unlike KOIT.
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B96 WBBM-FM Rhythmic Gold-Leaning Top 40?
- Thread starter Gregg.
- Start date
I wonder if these "surveys" are accurate or are they skewed by the consultants? Listeners don't want to hear (for example), Mariah Carey's, "One Sweet Day", but they want to hear the same Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna songs over and over? SMH. When research firms are finding these "focus groups", how exactly are they finding them? I have NEVER been asked to be a member of one, nor do I know anyone who has.
What purpose would consultants have to skew a survey for or against any artist? They don't get paid by artists or labels.
Conversely the artists or record labels do their own research promoting their own music. I see it every day.
I bring that up because it seems as if all of the same older songs are on repeat on various AC or Classic hits stations. I would understand if these were newer titles, but why would anyone want to hear the exact same songs day after day without any variation? Or is it just me?
Have you ever sat in a room watching fans of Harry Styles or Taylor Swift listen to their music collection? Same songs over and over. They never get tired.
Radio programmers don't expect listeners to listen to their stations 24/7. They program for 15-20 minute blocks. They adjust the songs so they don't show up in the same blocks at the same time every day. In that way, it sounds less repetitious. But the point is these are the absolute favorites that people want to hear.
This is just my opinion. I think B-96 should have stayed Rhythmic CHR. At least they would have had their own lane format wise. They wouldn't be GCI or Power 92 and they wouldn't be KISS either. That is the reason why they became heritage in the first place. 104.3 Jams was the dumbest thing Audacy could have done. The sports station, the Score should have been simulcasted on 104.3.
Its the Hungarian folk songs analogy. It's why McDonalds doesn't sell sushi.
But I am not speaking of newer titles. I am speaking of songs people have heard before. Songs from the 70's, 80's and 90's.
We are not looking at it the same way. If there is a format hole which listeners are wanting, you go for it. B-96 saw that hole and was successful. My point is, they forgot how they became heritage in the first place. I realize they aren't owned by CBS anymore and that plays a big role in how things were ran. But Audacy should have taken a hint from CBS' playbook. They started a whole other station which took away from a heritage brand. That made absolutely no sense.
Correct. Go to a shopping mall and play Sweet Home Alabama. I promise you that you will attract a crowd, and people will sing.
I can list 200 more songs like that. Put them together and you have something that a large number of people will listen to for a period of time. Then they'll go away. But when they come back, they'll hear more songs they like. Then they'll go away. Rinse & repeat.
Things change. So now they're Hot AC. Radio isn't in the music distribution business. If the format isn't working, you change.
The music business used to be more involved. They're not any more. Especially in classic formats.
Music tests (which are not "surveys") can cover as many as 1,200 songs for deep library formats like Jack. Many will not "pass the test" but no programmer is discarding songs based on personal preferences.
Consultants don't do music tests. They may recommend a research company, but they don't do the test. They may conference with the PD and station's company format specialist or national PD, but there is no place for "skewing" test results song by song.
Yes, that happens. Songs that were huge "back in the day" can be hot, medium or cold today. There is no predictability other than asking listeners a couple of times a year how much they want to hear the song today.
A "focus group" is not used to test music. A focus group is about 8 to 12 people who chat with a moderator about things like station perception, things they like or dislike in the morning show, and so on.
A music test, mostly done online, has about 100 people who are professionally recruited score "hooks" of between 300 and over 1,000 songs as to how much they'd like to hear the song today.
Recruiting is done by research recruiters who work locally to find people that the station and the research company have decided they want to have in the project. Generally, they are heavier station listeners, and inside the core target demos. They are balanced within that group for demographic, gender and even ethnic groups.
Depending on the market, a recruiter will be paid around $100 to $150 per person for recruiting, and each participant may get $80 to $200 to score the songs. A total test can cost $20,000 up to $35,000.
If you are in, let's say, LA, with 10 million people over age 18, a station may do a music test twice a year with 100 people each. You do the math. Your chances of being recruited by any station that does local testing are about once every 80 years or so.
By the way, I've done huge tests of over 400 people, and then extracted many sets of 100 at random. Once you get over 80 correctly recruited people, there is no gain in accuracy from adding more respondents as long as the recruiting is done correctly. But that 400 person test costs four times as much... almost $100,000 and no station can afford that if 100 or less yields the same results.
Formats, blends and imaging are not eternal. They big mistake CBS made was to stop updating years before the sale, so all their FMs were stale. KROQ is a good example.
It's just you.
There is a finite number of songs in any format that all listeners want to hear and few of them dislike. You can not make the mountain taller. You just approach it from different angles and perspectives each time.
One Sweet Day also plays on WLTW in New York and possibly plays on Soft AC stations too.
Part of the reason (this is a theory) that a lot of new songs on CHR is because it feels like possibly the record companies are "forcing" a sound that people aren't mostly interested in. 2017-2019 in general had more of a downtempo sound and starting around 2020 things started to "pick up," but not exactly in a natural evolution, as if the record companies may have been under pressure to deliver more uptempo hits, but a lot which did not resonate.
Speaking as an Oldies fan, I've been listening to and enjoying the same 50's, 60's and 70's songs for years; ever since the days they were played on 104.3, and now from web streams and my own music collection.
Who do you mean by "most people?" Because statistics show that music consumption has increased.
Consider yourself for a moment. Could someone force you to like something?
I am talking about music serviced to top 40 radio that has stalled, so music that does not resonate in large part with kind of a noticeably different sound than before (probably to try and "up" the tempo), so I am saying the overall sound that gets serviced in general does not produce many hits. That last is a good point, but I think a majority only gravitate to the bigger hits this decade (like Anti Hero.)
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Labels service all music. That means both the music that stalls, and the music that goes all the way to #1. So I don't think you can generalize about what labels do. You're trying to turn popular taste into something that can be manipulated, and it's obvious that it can't. People like what they like. They can't be forced into liking something, especially now with streaming. The songs that stall are just not as popular as the ones that go #1.
It has nothing to do with an "overall sound," because the music isn't made by the label. They just distribute and market it.