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MUSIC SCHEDULING Q&A – HOW TO BUILD YOUR SONG CATEGORIES?

September 20, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
How many songs per category create perfect song rotations? The mind-boggling formulas behind ratings-increasing turnovers (with category rotation visuals).
Thank you for your positive response to our first music scheduling Q&A, which led to a follow-up question: how many songs create perfect song rotations and ideal category turnovers? Ideas & insights to determine the right number of songs for a certain amount of slots per hour, including practical examples to see which combinations work best.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Flexible categories, based on reliable mathematics, may be the way to go (image: Thomas Giger)

We’re gonna start this music scheduling Q&A with a question from Dieter via email:
Hey Thomas!
I came across a couple of your articles where you mention splitting your secondary category into two — Secondary Up and Secondary Down. How many songs do you have in each of those categories? Just curious, as I currently run one secondary category.

SPREAD YOUR SONGS CONSISTENTLY

Thanks for your question! First a recap on why to use two ‘secondary current’ groups. Separating your ‘less familiar, but fresh’ currents (growing in popularity) from ‘more familiar, but tired’ currents (decreasing in popularity) lets you balance your current music exposure. For a consistent on-air product, you do not want one hour with mainly ‘hits on their way up’ followed by another hour full of ‘hits on their way down’; rather an equal ratio of both, since your highest-rotating categories (your power & secondary currents) create a big part of your music images and listener expectations.
Splitting secondary currents makes scheduling specialist shows like ‘new music hours’, for which you may only utilise Current Secondary Up and New Music (leaving out your Current Secondary Down and Current Power) categories, easy. However, that will affect the rotation patterns for categories that are now more often (and for categories that are now less often) exposed than normal. For perfect song rotations, use the same category ratios in each and every hour, or program your new music show every day — using a consistent music format clock for it.

OPTIMISE YOUR CATEGORY SEGUES

Furthermore, defining secondary currents as ‘ups’ versus ‘downs’ helps you improve your category segues. For a current-based format, which sequence feels better? Current Secondary Down; Recurrent Secondary; Current Power, or Current Secondary Up; Recurrent Secondary; Current Power? The first option schedules two ‘tired’ songs back to back, because a Current Secondary Down is an early Recurrent (even if it may not actually make it to Recurrents after its current hit cycle), while the second one juxtaposes a more ‘fresh’ song in front of a relatively ‘tired’ song.
You can’t always avoid that a Current Secondary Down is followed by a Recurrent; you may have to make a compromise when designing your format clocks, like I did when creating 12 CHR Music Format Clocks You Can Adjust & Apply Today. But you can often control what kind of a Recurrent it is. As you’ll see in the example clock, there’s one position per hour where a Current Secondary Down is positioned next to a Recurrent, but it’s a Recurrent Power — not a Secondary — so there’s a good chance your audience loves hearing this ‘popular hit from a while ago’ again.

EVOLVE YOUR MUSIC CATEGORIES

How many songs should be in Current Secondary Up vs. Down depends on your category policy. One approach is a numerus fixus (like always having an X number of power currents in rotation) with a downside: rotation patterns will never change, and you may not always find X really strong songs). Another method is a flexible volume per category, which has a downside as well: your ‘hit factor’ per hour may vary. One week you’ll play X; another week Y currents an hour (as you adjust your format clocks to your number of songs/category and matching number of slots/hour).
Therefore, I believe in the best of both worlds: combining flexible categories with reliable mathematics. Because the rotation pattern for fast-repeating categories like current hits could quickly become predictable for (thus potentially more repetitive to) your P1 core audience, you should be free to make weekly changes to current music categories by adding and (re)moving titles, without being stuck to a fixed number of songs per category, but also without being random. We’ll therefore share ground rules for ‘category calculating’ based on the following practical examples:
Bonus:

Download song rotation examples from this article (Apple Numbers, original)
Download song rotation examples from this article (Microsoft Excel)
Download song rotation examples from this article (PDF)

(available soon)

NOT ONLY YOUR DAY-TO-DAY ROTATION IS ESSENTIAL

To fix week-to-week rotation pattern repetition, you can use the ‘kick trick’ (image: Thomas Giger)

This example is based on a question from Armando in an article comment:
Thomas,
I really enjoyed your article on CHR format clocks. The bulk of my work experience has been in the Urban AC and Urban (Hip Hop) format in the USA. I wanted to know how many songs do you suggest in the other categories outside of Power Current for which you recommended 7.

Current New
Current Secondary Up
Current Power
Current Secondary Down
Current Stay
Recurrent Power
Recurrent Secondary

CONSIDER YOUR FORMAT CLOCKS

Thank you for your question! A solid answer needs a strong foundation, starting with the ‘even-odd rule’. An odd number of slots per hour usually calls for an even number of songs per category (and vice versa) for a desireable rotation pattern. When you have 5 Power Current (‘A’) slots an hour, 6 ‘A’ titles in rotation would let each one ‘jump’ 1 slot ahead, every time it’s being played, cycling each track through all other ‘A’ slots before it appears at the same play location in your format clock. Unfortunately, this happens in every 6th hour — a caveat, as we’ll see in a minute.
When your number of slots per hour and your number of songs per category are both even or both odd, it will often lead to inefficient scheduling. For example, if you would have 4 ‘A’ slots an hour (like one per quarter) in your format clock and 6 titles in ‘A’ rotation, then, for starters, each title would only touch 2 out of 4 play positions. But 4 ‘A’ slots an hour with only 5 ‘A’ songs in rotation lets you achieve an efficient song spread where each song plays in every other slot before returning to the same position (in every 5th hour — perfect, as we’ll see). But the even-odd rule is not everything.

MIND YOUR CATEGORY TURNOVER

The turnover of your (fast-repeating) categories should NOT be multipliable to the number of hours a day, because while rotations of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours (or certain multiplications of those, such as 3 x 12 = 36 hours) are beautiful round numbers, they can lead to repetitive rotation patterns. Category turnovers of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours cause every song to play in the exact same slots, at the exact same times, day after day (until you replace those songs). Multiplications exceeding 24 hours are a bit less predictable, but will still cause inefficient song placement.
You therefore want to make sure that your category turnover times are uneven numbers that cannot be multiplied to 24. So what are the first options that come to mind? They are, indeed, 5 and 7 hours (the first ones fitting in between the ‘non-ideal rotation’ list of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours). If you need a shorter rotation than 5 or 7 hours, like when you program a current-based music format, you can divide those numbers by a factor 2. For example: 5 / 2 = 2.5 hours, and even 2.5 / 2 = 1.25 hours (because 24 / 2.5 = 9.6 hours, and 24 / 1.25 = 19.2 hours).

FINE-TUNE YOUR CLOCK GRID

Not only your day-to-day rotation is essential; also your week-to-week repetition matters. When you rotate 7 ‘A’ songs through 5 ‘A’ slots per hour, you get a perfect pattern where all songs are amazingly spread out, playing in every slot of every day. However, this happens after precisely 7 days, causing this complete song placement pattern to repeat week after week, in other words: every song would constantly play on the exact same location as during the week before! Luckily, there are several different, easy-to-apply solutions.
Refreshing (a part of) your ‘A’ list every week is not enough. You should use the ‘kick’ function (in your music scheduling software) to, for example, ignore the ‘A’ song that would be scheduled in the first ‘A’ slot right after midnight (night from Sunday to Monday) starting with the second ‘A’ song in line instead. Another option is to use a different grid for your format clocks from week to week, as shown in the article about CHR format clocks. When you apply both methods together, make sure they don’t work against each other; check your rotation patterns.

In the next Music Scheduling Q&A, we’ll share additional principles, and a complete category setup for:

Current New
Current Secondary Up
Current Power
Current Secondary Down
Current Stay
Recurrent Power
Recurrent Secondary

Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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BBC RADIO 2 MD JEFF SMITH: “WE’RE NOT WAITING FOR RECORDS TO BURN”

September 10, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
An adult music format playing unfamiliar classics and breaking new songs; even taking currents off after they became hits. Does that work?
Seems like it does for BBC Radio 2, looking at their reach of 15 million. Where some Adult Contemporary stations only add a record after it’s peaked in Top 40, chances are that Radio 2 has dropped it weeks before to replace it by another highlight. At Radiodays Europe 2017, Head of Music Jeff Smith shared how they curate the playlist. And why they sometimes play a forgotten song from the past. “There are a lot of things that are part of the secret sauce.”

“WE NEEDED TO FIND A NEW DIMENSION IN POP”

BBC Radio 2 supported UK Country artists like The Shires and Ward Thomas, partly because there was a lack of suitable mainstream Pop for the station (images: Anthony D’Angio, Sony Music)

KEEP YOUR BROAD APPEAL

The playlist is an important programming tool for BBC Radio 2, which has certain music quota attached to its broadcast license. The station is required to include 20% new music. According to Smith, they deliver about 26%. He specifies that 76% of that comes from UK artists, indicating it is “another big thing for the BBC” to adhere to. Radio 2 plays about 2 to 3; sometimes 4 currents an hour, which he thinks fits the station. “Our audience is far from dead; we’ve got an average age around 52.” As a Full Service with a broad range, they play some crossover songs that fit the format. “That Katy Perryrecord is a fantastic record”, he says, pointing to the single cover of Chained To The Rhythm. “It will stand the test in 20 years time. They want to hear that to be relevant to their kids.”

CHOOSE YOUR ADDS CAREFULLY

The door of BBC Radio 2’s music team seems to be very open for everyone. “Producers of playlist-using programs and specialist programs come and visit us from time to time, and advise us about music.” While the station receives a great deal of material every week, only a fraction makes it to the BBC Radio 2 playlist: “We have a choice of between 50 and 100 records, of which 5 go on.” To decide which are the happy few, they have a playlist committee of about 12 to 15 people, chaired by him as the station’s Head of Music. During the 1.5 hour music meeting, they only listen to a handful of songs. “I expect them to have heard the music beforehand, and select the songs they want to champion; to really pound the table that they want this record on the playlist.”

DIFFERENTIATE YOUR MUSIC IMAGE

Former lead acts of BBC Radio 1, such as Robbie Williams, have become core artists of Radio 2 over the years, while others, like Ed Sheeran or Emeli Sandé, are played by both. “But”, he adds, “we’ve got distinct, individual things we’ve made by ourselves. There was not a lot of music coming to us a few years ago which was dedicated for Radio 2, other than very soft; very mellow ‘super AC’. We needed to find a new dimension in Pop. That’s part of the reason why we have embraced UK Country. The Shires and Ward Thomas are great stories about UK artists breaking through due to Radio 2’s core support.”

“THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER GOOD RECORD COMING ALONG”

BBC Radio 2 is not doing research nor following charts to determine which singles or album tracks they’re removing from or adding to their playlist (images: Asylum Records, Atlantic Records)

SUPPORT YOUR LONG-TERM TALENTS

Gavin James is one of the station’s Pop artists of today. Jeff Smith calls I Don’t Know Why (an A lister in March 2017) as “an incredible accessible Pop song” that “sounds contemporary” and is “one of those great radio records”. A “current core” act for BBC Radio 2 is James Blunt (“a smart guy, who reinvents himself all the time”), and in the Country realm, Maren Moris is in power rotation with My Church. “What I like to do, particularly when they get to an A list status, is have a discussion with the label about where the music is going. I’ve never seen the point of supporting an artist for one track, like I’ve never seen the point of playing a record once. When you get behind an artist, you get behind an artist.” The station has therefore played a few different Maren Moris songs so far.

WIDEN YOUR ARTIST SPECTRUM

It looks like BBC Radio 2 chooses to play some unusual artists, if their songs fit the format. Adding Something Just Like This was something he didn’t see coming, even though it’s featuring Coldplay. “We have never played The Chainsmokersbeforehand — but I wouldn’t say we wouldn’t, because songs like Paris will come through to be something like a Radio 2 record in the future.” A surprising name on that week’s B list (of current records) is Deep Purple, which celebrates it 50th anniversary in 2018. He thinks that the band’s recent album is a particularly good one. “One of the areas [where] we do get quite rightly criticised on a little bit at the moment is Rock.” It was one of their reasons to represent the “iconic” Rock of the British band. “It works within the mix.”

FEATURE YOUR TOP ALBUMS

At the moment of the session, Shape Of You is already a big hit for Ed Sheeran, but he’s not on BBC Radio 2’s current A list. Instead, they went with Galway Girl for the B list. “We’re on and off, and faster than anybody else”, the music director says about how they’re dealing with current songs; a refreshing approach for an Adult Contemporary centred radio station. “There’s always another good record coming along for us, because we don’t test [songs]. Because we’re not waiting for records to burn, we got rid of Castle On The Hill and Shape Of You two or three weeks ago.” He considers ÷ to be a “very strong” album, and therefore likes to play all great songs from an album that fit the format, rather than just a few. “Galway Girl clearly is working for the audience. It’s a really good, contemporary Radio 2 record.”

“IT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE THAT UPLIFTING VIBE”

BBC Radio 2 plays upbeat music in The Chris Evans Breakfast Show (image: Radiodays Europe)

MAINTAIN YOUR STATION TEMPO

The BBC Radio 2 playlist is completed by a C category of low-rotation currents, which will get about 3 to 5 plays a week. “Father John Misty is an interesting experiment for us”, Smith says. While comparing the album Pure Comedy, from which they play the Ballad Of The Dying Man to Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, he does realise that you will usually want to avoid playing a ballad on high rotation, unless it’s a huge record. “We think it will really work for our audience, but it’s quite a slow record; hard to play an awful lot.” The C list also reflects the musical breadth & depth of the station (as we’ve seen in part 1 of this article), with London Grammar’s Big Picture right next to Sailing by Vera Lynn, who then just recently celebrated her 100th birthday.

INCREASE YOUR MORNING PACE

Speaking of tempo, how important is it to play mostly upbeat songs during morning hours, especially because BBC Radio 2 morning host Chris Evans has an energetic style of presenting? “It’s one of the discussions we’ve had with Chris when he started the Breakfast Show; he wanted to play that kind of music. We were saying that within Radio 2, we want to play a broad mix. But even for people who love laid-back music, this time of day is the most challenging to do that. There is an excuse with Pause For Thought at 9.15 every morning, where we sometimes can come out with a slow record. But on the whole, it’s important to have that uplifting vibe for the show.”

SELL YOUR UNFAMILIAR SONGS

Certain songs will also be played for certain occasions, like Skee-Lo’s I Wish and Bob & Earl’s Harlem Shuffle on a day when the show got a visit from the Harlem Globetrotters. Other songs, such as C+C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat, are there from the idea to bring back 90s songs that people haven’t heard on the station for some time, hoping to attract a 30+ demographic. The music director is happy to work with presenters who love music, and who are able to introduce unfamiliar songs in an engaging way, enhancing the station’s music profile. Here’s how morning personality Chris Evans creates excitement and attention for Tracies’ The House That Jack Built, a ‘forgotten 45’ from the 1980s, using a certain theme as an excuse.

“WE PUT THEM AT 7 PM NOW”

BBC Radio 2 is giving specialist shows a greater chance to be heard now (image: Thomas Giger)

USE YOUR ‘SPICE’ SPARINGLY

Session host Nik Goodman notes that you wouldn’t expect the biggest radio station in the UK to play such an obscure song at 7:40 the morning, asking with a smile if that is part of BBC Radio 2’s secret sauce. “I think there are a lot of things that are part of the secret sauce; I’m still discovering it myself as I go through it”, Jeff Smith replies. He once heard former colleagues describe rarities like these as ‘once-a-year songs’. “Tracie is like that; you want to play it once a year. When you have the uniqueness of Chris, his love for pop hits from the past, and a theme, it’s a perfect opportunity. If you look at those hours, though, I see my Recurrents; I see the two playlist records; I see the hour openers… that’s all there.”

PROMOTE YOUR UPCOMING SHOWS

Radio 2 offers a lot of specialist shows during evenings and weekends, once of them hosted by singer/songwriter and pianist Jamie Cullum, who did an excellent interview series with Bill Joel for his Jazz program. After Smith was appointed as Head of Music, in March 2007, a lot of specialist shows that were programmed in the late evening, were moved to the early evening. “We put them at 7 PM now, so they are getting half a million listeners per day straight off the back of Simon Mayo Drivetime, and he links into them. He’ll chat with the presenters, and play a tune into them as well, so there is that push through from our daytime into our specialist program.” Apart from specialist evening shows, Radio 2 offers thematic playlists at night.

VISUALISE YOUR STUDIO SESSIONS

The station also has musicians coming in for interviews and live sessions. “I’ve never been the biggest fan of live music in daytime; I think it can get in the way of lots and lots of things. But if it’s great, and if it’s unique, and if you can extend the content into visualisation; another aspect of what we do in radio nowadays, I think that is a good reason.” Speaking of live, BBC Radio 2 does outdoor events as well; “immersing the audience in the brand” as marketing people would name it. He recalls doing this for the first time during his earlier days as music director of Radio 1, with an event that would evolve into today’s annual Big Weekend. “It’s a way of getting exclusive live content, but also — most importantly — representing our station to the audience in person.”

“55.000 PEOPLE”

That’s said to be the number of visitors of the Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park 2016 festival (images: BBC)

START YOUR PRODUCTION EARLY

One of their live music benchmarks is the Radio 2 In Concert series, featuring artists that can be heard on the station; from Robbie Williams and A-Ha to Noel Gallagher and Van Morrison. But the station’s main image event is probably the annual one-day Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park festival with a line-up including some of the biggest UK and international acts that fit the station’s music playlist and/or brand feel. According to a BBC Music video, Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park 2016 was attended by “55.000 people”. The production is on a tight schedule. “I’ll start working on the next year as soon as this one’s over.” While Jeff Smith can’t reveal this year’s line-up yet, he hints that it will be a special edition, as BBC Radio 2 celebrates its 50th birthday on September 30, 2017.
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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BBC RADIO 2 MD JEFF SMITH: “THERE’S A DEMAND FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT”

April 2, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
Pushing boundaries of programming fundamentals, and having success since many years. How does BBC Radio 2 make the ‘impossible’ possible?
At Radiodays Europe 2017, BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music’s Head of Music, Jeff Smith, shared unconventional ways to develop a music image. About 15 million listeners with hardly any research, genre breadth and library depth instead of tight rotations and small playlists, and controlled anarchy instead of music direc(dicta)torship. “Radio 2 can play anything.”

“I’VE GOT A CORE DATABASE OF 15.000”

BBC Radio 2 offers more library breadth than most other radio stations (image: Radiodays Europe)

DEVELOP YOUR UNIQUE SOUND

With 15 million listeners a week (28% total reach, 17% market share) according to RAJAR (Q4 2016), BBC Radio 2 is the number 1 station in the UK. It has an annual budget of £45m ($58m), and offers a Full Service format. It is home to highly regarded radio personalities, from Chris Evans and Steve Wright to Johnnie Walker and Tony Blackburn, and has a music policy that Smith describes as a combination of many formats: “AC; Triple A; Soft CHR… A Little Bit Country; A Little Bit Rock and Roll, as Donny & Marie might say.”
Radio 2 demonstrates that a station can be successful by going broad, but especially by being different. “We go through about 600 different songs per week in daytime. I think that’s four times what an average commercial station would deliver.” Here’s a random sample of BBC Radio 2 music logs in early 2017.

CHOOSE YOUR MAIN CHARACTERISTIC

The format covers many eras, but does have a common denominator; it’s based on “timeless, melodic” works. The music director expects that current hits from Katy Perry or Ed Sheeran from the above collage can still be played in two decades. With a playlist going back as far as Judy Garland’s Get Happy from 1950, the format clocks are based on eras, so all periods can be exposed in the right proportions. They focus on a 35+ audience. “50-year olds had their teenage years in the seventies and eighties, and 35-year-olds in the nineties. We’ve got to move our music all the time.”
BBC Radio 2 has between 1.500 and 2.000 songs in active rotation at any given time. “I’ve got a core database of 15.000, so I’ve got to move things around a lot”, he says in reference to platooning (taking certain songs out, while putting other songs in that have been resting for a while, often on an ongoing and regular basis to maintain a feeling of freshness). He goes through all categories every couple of weeks. “Recently, we’ve seen that within our ‘35’ audience, we’re not doing as well as we could do, so we’ll pop in some interesting nineties records that you haven’t heard for a while on the station.”

START YOUR SWEEPS POWERFULLY

Apart from many eras, they also cover many genres. Instead of variety, a classic radio term, Smith talks about breadth. “We need to show, as a public service station, that we are encapsulating all of this.” The station also challenges another established radio programming law; that of choosing one format and running it 24/7. “We have a tremendous range of specialist programming. Country, Folk, Blues, Jazz; we can represent that. Not all of those have great popular hits off the back of that, but we try and play those, and mix them with new artists in those directions. So, the flow is driven out of those eras we talked about, and this range of music.”
“Controlled anarchy” is how he calls Radio 2’s music policy. “The perception from the audience is like it used to be; that the deejays choose all the tunes. That’s how, I think, we make them feel. In the end of it, we do it between us. A big word that I use in this is trust; between the management and the presenters and producers. They will play the playlist records; they will play particularly strong songs in particular parts of the hour.” As 51% of their output is speech-based, he finds it important to play a strong song when going back into the music. A benefit of personality radio is that you can play a wide range of genres more easily. Many songs will be separated by a longer jock talk, so they won’t play back to back.

