I have recently starting listening to the radio during work to have some background noise and to drown out the construction going on outside. I do appriacate that the radio has a set playlist and have to play popluar music more often untill the masses become so sick of it that they puck…my rage begins when while trying to liaten to music during my lunch brake during the raidio stations all reguest lunch, why the fuck these morons keep calling in to request the same songs that were on 4 times already during the morning, i mean request a song you haven’t heard in a while, or that song you and you girl with had sexy to,, anything…. fuck if you wanna hear the latest trake so bad just wait 10 min.
This article appears in May 1-7, 2008.
ooooo agreed. i to get the privilage to listen to the radio at my desk.. every day.. the same 10 songs, play over and over and over.. i guess the radio isnt ment to be listened to for 10 hours straight!
Radio gets tiresome after a bit. I created an account on Playlist.com a little while ago..you search by artist and add the songs you like..you can even create multiple playlists according to genre if you’re anal like me. :)I don’t bother with my radio much anymore.. It’s just sitting here collecting dust.
“or that song you and you girl with had sexy to,,”Borat….is that you?!?!?!?!?!
Funny, this was my profession back in ontario. Them “all-requests” are sort of a hoax. What they do to compile them is record you as you call and request a song they already had listed in a pre determined playlist. The music director for each station is the person that picks the entire days music rotation. The songs are caterogized by popularity and the songs that fall into category A are the songs that you are more likely to hear during this hour. Knowing that songs are in Category A, some lil tart is bound to ask for it. For Example, if Souljah Boy was currently in the top five, some kid was bound to call and ask for it. If you want some obscure shit by the same artist, they will give you some answer like, “we will try to get that out there for you”. They say that and hope you actually listen and call next time with a song that they were hoping you would request for.It’s a shitty scam radio people do to keep listeners, but with the inception of the iPods and the internet and shit like that, radio is a dying breed. Sattelite radio doesnt need to do shit like this as they arent sponsor driven. Radio needs to pulll shit like this to get listeners, and they show this shit to advertisers, and pump up the price of ads during that show.
Interesting and informative Homie… But I am wondering what is behind the radio stations that seem to play and replay the same “classic songs” over and over and over again… Example, in the past few weeks, I have heard “Signs” (5-Man E-Band), “This Flight Tonight” (Naz), and Lakeside Park (Rush) each 5-10 times on 89.9 All of them are great tunes to hear once in a while, but I am so sick of them now, they are ruined for me… That is not what classic rock is about… There are literally thousands of tunes they could choose from, and its not about what is new and hot, so why alienate your audience this way??? I just don’t get the raitionale behind this but there must be some reason… are they catering to what they think is the lowest common denominator or are they just lazy??? Maybe Homie, you or another radio insider could explain this to me cause I would really like to know… Thanks…
i am really not sure as to the classic rock thing. I worked for a top 40 station in ontario. I do know that the cetergorizing of songs is done in that genre of station to, and i am guessing that the music director of that station seems to have a preferance to a certain chunk of songs. Songs in category A get played X amount of times, and as the category gets further away from A, the song gets played less per day/week. Now i forget the name of the program, but there is a thing that some radio stations use. It pregenerates a playlist of songs that the music director likes. Now if the station still uses technology that allows for manual programming, the paticular on air person/ or booth guy ( i am unsure of the set ups at the stations here) has a list of the songs that fall in each category. Sometimes they use the check mark system and each song is allowed certain amount of checkmarks to indicate amount of play and have to meet a certain quota per song. The other thing you might want to do, is call the station. Music Directors tend to pretend they are busier than they are…… but call him/her. Ask them to list 3-5 of thier favorite bands of all time. You might see a connection between that list they give you and the same rotation of shit that band spews out. a certain newer top 40 station has a certain mixshow dj that play FAR more house/techno/dance music than urban pop. No suprise that when you hear him in the clubs, that same music director/mis show dj, only plays house and tecnho and dance. Which is lame, since top encompasses R&B, hiphop and reggae
I also work radio. The deal is that the Requesters are all recorded, then the ones that are approved get played, so when you hear a guy requesting a song, it is a recording from the phone from 5 minutes up to an hour ago.
