RE: Re: Playlists of Oldies er... Super Hits Stations

["Larry Lovering" <larry.lovering@cox.net>]

From: SteveOrdinetz
> Subject: RE: Re: Playlists of Oldies er... Super Hits Stations
>
>
> With a library that large, there have to be a lot of clinkers in
> there.  I'm not sure I understand why it's even particularly desirable or
> necessary to go a week without a repeat.  Most people listen at fairly
> predictable and regular times from one day to the next...it's
> unlikely that
> anyone who's listening at 3pm will also be listening at 3am...you're
> wasting your library by not recycling.  Also, a better way to acheive
> variety is to divide your library into categories, with your more popular
> songs ("powers"} coming up more often, as this is what most
> people want to
> hear.  Have medium and lighter rotations categories that come up less
> often, and use your deeper cuts sparingly.
>
> It makes no sense to play something obscure like "Live" by the Merry Go
> Round just as often as "Pretty Woman"...even if it's just on a webcast.
>
> (can you tell I've done this for a living?)
>
It's amazing to me how some of my listeners react to the songs that would be
hard to get on Little Walter.  Particularly the doo-wop songs; since I
measure my total listeners in tens, two emails for the same song was amazing
to me ("Whoo-Hoo" by the Rock A Teens).  There is an audience for the 60s
music and the 70s music, which I am discovering is interesting.  I also play
a lot of R&B and British Top 40, as there is quite an international audience
(almost 9% is from Europe).  And I've received some reports who liked the
Englebert Humperdinck and the Glen Campbell songs, some of which didn't
chart high on the Pop charts but did on the Easy Listening charts.

With reports, I can see when the peak of listeners are; an early morning
peak is late night US and early morning Europe.  Another peak is 10 to 2,
people at home and some people at work, plus early evening Europe.  Then
another from 7 to 11 pm or so, primarily US and Canada.  Although over 600
people set my station as a preset with Live365, I've never had more than 10
people at the same time listening.  It's a labor of love, like the minimum
wage job I had at my first radio station (only I didn't have to pay them for
me to work!).

I did program back in the days when playlists were loose and radio was
local.  I now use a tool that my streaming provider has to see what songs
the listeners are tuning out on (don't you wish you had this for live
radio?), so I've eliminated some consistent clinkers.  The 84 hour rotation,
soon to be more, will rotate the music around the clock with the ultimate
aim that for any four hour period, it will take seven days to repeat the
music in that daypart.  In a sense a new show every day.  Keeping the
playlists tight to the minute means that when the playlist begins over
again, that the hourly and half hour breaks are relatively where they are
supposed to be.  For most top of the hour IDs, a power song, from a list of
perhaps 200, will begin the hour.  That could be from the 50s to the 70s.

Gauging also from email, the Eastern European countries listen in
frequently, though not for long periods of time, those countries show
consistently in reception logs for TLH's of 20 to 40 minutes.  I'm glad I'm
not selling anything!

So, its not supposed to be a radio replacement, in a sense the broad
playlist is a niche in Internet Radio.  I'm only glad that listeners have
fun and hear one or two songs that really bring back a memory.

-Larry
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.southstation.org
AIM: lloverin55
Listen to the rare hits of the 50s, 60s and 70s on the Hits of Yesterday at
www.southstation.org/hitradio or www.live365.com/stations/lloverin