“RADIO IS GONNA’ BE GOING THROUGH A NEW GOLDEN AGE”

Jeff Smith believes that radio stations can be great curators, especially when programmers are also trusting their gut feeling besides music research while adding songs (image: Radiodays Europe)

TRUST YOUR EXPERIENCED TEAM

A good question from session host Nik Goodman is whether radio programmers are sometimes too obsessed with decreasing variety and tightening rotations when competing for ratings. “I totally get why people would work from a smaller repertoire of music, and a tighter sort of format”, Jeff Smith says from his CHR background. During the nineties, he was music director for BBC Radio 1, and before that for Capital FM and Napster. He thinks that BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music need a different approach, although “it’s quite challenging to kind of let go“.
“I was the first to bring music research into Radio 1 in 1997; we brought in Selector into Radio 1 in 1995. We did all those things that commercial radio subsequently does, or did, or has done. But what you have to do is horses for courses; you have to develop a format and a way of managing programming according to the situation you find yourself in.” They now schedule with Powergold. A multi-user license allows all producers to access the software, and to make changes to the prescheduled log. The producers & presenters and music editors will then together sign off on the final music log.

MAP YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC’S TASTE

From musical breadth to musical depth. Airplay data show that recently, in one month, the station played 19 different ABBA songs. Most of them once; a few twice. Conventional music directors would play less songs on a higher rotation (like only the 5 best-testing ABBA songs, 5 times a month). “Part of it is: we don’t research the tracks. We’re not gonna sit there, thinking: ‘What’s the best ELO track? Mr. Blue Sky. So we’re gonna play Mr. Blue Sky all the time’. Although we do play Mr. Blue Sky.” Every couple years, they will do music taste research to find people’s favourite genres. But that’s about as far as their music research currently goes. “I like data, but I’ve always believed in the educated gut.”
Smith is using Radio Monitor to see what other stations (who often do research) are playing, assuming that every song they schedule is testing well. But he mostly relies on the experience of his music team (consisting of 4 people, including him) along with the station’s producers & presenters to discover new songs, and to develop the gold repertoire together. His advice for fellow radio programmers and music directors is to give unfamiliar songs, which may not immediately test well (as listeners haven’t had a chance to form an option about those songs yet), some time. “That will come around, if you believe in that record”, he says while touching his belly.

LEVERAGE YOUR TOP SONGS

As a public broadcasting organisation, they are required to be distinct. He admits: “If we were commercial, we might not necessarily do that, but because we’re not so bound up by our numbers, we’re able to dig deeper.” In his experience, BBC Radio 2 listeners actually expect this musical breadth & depth. “With our average age being 51; 52 years, a lot of them know this repertoire, so [even margin records] feel like hits to them anyway.” While realising he’s in a different position than most MDs of commercial stations will be, he feels like radio can be “a little bit braver” in terms of curation.
“Radio is gonna’ be going through a new Golden Age, and whether it’s disintermediated into the whole podcasting or streaming or playlist thing, one of the great things we can do is show off the range of music, and surprise people.” Jeff Smith thinks that today, music programmers get away with it easier than they used to. “There’s a demand for something different out there on the radio; something a little bit more challenging.” Being an established brand helps as well. “I think Radio 2 can play anything, as long as we bring [listeners] back to a timeless, melodic, broad range record.”
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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ROTATIONS RELOADED: IDEAS FOR MUSIC VARIETY DESPITE A TIGHT PLAYLIST

March 22, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
Instead of ‘always the same songs and lots of repetition’, how to make your listeners think ‘always a nice song and lots of variety’ about your music?
When you have a focused playlist of best-testing titles, creating (an impression of) diversity may sound like a challenge. Luckily, you can increase your variety, without widening your library, by improving your rotations. Some ideas to achieve a great song exposure on your station, no matter how small your playlist may be, by spreading your songs even better over the course of several days & weeks.

‘BESIDES CHANGING YOUR CATEGORY CONTENT, YOU CAN ADJUST YOUR CATEGORY SIZE’

SCHEDULE YOUR PLAYLIST EFFECTIVELY

Music rotations have pros and cons. A benefit is that you can build an image by defining your format. That format is, among other things, based on what you are playing (and not playing), on which moment you’re adding it (soon after its release vs. long after its peak), and how often you’re playing it. The turnover time of (current) music categories obviously also depends on your music format, and on your station’s total listening time, as well as average listening occasion time (which tends to be shorter for most Top 40 stations, and longer for more AC stations). A disadvantage of music rotations is that you could get a potentially negative image by overexposing certain songs (if they’re not people’s favourites). Apart from playing overall better music in that regard, you can improve your overall song exposure (while still playing your top-testing songs enough).

ASSIGN YOUR RULES CAREFULLY

Before talking about making your music logs less predictable, let’s refresh some basics on what determines music rotations. Apart from how many songs you have in a music category, it’s about how many positions you assign to this category in your format clocks (and how consistent those are in terms of category exposure). However, these factors determine your natural song rotation, which is often modified by all kinds of scheduling rules: daypart restrictions, artist separations, sound codes, etc. Only make rules that are necessary, and only make really essential rules ‘unbreakable’, keeping less essential rules ‘breakable’ to avoid unnecessary scheduling conflicts. With this in mind, let’s explore ideas to make your music logs a bit less predictable (and your variety a bit more prominent) for heavy listeners of your station by optimising your song rotations with a focus on fast-repeating categories, like for current hits.

CHANGE YOUR CATEGORY CONTENT

The obvious way to keep music logs interesting is refreshing your source material by adding songs, moving songs to other categories, or removing songs from active rotation. Sometimes permanently; often temporarily, like when you’re resting a Current for a few weeks before bringing it back as a Recurrent, or when you’re platooning some titles (parking them for a while, while bringing back an equal number of previously inactive titles). This especially works well for larger categories such as Recurrent and Gold (‘Wow, I haven’t heard that in a long time!’). But besides changing your category content, you can adjust your category size to shuffle your rotations. In one week, you might play 5 Power Currents; in another week you might play 7, depending on how many songs qualify for your A list. The downside is that regular (P1) listeners might feel your difference in ‘passion’ for these songs from week to week, a side effect that will be less strong with larger categories (like rotating 14 Secondary Currents in one week, and 12 in another week).

‘FIND BALANCE BETWEEN NECESSARY SCHEDULING RULES AND NATURAL SONG ROTATIONS’

KICK YOUR FIRST SONG

A great way to naturally rotate music categories, is using the even-odd rule. When your format clocks all include 2 Power Current slots an hour, or when you’re playing say 50 of these a day (as your number of Power Currents an hour may vary, depending on the daypart), then you want to have 3, 5 or 7 songs within your Power Current category (as 9 songs could be too much to make them stand out as hits) so they’ll be scheduled across several different slots within multiple hours. A category of 3 Power Currents lets each of them repeat once every 1.5 hours (which may be only suitable for a Top 40 station in a highly competitive market). Should you end up with 4, 6 or 8 songs in your Power Current category after all, most music scheduling tools allow you to skip one song, once a day. You may skip the first Power Current that would normally be scheduled right after midnight, and schedule the next Power Current in line instead; creating a different rotation pattern for this category from day to day. The number of category slots per day divided by the number of included songs in that category should result in an uneven number (e.g. 48 slots / 5 songs = 9.6 plays per song).

DIFFERENTIATE YOUR SONG CARDS

Drawing a comparison with playing cards, you’ll shuffle a card deck before every game. In a similar way, you can do this with your song cards. This can be useful for larger music categories, such as Recurrents and Golds. As mentioned before, the number of songs in (and the number of slots for) each music category will determine that category’s natural rotation pattern, which is then affected by scheduling rules. But there’s another factor that influences a song’s rotation: it is how deep you allow your music scheduler to dig within a particular stack of cards (category of songs) before it needs to make a choice, sometimes combined with how far you allow your scheduling software to put that song card back into the stack after the song has been scheduled. Titles that should turn up more often, you might want to put back somewhere in the middle of the stack, instead of all the way back. As you modify these individual song parameters (like when you have new music research data available), you will automatically influence the rotation of some of your songs. It’s a way to refine your song rotations, besides assigning them to Power Recurrent, Secondary Gold, etc.

MODIFY YOUR SCHEDULING RULES

As your collective of music scheduling rules (for artist, gender, tempo, etc.) affects your rotations, you can try and see what happens when you loosen (or tighten) certain rules. First, run an analysis of your rotation patterns for categories as well as songs. Are any songs playing more (or less) often than they should? And is it likely to be caused by rules? Then you might want to adjust those. What you can do, is switching off all rules, turn one single rule ‘on’, and run a test playlist to see what happens. Do this for all rules that you have. You can also build it step by step by switching one more rule ‘on’ every time you run a test log. You are then likely to find rules that are causing trouble, so you can fine-tune them, and run another test log to see the difference. The more (diverse) songs you have in a category, the more (consistency) rules you usually need. Just find a good balance between necessary scheduling rules and natural song rotations; between consistent flow and desired exposure. This is where science & art of music scheduling meet.

‘WHY NOT DO THE SAME AS YOU DO WITH CERTAIN GROUPS OF SONGS?’

ROTATE YOUR CLOCK VARIANTS

Last, but not least, you can improve your song rotations by optimising your format clocks, and using them strategically. You might already have several different clock variants (based on one default music clock) available. A set of 5 or 7 music clocks will allow you to rotate several different music formats throughout different days & dayparts. Make sure that the number of clocks you are actively using cannot be multiplied to 24 (hours). Therefore, 4, 6 or 8 clocks would be less suitable. Unless, of course, you’re ‘kicking’ one clock manually by starting your clock grid with, for example, Clock 1 on Monday, Clock 2 on Tuesday, etc. (basically doing the same as ‘kicking’ a song at midnight, as explained earlier). When creating your clock variants, mind your format consistency, letting every program hour reflect your overall format. An easy way is turning your master clock one or more positions to the left or right, automatically creating variety in each hour while maintaining music flow and category balance.

