Who programs your music, and are the library and rotations the best they can be? Market-leading stations have the most precise music library and scheduling, the top personalities, and the best positioning, marketing, and format execution. A tight, well-researched music list, careful music software programming, and formatic basics are essential. Programmers are challenged to create a station that listeners love and advertisers want to use to sell their products and services.
Programming the Hits
Today’s Program Director is a Product and Marketing Manager involved in many management and strategic areas. The PD specializes in product development and execution, manages corporate requirements, contributes to the station’s service orientation, and anticipates staff, audience, and client needs. For FM music stations, music scheduling must be cutting-edge and perfect.
Music is to a station like food is to a restaurant. If a restaurant serves a bad meal, people won’t return, even with a nice atmosphere, convenient parking, and a capable wait staff. Music must be loved by the target audience and thus well-researched. There are rules governing music selection.
Music Rule #1: Play the hits. This is the foundation of music-oriented stations. Most formats don’t allow for playing unfamiliar tertiary songs. When listeners tune in to the station, they expect to hear a hit, not a “stiff.” In research studies, the number one reason a listener tunes to a music FM is to listen to their favorite songs.
Insist that your radio station plays the best songs for the target audience. Music should be precisely focused on the station’s demographic and core audience. It complements the overall sound and is carefully scheduled. Music selection is delicately handled. Stations rely on song research to choose the hits they play. Playing the best songs works like glue on paper – it acts like adhesion to keep listeners tuned in and gets them to tune back for many listening occasions. Playing a bad song will drive listeners away.
#2: Play the best songs. This is a far better philosophy than playing a wide variety of songs. Stations that play a tight list of proven hits achieve higher ratings. While listeners in focus groups say they want to hear a wide variety, they actually mean “a wide variety of my favorite songs.” Quality is more important than quantity. When you play a quantity package like “12 in a row” or “40 minutes nonstop,” they expect to hear the hits with no “misses.” Quality trumps quantity.
#3: Music is why they come. Hearing the hits is “instant gratification” to the partisan since music is the single most important factor for a listener when choosing a favorite station. Design your clocks so every quarter hour has a good representation of the listener’s favorite songs, Powers, and Secondaries. Ideally, at least every other song should be a top-researched Power.
#4: Play Power Currents often. These are favorite songs in contemporary music formats like Top 40, Alternative, Rock, Hot AC, and Country. Where does a Power Current go after it drops out of the top 5 currents in popularity? Some stations move them back into the Medium rotation while others immediately put them in Recurrent status, but there is a problem. These “Post Powers” are very popular and deserve more airplay. We recommend creating a Post Power category.
Research says these songs are much more valuable than a normal Medium or Recurrent and test far better. The songs in a Post Power category have a higher turnover than Recurrents to keep these Post Powers heard – and they are played often. Then, when appropriate, move them to Recurrent status when another Power Current moves into Post Power.
Music scheduling is a science. Perfecting it on your station will result in gaining more listeners and higher ratings.
Pic by Freepik.com.
John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming consulting firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. Did you find this article useful? You can leave a comment below or email John at John@Lundradio.com.