Tight Play Lists

[Garrett Wollman <wollman>]

<<On Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:21:32 EDT, Dib9@aol.com said:

> the ratings.  Stations with big libraries, playing more obscure songs, never
> does as well.  This is true today even with classical music.  Why is this?
> Because what people say they want and what they really want are two different
> things.

Not really.  What is closer to the truth is that people do in fact
want to hear lots of variety -- but a very /particular/ variety.  In
other words, there is a small core of tracks which are well-liked by
most people in a format's target demo, but for any title outside of
that intersection there are relatively few people who like it to the
same degree.  Imagine the standard diagram showing the primary colors
of light, with three overlapping circles and a small region in the
center where all three intersect.  That's what the listenership is
like.

- -GAWollman

- --
Garrett A. Wollman   | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wollman@lcs.mit.edu  | O Siem / The fires of freedom 
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA|                     - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick

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