DAYPART YOUR MUSIC CLOCKS

To achieve specific daypart goals, such as playing more current hits and/or more power songs during morning drive, you can create daypart-specific master clocks and alternate clocks. Doing this only for essential hours lets you maintain your station-wide format consistency, thus building a recognisable music brand based on clear listener expectations. A positive side effect of using some daypart-specific clocks is that they could automatically shuffle your rotation patterns for those music categories that are a getting a different exposure compared to their exposure in your non-dayparted clocks. It may contribute to less predictable placements of songs from those categories. When you are rotating 5 or 7 main clocks, then you also want 5 or 7 additional clocks for every daypart where you need specific clocks (like your morning hours), so you can create a consistent grid of format clocks.

PLATOON YOUR FORMAT CLOCKS

While format consistency and listener expectations are important, you also want to achieve (an impression of) freshness and variety. That includes introducing new format clocks every now and then, as you don’t want to use the same category order forever and ever. So why not do the same as you do with certain groups of songs — and platoon your clocks? You could build an ‘A set’ and a ‘B set’ of clocks that you can then swap every once in a while. It will make your category order and therefore your song rotation come across as new and different, without having to re-invent the (clock) wheel. You just park one set, and activate another one. Having the exact same amount of clocks in every clock set will make it easier to adjust your clock grid. However, for even more variety, you could have one set of 5 clocks and one set of 7 clocks, which will shuffle your category turnarounds even more. Have fun reloading your rotations!
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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PLAYLIST INSPIRATION: 140 SONGS YOU CAN PLAY ON VALENTINE’S DAY [DOWNLOAD]

February 8, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
As you prepare your playlist for February, 14th, here are 14 Valentine’s Day songs (and a Valentine’s Day Top 140) that your audience might love to hear.

When your station has a female-friendly / AC-oriented music format, you could add a love song countdown to your Valentine’s Day promotion on the 14th of February. Here are 14 songs with lyrics about ‘Cupid Day’ that you might be able to include, and a complete Valentine’s Day Top 140 playlist.

‘PLAY THAT SONG’ ON VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine from Train’s 2017 album could be a nice Valentine’s Day song (image: Columbia Records)

14. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – VALENTINE’S DAY

Being last on the track list of Bruce Springsteen’s eighth studio album Tunnel Of Love, Valentine’s Day is a more obscure song from The Boss, who recorded most of this 1987 album without his E Street Band. Popular culture magazine Rolling Stone ranked Tunnel Of Love #25 on their list of 100 Best Albums of the Eighties. Even though the only lines referring to the song’s title are “So hold me close honey say you’re forever mine… and tell me you’ll be my lonely valentine” at the very end of the song, we think Valentine’s Day is worthwhile to play on the 14th of February.

13. ELTON JOHN – NO VALENTINES

Created specifically for Elton John’s (1996 North-American version of the) album Love Songs, No Valentines is a ‘once-in-a-year’ radio track, but a pretty nice one. The compilation includes many hit songs that could be scheduled on Valentine’s Day as well, including Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Your Song and Blue Eyes, and Candle In The Wind, True Love and Nikitaon the 1995 European release. No Valentines, written by Elton John and his lifelong musical partner Bernie Taupin, might be a nice addition to your radio station’s Valentine’s Day music playlist.

12. TRAIN – VALENTINE

“I’m never gonna say goodbye, cause, baby, you’re my valentine”. Maybe not as poetic as Bernie Taupin’s masterpieces for Elton John, but good enough for a nice Valentine’s Day song. We’re talking about Valentine from Train’s tenth studio album A Girl, A Bottle, A Boat, released in 2017 with Play That Song as lead single — another Top 10 smash for the pop & rock band that acquired a star status with Drops Of Jupiter and Hey, Soul Sister. Our advice about Valentine, co-written by lead singer Patrick Monahan, is: ‘play that song’ on Valentine’s Day.

A GREAT EXAMPLE OF A WEB-BORN ARTIST

YouTube was Kina Grannis’ launch platform to worldwide fame (image: YouTube / Kina Grannis)

11. THE DREAM ACADEMY – ST. VALENTINE’S DAY

This British band is one of the less-known performers in this list, but we believe they belong in here because of the beautiful ‘dreamy’ sounds of St. Valentine’s Day. It’s a track from their third and final album A Different Kind Of Weather,produced by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and released in 1990. He also co-produced the band’s debut album in ’85 of which the single Life In A Northern Town reached a #15 chart position in the UK, and #7 in the US. A Different Kind Of Weather also includes a cover of Love, which was written (and first released in 1970) by John Lennon.

10. NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK – VALENTINE GIRL

If you were born somehere in between the late 1970s and early ’80s, you know what ‘NKOTB’ stands for. Beginning their career with modest success, the American boy band had an incredible rise to fame during the late 1980s and early ‘90s with world hits like You Got It (The Right Stuff), I’ll Be Loving You (Forever), and, of course… Step By Step. The B-side of the American version of that 1990 best selling single was Valentine Girl. Especially if females 35-49 are part of your target demo, consider adding this New Kids track to your Valentine’s Day playlist.

9. KINA GRANNIS – VALENTINE

American singer-songwriter and YouTube star Kina Kasuya Grannis is a great example of a web-born artist. After creating a YouTube account in November 2007, where she posted her own songs and videos, ‘100 million’ television viewers saw her perform her self-written song Message From Your Heart after she won Dorito’s Crash The Super Bowl contest of 2008, which included a record label deal as well. Her 2010 album Stairwells mainly consisted of her songs that were earlier released on her YouTube channel, one of them being Valentine.

STRONGLY INFLUENCED BY THE MOTOWN SOUND

Valentine’s Day comes from Solange Knowles’ second album (image: Geffen Records, Music World)

8. WILLIE NELSON – VALENTINE

One of the most renown people in country music — with 25 number one hits in music charts — is Willie Nelson, who began his music career back in 1956. International hits include a cover of Always On My Mind, previously a huge success for Elvis Presley, and his duet with Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before. From his 44th, 1993 album Across The Borderline, with songs written by himself and by Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett and Paul Simon, originates the beautiful country ballad Valentine.

7. NILS LOFGREN – VALENTINE

As you can see in this list of Valentine’s Day songs, there are quite some songs named Valentine. Another one is from the hand of singer-songwriter Nils Lofgren, a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band who got The Boss to appear on the recording (for additional vocals) as well as in its music video. Released in 1991, Valentine was featured on Lofgren’s album Silver Lining. The American musician, who is also known for his 1979 single Shine Silently, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band in 2014.

6. SOLANGE – VALENTINE’S DAY

Solange Knowles, younger sister of Beyoncé Knowles, released her first album Solo Star in 2002, when she was 16. She acted in movies and wrote music for both her sister and for other ex-Destiny’s Child group members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, before working on her second album Sol-Angel And The Hadley St. Dreams that came out in 2008. It was strongly influenced by the Motown girl group sound from the 1960s and ‘70s, and became a Top 10 hit in the Billboard 200 chart. One of the songs on that album is the upbeat & soulful Valentine’s Day.

A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO ‘NEW JACK SWING’

Keith Sweat is also known for ballads like My Valentine from his 2011 album (image: KDS, E1 Music)

5. PAUL MCCARTNEY – MY VALENTINE

Sir James Paul McCartney has written countless of world hits — it’s said that more than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song Yesterday alone. But his 15th solo studio album Kisses On The Bottom includes just two compositions by his hand, one of them being My Valentine, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar. The other tracks are covers of traditional pop and jazz songs, two music styles of which My Valentine seems to be a nice combination. The 2012 album got to #5 on the US Billboard 200, and to #3 on the UK Albums Chart.

4. JAMES TAYLOR – VALENTINE’S DAY

Another ‘February, 14th’ themed song was released by James Taylor in 1988 on this twelfth studio album, Never Die Young. The title track ended up becoming the only single, getting only as far as #80 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album, which includes Valentine’s Day, reached #25 on the Billboard 200. The five-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has sold 100 million records worldwide, from self-written songs like his breakthrough single Fire and Rain to magnificent covers, like his version of Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend.

3. KEITH SWEAT – MY VALENTINE

I Want Her, Make You Sweat, I’ll Give All My Love To You, Keep It Comin, Twisted and Nobody. Those were all #1 songs on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for Keith Seat, who is seen as a major contributor to the ‘new jack swing’ genre. My Valentine is part of his eleventh album ‘Til the Morning from 2011, and features vocals by Cheryl ‘Coko’ Clemons, lead singer of the American R&B vocal trio Sisters With Voices. SWV became famous in 1992 with Teddy Riley’s remix of Right Here, based on a sample from Michael Jackson’s ’83 hit single Human Nature.

THE MOST FAMOUS VALENTINE’S DAY SONG

From the many My Funny Valentine covers, Chaka Khan’s is great (image: Dan & Corina Lecca)

2. JIM BRICKMAN FT. MARTINA MCBRIDE – VALENTINE

When you’re looking to play feel good Valentine’s Day music, consider this song, co-written and performed by Jim Brickman on piano with Martina McBride as vocalist. Valentine was released in 1997, first on Brickman’s album Picture This, and then on McBride’s album Evolution. The ballad got halfway through Billboard’s Hot 100, but hit #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It was also a very successful time for McBride as a solo artist, thanks to huge Country chart hits with A Broken Wing (’97), Happy Girl (’98), and Wrong Again and Whatever You Say (‘99).

1. CHAKA KHAN – MY FUNNY VALENTINE

The most famous Valentine’s Day song in the world is probably the theme of Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart’s musical Babes in Arms from 1937. Over 600 covers and over 1,200 album features make My Funny Valentine a real jazz standard. Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald are among the artists who have covered it. We think that Chaka Khan’s interpretation is one of the best modern variants. The Queen of Funk released her version in 1996 on the soundtrack album of the movie Waiting To Exhale to which Whitney Houston contributed both as an actress and singer.

MORE VALENTINE’S DAY SONGS

There are more songs related to ‘February, 14th’ than the above — from T’pau’s Valentine and John Waite’s Valentine to Steve Earle’s Valentine’s Day and Tim Buckley’s Valentine Melody. More alternative sounding are Valentine’s Day by David Bowie, Valentine’s Day by Linkin Park and Secret Valentine by We The Kings. These progressive tracks are not included in the list above as it’s a Top 14 of Valentine’s Day songs for mainstream formats, but they might be suitable for certain music format. And now… here’s something you might enjoy as well:

ESPECIALLY SUITABLE FOR AC FORMATS

These 140 love songs for Valentine’s Day can be used as a countdown as well (image: Thomas Giger)

VALENTINE’S DAY TOP 140

If you’re planning to schedule a Valentine’s Day music special, here’s a list of 140 popular love songs (including the above 14 songs talking about Valentine’s Day) which you could use as a basis for your music playlist or music countdown. Our Top 140 includes current & recurrents, as well as many classics, and it’s based on a male/female voice balance and (as far as possibile within the love song category) also tempo, energy & genre variety. It might be especially suitable for AC formats. I hope you’ll find nice ideas for your Valentine’s Day music scheduling here, and I wish you a Lovely Day :-).
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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CALLOUT RESEARCH TIPS PART 3: IT’S NOT ABOUT BURN, IT’S ABOUT BALANCE

January 9, 2018/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
Burn could be (mainly) caused by your Disloyal Cume — not your P1 audience. It’s worth including cross tab checks in your callout research analysis.
Following part 1 (about recruiting panels) and part 2 (about conducting surveys) of our specialist series on callout research, here’s the final instalment about this proven method for music testing of currents & recurrents. This part 3 explains how to interpret results of callout research to play the right music for your target audience. Over to guest author and radio researcher Stephen Ryan!