of course you know that isnt the exact method used at a variety of stations. The variations is the serarch for the request that suits the playlist, and im many cases is stored to suit the needs of the PD’s playlist.Now in your case Adam, do you already have a pre arrange list for your all request show and you know the A category songs are going to come up so you keep the ones that the correspond, or do you actually manually program the music during your request show? Do you have any guidelines, or do you really just play any request?Actually come to think of it Floyd, now that i am thinking back to my past, you know the way i described to you the all reaquest thing, where they know you are going to request shit they already were going to play, that is only with the top 40, and dance genre. They did have a manual entry thing at CFNY (the edge) in toronto and a manual at CHFI in toronto as well, and one plays alternative and the other was adult contemp….. i will look into how widespread what i desribed is in other musical genres.
i dont think it’s a ‘scam’ as you say. my coworkers and i had a ritual where every day when we did our opening tasks, we would argue while we worked, about the song we would love to hear but hadnt heard in a long time. it resulted in about a 20 minute debate, so by the time we were open, we were ready to call it in so we could listen to it while we waited for the rush. they played it every time, no matter how obscure. so does that mean we just happened to always guess the song they were going to play anyway? the music director woke up one day and decided he wanted to hear ‘Camel-Toe’, at the exact same time of day that i wanted to hear ‘Camel-Toe’? or SKEE-LO? or Weird Al? not very likely
in the case of stations that have “all request oldies” or retro shows. They are done in the sense that Duct Tape Adam has described. All requests are loaded in. Now in your case, that song will be assigned a check mark and played. However “I wish i was a little bit taller” by Skee-Lo is a song that is assigned a Catergory A rating in the retro dance/urban rating system. It would be more likely to get played than another of Skee-Lo’s hits. Did you request some other obscure song by Skee-lo? I doubt it, So did you play into thier hands? Yes. Try calling and asking for any other song by him.
and when i say “skee lo’s other hits”, you know he had none. I actually cant recall any song other than that one song by him. That is odd, because i was a dj that played urban music. Many one hit wonders, i could name and hum another song by them…. but in skee lo’s case, i have no clue what was on the other side of the “I wish”. To clarify what i meant loaded in, is that the songs are manually plucked from the library. Like was said, all requests are recorded. Songs that are from Category A are the ones that usually make it to air. That is why your request likely made it to air.
Mine was country, we play what they ask for, but you gotta remember, we all play the same songs all the time, so we dropped the people who want to hear something different most of the time anyway. We won’t play ‘Whiskey Lullably for Jim dedicated to his dead wife’ anymore cause he requests is every damn day, but i’d say that main stream to obscure requests is about 60-40. Bitcher gotta remember that people who don’t like that repetetive shit bail on the station. Usually.’Obscure’ to a caller usually also means ‘used to be a hit’. Radio stations hard drives are GINORMOUS. I type Jamiroquai and I get both songs people request. Easy Peasy.
was the rest of your day pre programmed on a comp by your station director? I am speaking of the stations i worked for back home. Apparentley what i spoke of is standard practice on these top 40 mainstream shows. I didnt really know if that was standard practice on single genre’d stations. Adam, do you know if this is common practice at all stations here? I know the new station here does it the way i depicted. This is interesting.
Well my station’s music director was more like a ‘Music de-bugger’, head office gave his what songs to play in the A, he just juggled the B list and made sure the CanCon was cosher.I doubt there is a “Standard” between genres. The only “Standards” there are in radio are the CRTC, and the fact that radio stations are largely owned by 3 or 4 companies. Rogers, MBS & Newcap out here, isn’t it?Props to Port Hawkesbury for being Independantly owned!
Even though the main 3-4 companies are in ownership of the majority of the stations, the dance, top 40 and the club music stations, all used the same format i described. I am guessing that is cheaper to do. I mean it isnt hard to type the song listing in, but this way the MD is in charge of so much more. When you combine that most of the stations in that genre have these mix shows and LIVE TO AIRS, you really need to have more control of what is played other than them shows. Evanov group/ corporation owns the new one and it is good to see them do well as they have to tackled the CanWest and Rogers of the world. I do know that the “all request” thing in the top 40 genre is pretty much the standard as i depicted it, of course there is exceptions. The best is when they try to tell you some excuse, but do not know that you are in the business.