On radio programming
Most contemporary avenues of exposure for music are controlled by corporate advertisers. They choose music based on its ability to attract a very carefully defined demographic group as measured by focus group tests. This process works against originality which tends to provoke strong positive and negative reactions among listeners that are not related to their demographic group.
There is no question that people prefer music that they feel a strong emotional response to however this doesn’t serve the purposes of advertisers who want to control who will see their advertising.
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Radio never intentionally promoted records. They sell advertising and use music to attract listeners.
The problem is that since the ’90s advertisers have demanded that radio use music to sort people into the narrow demographic groups each sponsor wants to reach.
Years ago air play was based on local record sales. Today it’s based on focus group tests that eliminate anything that doesn’t make a good background music environment for the chosen group of folks the advertisers want to pitch their products to. For this reason commercial radio has become useless as a way of promoting new music.
Radio, unfortunately, is still our most successful means of exposure. This is the biggest single problem we need to crack.
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“Music is being used to sort consumers rather than to entertain people.”
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My understanding is that in many cases today, the label is dictating whose mix will be released as a promotional single.
The name of this game is making it sound right for the radio format they are trying to sell into.
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The main thing wrong with music today is the fact that radio airplay is no longer based on record sales which means effectively that the public no longer votes for what they want to hear. American Idol is proof that people still appreciate singing over just being an attractive model or dancer.
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There’s a complete disconnect between radio, fans and sales. The problem is that it does provide advertisers with something that looks good on paper.
This problem existed before the internet became popular.
The labels covered the shortfall with catalog sales.
Napster killed both the catalog sales and the small art-oriented labels.
The internet has been an utter failure at launching new artists for all the hype.
We’ve still got people saying what it’s going to do and its been over ten years at this point. “Potential” is the biggest lie in show business.”
Internet radio has real potential but only to the degree that it can make its self locally relevant and not simply be a streaming CD player on shuffle.
It is the future but advertising-driven business models will have the same problem as over the air radio, i.e. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
I think there needs to be a connection between actual music sales and the play-list for radio to have its amplifying effect.
It would be very interesting if somebody started playing the top 40 sellers in the i-tunes store.
It’s a half century old model of broadcast programming yet I’ll bet it would catch fire again in a heartbeat.
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Back then there were ways to promote an artist regionally, get some records moving in the stores and eventually “force” it onto the radio which would amplify the exposure.
Today the first 15 seconds of your first single needs to smell right to a focus group and if they don’t buy it, you get dropped.
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It hasn’t anything to do with what the audience wants. It’s all about what corporate broadcast advertisers want and the fact that there is no alternative way left to break new artists.
Greed indeed but the majors are largely reacting to the overwhelming greed that has been found in the world of retail, broadcast and local venues over the past twenty years. I know somebody at a major has told each of us that our baby was ugly but folks really need to get over it and start calling out the actual greed that is stifling music.
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Artists don’t get anything from U.S. radio but many a songwriter has bought a house with the radio royalties from one hit single.
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Music has made an important shift in people’s lives from ART to Function
I think that’s painting music into a box. People like to have background music around that they can identify with as being part of a particular genres’ audience. It makes a statement about who they are.
This is a totally separate thing from enjoying music as entertainment.
Unfortunately broadcasting panders to the former use of music rather than the latter.
What people actually like probably hasn’t shifted in the slightest.
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Originally posted by Swamp Boy
Why do producers and engineers in Nashville overly sweeten everything to the point where nothing sounds “real”…
Because that’s what it takes to make 10 people in a conference room think that a new recording “fits” well enough to sort consumers into the demographic group their station is pitching ads to. Radio isn’t about entertaining people with music, it’s about selling them new cars that look like trucks. Even worse, it’s about providing the folks who sell the “trucks” with a paper trail that proves they’ve reached “the right people” so that their asses are covered in case nobody wants to buy any of their “trucks.”
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Below added 17.5.2010
Originally Posted by frobass View Post
…Which brings me to the real problems…….The big ‘Group Heads’ or radio groups, have so over evaluated and over sold their properties, that it is no longer finacially feasable or expedient to break an unknown without certain, expensive, standards met.
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I think it’s fair to say that too many folks got greedy and killed the goose that laid the musical golden egg.
That said, there has been one very promising development!
Radio advertising sales are down, way down and big time. The big owners are in over their heads and may drown before its all over unless they change their focus.
This could lead to a return to local advertisers who want stations to attract a large diverse audience once again rather than the national advertising micro marketing feeding frenzy that led us to focus group driven programming that was closed to anything that doesn’t sound like yesteryear.