A LIGHT INTEREST IN A SONG CAN AFFECT WHAT WE SEE IN A CHART

There’s a high number of streams vs. a small amount of sales & downloads (image: Ryan Research)

OPTIMISE YOUR SONG EXPOSURE

In previous articles in this series, we discussed how callout research is used to get an ongoing trend indicator for the lifecycle of a song, from its initial exposure to its peak rating and then its eventual decline in popularity rating (normally through ‘burn’ where listeners are getting tired of it). The trends help you decide on your category allocations based on the hierarchy of songs tested, from the highest to the lowest rating.

CONSIDER RADIO’S UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES

Before we look at the subject of analysis, there is one question that crops up on a regular basis. Clients will often enquire why the results of callout research may differ from those of streaming statistics and local charts. The results in callout for certain top streamed songs may not indicate the same level of interest. It is important to remember that listeners consume radio in a very different way to streaming. More importantly, the methodology used to calculate those results is considerably different.

UNDERSTAND MUSIC CHART METHODOLOGY

The Official Charts Company in the UK includes sales, digital downloads and streaming statistics. While sales and digital downloads involve some effort on behalf of the consumer, an audio stream only has to be played for 30 seconds in order to be included. While 150 streams now count as the equivalent of 1 ‘sale’ of a song, when streams are counted in the millions there is in fact a chance that what is actually a light interest in a song by a reasonably large number of consumers can affect what we see in a chart (even if only 10 plays are counted per individual user, per day).

A SINGLE INDEX SCORE HELPS TO SPREAD OUT THE DIFFERENCES

Find the slightly better songs in similar rated cluster (image: Thomas Giger, 123RF / ruslanshug)

INCREASE YOUR STATION’S TSL

On radio, we want to ensure that listeners return and remain loyal, and that we maintain a good Time Spent Listening. We are looking for songs that will retain people’s interest and attention for a lot longer than 30 seconds. Proprietary callout research provides a greater insight into what your listeners really want to hear. Downloads and streams can be good indicators, but that interest needs to be qualified within your own environment: your songs; your listeners.

SCHEDULE YOUR CALLOUTS CONSISTENTLY

In part 1, we’ve seen how the increasing cost of participant recruitment for CATI-based research has driven a tendency to move from a traditional 44 waves to 26 waves of callout research per year, so with results received on alternative weeks. If your format leans on current and recurrent songs, such as CHR or Hot AC, you need to have a high enough and very regular frequency of waves for desired trend consistency. If you can only afford to do a wave every few months, then the movements in song ratings may be highly erratic, and the benefit of doing callout in the first place will be diluted. Reliable callout trends require regular waves and data updates.

ZOOM IN ON DIFFERENCES

In part 2, we’ve shown how to use a Popularity and Potential Index to provide a single metric to identify a hit or potential hit. Using a single index score also helps you spread out the differences in the song ratings. Here, if there is a cluster of similar ratings for songs, the index can help to discover the slightly better songs. On a 200 index, a score or potential score of over 110 identifies the strongest songs. To analyse the results, you need to sort order the list of tested songs from the highest to the lowest popularity. However, you also need to look at the trends for each individual song to ensure the results are not a one off spike or a trough (excessive bouncing in the results).

KEEP YOUR ATTENTION FOCUSED ON THE KEY METRICS

Compare all other cross tabs to that your Music Core ‘anchor’ cross tab (image: Ryan Research)

COMPARE BETWEEN CROSS TABS

If you have acquired a sample with the specific quotas of 100% Cume (your station), built from 50% Music Core (your P1 listeners) vs. 50% Competitor(s) Music Core (your competition’s P1 listeners, also known as your Disloyal Cume), then you need to run cross tabs for each, and cross compare. That allows you to check on any potential polarity in the results. As explained in a previous article, for any cross tab to be reliable, you need a minimum sample of 30 people in each.

USE A SPECIFIC ORDER

Your Music Core are respondents who listen to you most, and generate your highest TSL. They are most exposed to your music, and are more acutely aware of your rotations. For this reason, you want to use Music Core as your anchor, and compare all other cross tabs to that one Music Core cross tab. Next, you should run your Total cross tab (for example: 20-29 Females), followed by your Competitor(s) Music Core cross tab. This is, of course, a minimum process for cross comparison where you have a single gender sample.

LOOK AT ESSENTIAL DATA

If you have data from females and males (and as long as there is a minimum sample of 30 people in each additional cross tab), you may break out each of the Totals by Gender, and split the Total age demo into its constituent parts (in this example: 20-24 and 25-29). While each additional cross tab provides extra information, you want to avoid the dreaded ‘analysis paralysis’ where you are trying to absorb too much data. Instead, keep your attention focused on the key metrics, and focus primarily on your Music Core (as they are your most important listeners).

BOUNCING IS ACCEPTABLE, WITHIN REASONABLE MARGINS

For hit songs at their peak, up to 15% or 20% popularity variance is normal (image: Ryan Research)

SATISFY P1’S, BUILD CUME

Your want to base your strategy and approach on two levels when analysing your data:

You want to keep your most loyal listeners happy and engaged
You want to see if you can convert those who currently sample you on a weekly basis, but still listen to your competitor(s) most of the time, to listen to you more, as long as that doesn’t interfere with point 1!

ACCEPT MINIMAL POPULARITY BOUNCES

Ideally, when looking at any cross tab, you’d like to see an even trend from the start of each song’s lifecycle through to its peak rating, and then on to its decline in popularity. In reality, you can expect some bouncing in a song’s rating across its life cycle, even during its peak period. A minimal amount of bouncing is acceptable, if it’s within reasonable margins. Over the course of a number of waves where a song is at its peak rating period, if you see a variance of up to 15% or even 20% in its Popularity index, then this should not cause too much alarm.

BEWARE OF UNNATURAL FLUCTUATIONS

What you don’t want to see is a song being a hit in one wave, and then get a mediocre score (let alone a poor rating) in the next wave. While the speed of increase and decrease may vary from song to song, there should be an element of a gradual increase to its peak and then a gradual decline as it Burns. Very occasionally, you will see a song maintain its hit status for a very long period of time, after which it will suddenly fall off the cliff with a rapid increase in Burn, but this is unusual. If you begin to see bounces in song ratings above and beyond 20% (when songs are at their peak), then you need to review the panel and recruitment criteria with your fieldwork company.

THERE ARE TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

You can work with either a fixed or a flexible number of songs in your Power Current category, knowing that each option has its own benefits versus disadvantages (image: Thomas Giger)

CHECK RATING CUT-OFF POINTS

In a 30-song test list, when ordered from highest to lowest popularity, you would ideally want to see the strongest songs at the top, and then a gradual decline in popularity scores as you go down the list. The songs in the middle to lower part of your list would be those which are either new and in their ascendency, or previous hits in their decline. In more recent times, the spread of songs from the highest to lowest popularity tends to be not so evenly spread. A small group of songs at the top of the list may elicit really good popularity scores, and then there is a drop to more mediocre scores. This can lead to a dilemma in terms of category allocation and rotation of your best-testing songs.

CONSIDER USING FLEXIBLE CATEGORIES

There are two schools of thought. You either have a fixed number of slots in your Power Current category, which must be filled following the results of each wave of research. For example, your A category must always have 5 songs, so you take your 5 best-testing songs in your list and insert those in the category. They are then evenly rotated throughout the day. However, what happens if 3 top songs in your research have phenomenal scores, while the other 2 have reasonably good scores? Here, not all songs are equal. The other school of thought is therefore to allow your A category to be dynamic — and if there are only 3 phenomenal songs, then only put those in Power.

MIND YOUR BURN SCORES

The decision on the right course of action has to be a purely pragmatic one, and will differ on a case by case basis. Whirlwind rotations of the 3 phenomenal songs means the listener is exposed to their most favourite songs more often. On the other hand, such high rotations will likely lead to a faster Burn on these 3 songs, and to a never ending quest to find equally powerful replacement songs as their popularity wanes. However, while using a fixed number of songs in your A category may ease the development of Burn, depending on the scores for the additional 2 songs (in our example) it will dilute the average passion for the songs in the Power category.

BE A LITTLE BIT MORE TOLERANT OF BURN LEVELS

Compare a song’s Burn rate with its Favourite and overall Popularity scores (image: Ryan Research)

FIND YOUR POTENTIAL SECONDARIES

The songs in the mid to lower part of the list need to be judged on different criteria depending on whether they are new songs in potential ascendancy, or previous hits in decline. For those newer, upcoming songs, the power of the Potential index comes into its own. As a reminder, the Potential index is similar to the Popularity score, except it tries to forecast the Popularity score, if the current Unfamiliarity rating was removed and apportioned pro rata to the existing Favourite, Like & Neutral scores. While the current Popularity index may be only mediocre, the Potential index helps you identify songs from your middle list part for your secondary (B) or, if you have one, tertiary (C) category.

BEWARE OF HIGH UNFAMILIARITY

One word of caution. While you may have made every effort to avoid unfamiliar songs in your test list, always check the Unfamiliar rating for each of these B (or C) category candidates. If the Unfamiliar score is higher than around 20%, then the Potential score becomes less reliable, because there are too few people in the sample for the current Favourite, Like & Neutral metrics for this song. Small samples lead to erratic results! Most songs in the middle part of the list have often been tested in previous waves, so check how the Potential index has trended so far (and if it makes sense).

INVESTIGATE >20% BURN RATES

For previous hits in decline, that decrease in rating will be primarily driven by one metric — Burn. As a song’s Burn starts to develop (and Popularity begins to fade), you may have decided to move it from a top-level current category straight to Power Recurrent. However, once it hits a certain level of Burn, consider resting the song (at least for a while, after which you can re-test it). Traditionally, once a song hit 20% Burn, it was deemed time to rest it. In recent times, it’s necessary to be a little bit more tolerant of Burn levels. It is always a question of balance, and the Burn rating always needs to be compared with the Favourite rating (and the overall Popularity score).

EVERY SAMPLE HAS POSSIBLE OUTLIERS IN IT

Proprietary analysis tools help remove anomalies in music research data (image: Ryan Research)

FOCUS ON P1 LISTENERS

For example, a song could have a Burn of 24%, but a Favourite of 32% and a Popularity score of 118 (on a 200 index). Depending on what other songs you have available, you may wish to retain this one in rotation longer, and accept the current Burn level. Again, it has to be a pragmatic decision. Also, carefully cross check the Burn on the song for your Music Core against the Total, and against your Competitor(s) Music Core. You may find that the high Burn score is mainly driven by your Disloyal Cume, and therefore in fact would be lower for your Music Core.

CONSIDER APPLYING SPECIALIST SOFTWARE

To efficiently analyse the research data, you’ll need some form of analysis tool to generate the song ratings. If you work with a consultant, you’ll likely have access to professional analysis & reporting software. When you are adept at using spreadsheet software such as Excel, including its inbuilt functions and formulas, you could analyse the data yourself. The one thing to keep in mind is that, regardless of the efforts of the fieldwork company to provide samples and data based on your agreed quotas, every sample has possible outliers in it. These can skew the end results.

CHECK POSSIBLE DATA ANOMALIES

Using proprietary analysis software gives you access to calculations and algorithms to help you identify and remove outliers from your sample. If your test results are consistently erratic, even after a review with your fieldwork company, then you may consider to remove anomalies using the sophistication of a proprietary analysis tool, such as iRate.
This is a guest post by Stephen Ryan of Ryan Research for Radio))) ILOVEIT. iRate is a product of Ryan Research.

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PLAYLIST INSPIRATION: SONGS YOU CAN PLAY ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

December 12, 2017/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
Don’t feel like playing Happy New Year and New Year’s Day all day long? We’ve got you covered with 8 more ideas for your music scheduling of January, 1st.
Almost everyone spins ABBA and U2 on the first day of the year, so you might want to include additional songs (on a lower rotation) for more variety. Helping you stand out as different and refreshing, this arbitrary Top 10 features a couple of less familiar (yet high quality, and mostly contemporary) songs for your New Year’s Day playlist!

A TRADITIONAL AND OFTEN-COVERED NEW YEAR’S DAY TUNE

Lea Michele’s variant of Auld Lang Syne was recorded for this 2011 movie (image: Warner Bros.)

10. A GREAT BIG WORLD – THIS IS THE NEW YEAR

Feel like you’ve got too many older songs in your New Year’s Day music library? Then you might consider playing This Is The New Year by A Great Big World, a singer-songwriter duo consisting of Ian Axel and Chad King. After being chosen as MTV’s I Used To Be Fat theme song in 2011, the happy-sounding pop composition became their big break. This Is The New Year was also featured in an episode of the musical comedy/drama Glee, where it was performed by the show’s cast, and on the soundtrack of the movie New Year’s Eve.

9. KATE YORK – NEW YEAR

The New Year’s Eve soundtrack album also includes other suitable songs for your playlist on the (31st of December and) 1st of January. One of the most touching tracks, in our view, is New Year by Kate York. She worked in film post-production and audio engineering, before realising that she rather wanted to write & perform her own songs instead of co-creating those of others. She pursued a career in Nashville, and performed live as an opening act to renown artists. Although it’s not a very well-known song, New Year can be a nice playlist extension.

8. LEA MICHELE – AULD LANG SYNE*

Another song on the same soundtrack is actress & singer Lea Michele’s version of a traditional and often-covered New Year’s Day tune — based on a Robert Burns’ 1788 poem and a classic Irish folk song, both of which are now in the public domain — proves that standards sometimes can sound fresh again. If you’re looking to play something else at the stroke of midnight than ABBA’s Happy New Year, this interpretation of the famous farewell-to-the-old-year tune could be a good option. Michele’s friendly voice and the fine production turn this ‘auld’ ballad into a contemporary song.

AN EMOTIONAL, BUT BEAUTIFUL SONG FOR NEW YEAR’S DAY

What’s Another Year was Johnny Logan’s first of two Eurovision Song Contest victories (image: RTÉ)

7. GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS – GONNA MAKE IT THROUGH THIS YEAR

For this position on the New Year’s Day Top 10, we were considering Our New Year by Tori Amos, mainly because it’s a different song from most seasonal music. However, our list already includes several ballads, and this one has a pretty sad mood. Same goes for another alternative track, The New Year by Death Cab for Cutie. So we have chosen for Gonna Make It Through This Year by the Great Lake Swimmers. Not a super optimistic song either, but it has a melodic folk-rock sound that feels like some earlier R.E.M. material. (Just play an uptempo, feel good song next.)

6. EAGLES – FUNKY NEW YEAR

Sometimes, B-sides of a single achieves a status of their own. That’s the case with the flip side of Please Come Home For Christmas, a 1978 holiday tune from the Eagles, originally written by blues singer and pianist Charles Brown together with music producer Gene Redd back in 1960. Especially when your station plays some Eagles or similar Classic Rock / Classic Hits format music as part of the usual output, Funky New Year — indeed, a nice & funky 70’s song — could be added to your music playlist for New Year’s Day.

5. JOHNNY LOGAN – WHAT’S ANOTHER YEAR

Fun fact about Johnny Logan: he’s the only artist who has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice so far. In 1987 with Hold Me Now, which he wrote himself, and in 1980 with What’s Another Year, penned by Shay Healy. While one would assume that “What’s another year… to someone who is getting used to being alone?” refers to a man realising that he will never be with the woman of his dreams, this song is actually about Shay Healy’s father, dealing with the death of his wife Mairin. We think it’s an emotional, but beautiful song for New Year’s Day.

AN EXCELLENT CHOICE FOR A FIRST-DAY-OF-JANUARY PLAYLIST

Taylor Swift’s New Years Day is a minimalistic, acoustic pop song (image: TAS Rights Management)

4. U2 – NEW YEAR’S DAY

A Top 10 of songs about New Year’s Day wouldn’t be complete without this U2 monument of the same name, even when its underlying message is grim. Originating from their 1983 album War — a political statement against global conflicts like the Cold War between East and West at the time — singer Bono’s lyrics refer to the Polish communist government who installed martial law and persecuted the leader of the country’s Solidarity union, Lech Walesa. New Year’s Day has been covered many times over the years, sometimes including Adam Clayton’s baseline (as in Gigi D’Agostino’s 1995 dance remix), and sometimes without it (as in Karen Souza’s 2011 jazz version). Despite its (partly dated) political message, it remains a timeless classic.

3. GOO GOO DOLLS – BETTER DAYS

Another musical statement comes from another rock band, which had its breakthrough with Iris in 1998. It’s lyrics don’t speak of ‘New Year’s Day’, it’s clearly about the beginning of a new year with words that are speaking for themselves: ‘And you ask me what I want this year… And I try to make this kind and clear… Just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days… Cause I don’t need boxes wrapped in strings… And designer love and empty things… Just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days’. The theme of making the world a better place fits into this period of evaluating life and making resolutions, which makes this lead single from the 2016 (20th anniversary) album Let Love In a great song to play on New Year’s Day.

2. TAYLOR SWIFT – NEW YEAR’S DAY

Are you looking for a very recent song about New Year’s Day, because you’re programming a Top 40, Adult Top 40 or Hot AC format ? Look no further! Taylor Swift’s fourth single of her 2017 album Reputation is, we feel, an excellent choice for a first-day-of-January playlist. Compared to most Taylor Swift hits, this one is (in a good way) underproduced, as her voice is only backed by guitar and piano. And a contributor of the lyrics database Genius.com observes that her story about a New Year’s party is actually ‘a metaphor to discuss holding on to people, and memories from both good and bad times. Taylor recognises that when the ‘parties’ in her life are over and the ‘new year’ begins, such memories are all she will have left to hold on to and learn from.

ITS SELF-EMPOWERMENT THEME MAY INSPIRE PEOPLE

Katy Perry’s Firework from her 2010 album Teenage Dream is uplifting (image: Capitol Records)

1. ABBA – HAPPY NEW YEAR

We think it still deserves a #1 position, as it feels like the perfect opening of the music log on January, 1st, when the clock strikes twelve, and because several generations can still sing along with it. A more modern version of the 1980 song was released in ‘99 by the A-Teens, which might be worthwhile to include in your New Year’s Day playlist as well. Speaking of new interpretations: why not re-record this song with your entire staff as a choir, and play this re-sing version now and then — well-branded as a New Year’s Day greeting from your radio station’s entire team? Or what about including pre-recorded New Year’s wishes (voiced by your audience or your staff) on a self-made edit of Happy New Year with a few instrumental gaps for your VO and quotes? It might add some fun creativity to a familiar song.

BONUS: KATY PERRY – FIREWORK

Let’s call this the hidden track on our New Year’s Day compilation, because some songs are not officially related to the end or beginning of the year, but feel more like a generic party anthem that you can play during other festivities as well. Even though P!nk’s Raise Your Glass has been featured on the soundtrack of New Year’s Eve, and therefore could relate to New Year’s in the mind of listeners who’ve seen the movie, we’ve chosen Katy Perry’s Firework as the bonus track for this New Year’s Day music list, because fireworks feel more closely related new year’s celebrations. Furthermore, the song’s self-empowerment theme may inspire people to stick to their new year’s resolutions :-). That makes Firework a nice completion of our New Year’s Day Top 10 (or actually Top 11).
* Should Lea Michele’s ballad version feel like a bit too soft for your format, you can consider Mariah Carey’s dance adaptation. The second single of her second Christmas album Merry Christmas II You from 2010 is a re-written variant of Robert Burns’ poem, and also a re-arrangement of the original folk music. As new lyrics had been added, it was re-titled into Auld Lang Syne (The New Year’s Anthem). In addition to a radio edit, the record label released no less than 9 remixes of extended duration. Music critics were not positive about transforming a traditional poem into a house track. We would agree that there are better versions of Auld Lang Syne, unless this one fits your music format, like when you would be playing a lot of dance on a regular basis.
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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Callout Research Tips Part 2: From Song List To Song Hooks

November 20, 2017/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com

Callout research not only tells you how your target audience feels about your main individual songs, but also about (the dynamics between) your essential music clusters.
In our previous article in this series, we looked at setting up your callout research, including criteria to commission panel building or use live recruiting. Once you have your sample in place, you can create the music list and prepare the song hooks for (the next callout wave of) your music test. Radio music research expert Stephen Ryan explains how.

‘EVERY TESTED SONG MUST BE FAMILIAR’

Callout research participants should be able to recognise every song you’re testing, which is especially important when it’s a relatively new release (image: YouTube / Ed Sheeran)

MAXIMISE YOUR MUSIC ROTATIONS

Callout is focused on trending the life cycle of your Currents and Recurrents. Each wave allows you to put your tested songs in a new hierarchy so that your rotations are maximised, and you’ll give the best songs the highest exposure. While some fieldwork companies may mix CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) and online methodology to get the sample for each wave, it is more likely that CATI will dominate. You can experiment with how many titles you are testing each time, but when rating song hooks played down a telephone line, respondents can typically tolerate around 30 titles in one session while retaining their full concentration.

LEAVE YOUR GOLDS OUT

When you have the luxury of 44 weeks of almost consecutive callout throughout a year, you may have an opportunity to occasionally test a few older Recurrents, maybe even some Golds. But you basically want to leave the older repertoire testing to an AMT (described in our series on Auditorium Music Testing) and prioritise your Currents & Recurrents for callout. This is especially true when you have 26 weeks of callout; one wave every alternative week, where every slot in that song list becomes even more precious.

WORK YOUR WAY DOWN

When designing your song list, start with all songs from your highest-rotating category, and work downwards from there. Begin with your Power Currents, followed by your Power Recurrents, and your Secondary Currents. Depending on how many slots are then still available, you can then include some songs from your Tertiary Currents and/or New Songs. Prior to testing them in callout, you want to play new releases for a couple of weeks first. Because while all songs on your test list will have varying degrees of familiarity to your audience, every tested song must be familiar (and that includes those new additions). There is a way to make sure that only familiar songs will be included in your music test results.

‘THE WAY A RADIO LISTENER CONSUMES A SONG IS QUITE DIFFERENT’

Radio exposure is still a major factor in building song familiarity (image: 123RF, Antonio Li Piani)

FILTER YOUR UNFAMILIARS OUT

As outlined before, you can use a 6-point scale to distinguish between Favourite, Like, Neutral, Burn, Negative and Unfamiliar. Instruct your participants to avoid rating a song they’re not familiar with and to select ‘Unfamiliar’ instead. Some research methods aim to predict the potential of a song that may be heard for the first time, but callout is not the place for this experimentation. If a song is tested too early, and there is a high Unfamiliar score (over 20-25%), it’s often accompanied by a high Negative rating. However, for a lot of songs, as the Unfamiliarity lowers, so does the negativity. If you took a view on the early ratings of such a song, it may be prematurely removed from the playlist.

FIND YOUR POTENTIALS INSTEAD

There’s a smarter way to see the potential of a new and still a bit unfamiliar song. When you’re using an index-based metric, such as a Pop (Popularity) score, you can calculate a PTL (Potential) score to predict what would happen to the Pop score if the Unfamiliarity score would reduce to zero. Take the existing Unfamiliarity score, and then apportion it pro-rata to the existing Favourite, Like, Neutral, Burn and Negative percentages. Potential is a helpful indicator, but the result can be distorted if a song has an Unfamiliar score that’s too high. So make sure that all tested songs (are all likely to) have an appropriate level of familiarity.

MONITOR YOUR ENTIRE MARKET

Building a song’s familiarity used to depend only on radio exposure. Within a New Song category, they would get a limited exposure for 3 weeks until the total number of plays reached around 60-70. The song would then be familiar enough to put it in callout. Today, we consider a song’s exposure on many different platforms, including streaming, download & online services. While it may shorten how much radio exposure a song requires to hit an appropriate familiarity level, it’s still important to add new songs and expose them to your specific audience prior to testing. While streaming service stats are a good indicator of a song’s potential, the way a radio listener consumes a song is quite different.

‘CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE ORDER’

Similar to music scheduling, you want to apply some sort of artist separation as well as genre, tempo & gender spread to your callout research music list (image: Ryan Research)

SPREAD YOUR COMPARABLE SONGS

Once you have constructed your list of songs, carefully consider the order in which they will be played during the test. Look at ordering your callout song list in the same way you would schedule a perfect music hour. Therefore, separate similar genres and tempos, and avoid playing too many male or female led songs in a row. In recent years, we have seen how the window between the release of a current song and the next song from a particular artist has dramatically shortened. At the time of writing, Ed Sheeran released two songs (described as two ‘A’ sides) simultaneously; Castle On The Hill, and Shape Of You, which have hit the number 1 and number 2 position in charts across many markets. Justin Bieber and Adele are examples of current artists who often have even more songs in high rotation at the same time. Therefore, you want your callout music list to have appropriate spaces in between.

PUT YOUR VARIETY FIRST

We should mention at this stage the issue of possible ‘list bias’ from using the same list order for every respondent, as people may give higher importance (or at least different importance) to elements that are higher versus lower in the list. In music testing, the concern is that songs heard at the start of the test could be viewed (or heard) differently than those toward the middle and end. To alleviate the concern, some may consider to randomise the order of songs played to each respondent. However, randomising will remove the ability to create a balanced and nicely spread list of songs.

INVERT YOUR NEXT LIST

Across the thousands of callout waves we have processed, analysed and reported on, we have seen no real evidence that any form of list bias has become a significant issue. Remember, this is not an isolated AMT; a callout wave is one among many. If there is a concern, ensure that your song list for the next wave is in a different order (where it contains a significant number of the same songs). When your CATI system allows, you can use an inverted list, where 50% of the sample hears your test songs in the order from 1-30, and the other 50% hears them in the order from 30-1. This way, you’ll retain a good spread of artist, gender and tempo. If such a potential bias existed, you would see noticeable bouncing on the trends across multiple waves.

‘PEOPLE SUBLIMINALLY GET USED TO THE AVERAGE DURATION’

Therefore, keep your song hooks short, and their duration consistent (image: Ryan Research)

MAKE YOUR HOOKS RECOGNISABLE

Having designed the list of songs, you now need to prepare the respective hooks. The format required (wav, mp3, ogg, etc.) will depend on the requirements of your fieldwork company’s CATI system. At times, you may simply be required to provide them in wav quality, and they will convert them accordingly on receipt. From the preparation point of view, the main thing is to let every hook truly represent the song, and base the hook on the song’s most recognisable part(usually the chorus). Selecting the best part of the song really comes down to your expertise and skill.

GIVE YOUR SONGS TIME

The most difficult ones are often Dance songs, which are primarily instrumental and/or have elongated chorus sections that are difficult to capture in a short sequence. You may have to test specific songs over a longer period of time. In a number of radio markets, Manuel Riva & Eneli’s Mhm Mhm, which you could describe as a ‘catchy’ track, retained a high Unfamiliar score for some time, despite a consistent exposure (both on air and across streaming services). It took more time than usual for the hook to sink into people’s minds as representing a song that they recognise.

KEEP YOUR HOOKS SHORT

If you are happy with the hooks, just make sure they are not unnecessarily long. Most hooks can be edited down to 7 to 9 seconds. Keep in mind that when you are testing 30 songs, and each hook is 9 seconds in duration, the result will be about 270 seconds (or 4.5 minutes) of audio. Take that to 12 seconds each, and you’ll get to 6 minutes — without gaps in between to take the respondents answer. In addition, keep all song hooks to a consistent duration. As people go through the test, they’ll get into a rhythm, and subliminally get used to the average duration of each hook. If they have listened to a series of hooks with an average length of 9 seconds, and are suddenly presented with a hook that is 14 seconds long, they may feel there is a deliberate emphasis on that particular hook (and view it differently).

‘CONSIDER ADDING MUSIC CLUSTER TESTING’

It’s good to spot shifts in popularity of (relations between) music genres (image: 123RF / joris484)

REHEARSE YOUR SURVEY UPFRONT

Once your music list and song hooks are prepared and sent over to the fieldwork company, there is one more important thing to get into the habit of doing. Prior to the launch of every callout wave, get the fieldwork company to call you and go through the survey. It allows you to check that the song list and song hooks are in matching sort order, and to hear how the song hooks are sounding when they’re played from the CATI system down a telephone line. While they will be in mono, and not exactly in the best audio quality, check if they’re loud enough and not unnecessarily distorted. Distortion may occur when you forward a wav version which the fieldwork company then converts to another format.

BLIND YOUR CALLOUT RESEARCH

Every callout survey should be a blind test regarding two elements. The first, as mentioned in previous articles in this music research series, is that each panellist used should not be aware of why they’ve been selected other than ‘we are interested in your view on songs as a radio listener’. The second is that the interviewer should give or infer no information about title or artist. Respondent should simply listen to the hooks, and give their response.

TRACK YOUR GENRE POPULARITY

Finally, consider adding music genre / music cluster testing. Looking at music styles there defining your format lets you notice any changes in your overall music appeal, as well as any changes in (dynamics between) the popularity of certain music genres. However, you’ll also get some of these insights from testing your individual songs. When many songs in a particular genre start to show less potential, then the overall exposure of that style may need a review. If you intend to test genres, do so prior to testing individual songs (and clearly explain that you want them to judge the overall style; not the individual fragments). Then, prior to testing the individual hooks, explain that now they should focus on rating each song one by one. To keep YOU hooked: the next article in this series on callout research is going to cover the interpretation and analysis of the results you’ll get from each callout wave!
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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PLAYLIST INSPIRATION: RATINGS TO ACHIEVE ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

November 14, 2017/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?* If you’re looking to give your audience a great party soundtrack, check out these New Year’s Eve songs across several music genres.
There’s a lot of great music for New Year’s Eve to attract listeners who prefer radio above a self-made playlist or streaming service. And, when you promote it well, also in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, your party soundtrack might help you gain positive music images and increased audience reach during the holiday ratings sweeps!

ONE OF THOSE MAGIC RADIO SONGS FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE

From the movie Toys comes The Closing Of The Year by Wendy & Lisa ft. Seal (image: Thomas Giger)

10. KID ROCK – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year? In a list of songs for New Year’s Eve? Well, Kid Rock is singing: “When that ball drops on New York City… When that clock strikes I’ll pull you near… Just to wish you Happy New Year” — so it is not the new year yet. In fact, near the end, it’s revealed that this story is actually taking place way before the holiday season: “Yeah it’s September, but with you here… Every night is a Happy New Year”. However, as most lyrics are about the anticipation of a new & better year ahead, we think this song from his album Rebel Soul is a great one for New Year’s Eve (and New Year’s Day).

9. PRINCE – 1999

There are several songs with the year 1999 (and 2000 or 2012) in the title, and some people might argue that these are (literally) outdated by now. As there never was a serious millennium bug, and there never was an apocalypse, Will 2K and 2012 (It Ain’t The End) seem more like ‘nice to haves’ than ‘must haves’ on a New Year’s Eve playlist, indeed. We would like to make an exception for Prince’s 1999, the iconic title track from his (1982) album of the same name & fame. Thanks to several re-releases, including in its namesake year, 1999 has become a popular New Year’s Eve anthem.

8. WENDY & LISA FT. SEAL – THE CLOSING OF THE YEAR

A less familiar, but, we think, touching New Year’s Eve (and Christmas) theme comes from two ladies who once toured with Prince as part of his band The Revolution, before becoming a successful solo act and hitting the charts with Waterfalland Are You My Baby. In 1992, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman teamed up with Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel (a.k.a. Seal) for The Closing Of The Year on the soundtrack of the fantasy/comedy film Toys. Also thanks to additional vocals from the movie’s musical cast, it’s one of those magic radio songs for New Year’s Eve.

AN OPTIMISTIC NEW YEAR’S EVE SONG

It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve is featured on the album Barry Manilow Live (image: Arista Records)

7. SUGARLAND – MAYBE BABY (NEW YEAR’S DAY)

Just like Kid Rock’s Happy New Year, this track by the American Country duo Sugarland tells a holiday-related love story that is taking place somewhere before Christmas, as Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush are singing: “Maybe, baby… I’ll see you this Christmas… What do you say… Or maybe, baby… Ill see you on New Year’s Day”. Maybe Baby (New Year’s Day) is therefore suitable to be played before & during Christmas, as well as on New Year’s Eve (and on New Year’s Day).

6. VAN MORRISON – CELTIC NEW YEAR

‘Van the Man’ has created a massive musical heritage over the years. Who doesn’t know rock classics such as Brown Eyed Girl, or acoustic ballads like Have I Told You Lately? One of the Belfast Cowboy’s less-known hits can be nice for New Year’s Eve, as he sings “I want you to come back home in the Celtic New Year” (even if Samhain actually starts November 1st). A radio station in Ireland, where many listeners will be familiar with this Gaelic tradition, would probably feature this track from the album Magic Time around the end of October (and beginning of November).

5. BARRY MANILOW – IT’S JUST ANOTHER NEW YEAR’S EVE

Despite a melancholic sound, this is an optimistic New Year’s Eve song. “We’re not alone, we’ve got the world you know… And it won’t let us down, just wait and see… And we’ll grow old, but think how wise we’ll grow… There’s more you know, it’s only New Year’s Eve” is what the singer-songwriter says on the record. If your station already spins Mandy, I Write The Songs and Looks Like We’ve Made It on a regular basis, It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve might be a nice one to add to your music rotation for the last day of the year.

ANOTHER LESS CONVENTIONAL NEW YEAR’S EVE ANTHEM

It is Snoop Dogg’s New Year’s Eve ft. writer & producer Marty James (image: EMI, Capitol, Priority)

4. MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER – NEW YEARS DAY

Country, Folk and Soft Rock are music styles blending in many songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter. The singer-songwriter peaked in the 1990s with no less than ten Top 10 singles on the Country chart, including Shut Up And Kiss Me (number 1 in ‘94), and with her album Come On, Come On (four million copies sold). A more obscure song in her repertoire is New Years Day from the 2012 album Ashes and Roses. The song’s tale begins on New Year’s Eve (“We are sitting at a table in a bar in Baltimore… It’s the last night of December”), and ends on New Year’s Day.

3. MØ – NEW YEAR’S EVE

More Indie & Alternative is the end-of-the-year song of Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen (better known as MØ) from 2014 . “We forget about our problems… We got time to share all of those things in the New Year… Got a problem, baby let it be, hopped up on my back… Have a happy New Year’s Eve”, the Danish singer-songwriter says in this almost hypnotic song full of synth & electro sounds. We think that it can be a nice fit for modern alternative or progressive formats, as well as refreshing for some current mainstream stations.

2. SNOOP DOGG FT. MARTY JAMES – NEW YEAR’S EVE

Another less conventional New Year’s Eve anthem comes from hip hop artist Snoop Dogg and singer-songwriter & record producer Marty James — one of the co-writers of the worldwide hit Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber. We’re actually surprised that New Year’s Eve was only released as a promotional single in 2010, and didn’t make Snoop Doggs following album Doggumentary. It’s a pretty cool track, especially when you’re a Rhythmic or Urban station (for which it might be more of a challenge to find suitable holiday songs).

MAY IT BE THE SAME FOR YOU

The Perfect Year is the positive expectation of Dina Carroll’s New Year’s song (image: Thomas Giger)

1. DINA CARROLL – THE PERFECT YEAR

Our Top 10 of songs for your New Year’s Eve playlist ends on a high note: a feel-good ballad with a positive outlook, trusting that next year will be one full of love. “Ring out the old, bring in the new… A midnight wish to share with you… Your lips are warm, my head is light… Were we in love before tonight?”, Dina Carroll sings before heading to the chorus: “We don’t need a crowded ballroom, everything we need is here… If you’re with me next year will be the perfect year.” May it be the same for you!
* What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? (mentioned in the intro) is a New Year’s song from 1947, penned by Frank Loesser and recorded by many artists, including Ella Fitzgerald in 1960, and Diana Krall in 2005. Together with Bing Crosby’s Let’s Start The New Year Right (One Minute To Midnight), also from 1947, it is the oldest New Year’s song in modern recording history that we have been able to find. These were not included in this Top 10 as their sound is more traditional than most stations would play nowadays — even if these standards are basically timeless songs about New Year’s Eve.
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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MUSIC SCHEDULING Q&A #1 – HOW TO BUILD YOUR SONG CATEGORIES?

September 22, 2017/in Blog /by Powergold Music Scheduling

by Thomas Giger of www.radioiloveit.com
A music director in a developed market needed a category setup for his music format, taking his Adult Top 40 against a leading Hot AC and a tight CHR.
I’m receiving many inquiries from our readers regarding song categories lately, so I thought of sharing the following case with you. Maybe you have the same or similar questions, or would like to think along. With permission of the person who’s submitted the request, I’m sharing his inquiry and my answers here, hoping it will give you additional ideas and perspectives to optimise your music category setup as well. So here we go!

‘HELP YOUR LISTENER TO UNDERSTAND YOUR MUSIC FORMAT’

Your audience should feel a difference between recurrents vs. classics, so you want to move Recurrents over a certain age to Golds when they qualify (images: Def Jam, Atlantic Records)

CASE DESCRIPTION

A radio programmer from the UK recently emailed:
Hi Thomas,
I hope you’re well. I’m a member of your site and so far it is proving so helpful. I’ve only recently taken over the whole of the music scheduling for our station in [a local market in the UK].
I’ve managed to steer the station through a complete rebrand from Hot AC to full CHR with new clocks. Your site really helped me out with understanding the mechanics behind taking 8 massive songs, making sure they are spread evenly, etc.
We have [a market-leading Hot AC] and [a popular CHR] down the road. We’re going for a CHR sound with oldies thrown in, like Ne-Yo, Flo Rida, etc. These are songs that are too hot for [the Hot AC brand], but too old for the strict [CHR station] logs.
At the moment I’ve got everything Top 40 in the typical A, B and C categories, then Recurrent for hits no longer in the Top 40 or that are old, like Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran, and then an Old Recurrent category for things like Ne-Yo, Flo Rida, etc.

I’ve then got a problem I’m wondering if you can help with. The station had set up a 2000s category, and this seems to have anything from 2000 to 2010, but crosses over massively with some of the Old Recurrent tracks (date wise).
How would you categorise all of this? Is it okay to have your Old Recurrent list spanning 10 years of music, or do we need to separate them out a bit more? Do we categorise it based on how much of a great song it is, or how old it is?
Thank you for your questions! I’ll start with the first one, which is connected to an important concept:

HIGHLIGHT YOUR FORMAT USP

In a pretty competitive market like yours, you definitely need a very distinct music profile. Your Adult CHR programming strategy (positioning yourself in between your Hot AC and CHR colleagues) seems like a smart move, because even while all 3 of you do have music crossovers, at any given time you’ll play some songs that they won’t play (and they’ll play some songs that you won’t play).
As you’re a local station in the middle of two giant national brands, they will probably not respond to you (not change their format to grow closer to yours), so you should be pretty safe with this. To make your audience understand your unique selling point regarding your music, you’d want to expose your ‘USP songs’ often enough to be noticed. You could schedule a recurrent or a classic once every 3 songs, for example in an ‘A, C, Recurrent — A, B, Gold’ sequence.

DEFINE YOUR CATEGORY THEMES

To establish a very clear music image, help your listener to (subconsciously) understand your music format, and to (subconsciously) keep your categories apart. I’d stick to one single theme per category, and make sure that every theme/category is different enough from any other theme/category. In this case, your audience should be able to feel a difference between recurrents vs. classics for your format.
You can establish an age border for Recurrents, like ‘maximum 3 years old’ (which is a lot for Recurrents already), and create a separate (Gold) category for older titles that still deserve to be played after passing the 3-year line. To maintain your desired CHR sound, carefully choose which Golds you really want to keep playing, or you may end up with a Hot AC image after all (getting too close to your competitor in terms of era).

‘WITH GREAT AMOUNTS OF MUSIC CATEGORIES COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY FOR MUSIC DIRECTORS’

It’s not Uncle Ben’s Voltaire quote from Spider-Man, but you get the idea (image: Columbia Pictures)

CATEGORISE YOUR SONG AGE

As you focus on Adult CHR 00s classics with an Urban Pop flavour (Ne-Yo, Flo Rida) and your Hot AC friends are leaving those out — and, as I see, play many 80s & 90s classics from various music genres (Madonna, The Goo Goo Dolls) — it looks like you can perfectly feature 00s & 10s classics that fit your Urban & Rhythmic profile indeed. As your library titles go back to the year 2000, you may want to spread your Golds into sub categories that allow you to create era balance in your clocks. Then, your category setup may look like this:

A, B & C: 2017
Recurrent: 2015-2017
Gold Recent: 2010-2014
Gold Classic: 2000-2009

or, when you’re not necessarily looking to split your Golds at the turn of a decade, like this:

A, B & C: 2017
Recurrent: 2015-2017
Gold Recent: 2007-2014
Gold Classic: 2000-2006

CATEGORISE YOUR SONG POPULARITY

Regarding your second question — should we categorise based on how much of a great song it is, or how old it is? — both! The above 6 music categories are great basic descriptions of a song’s life cycle, but you also want to categorise your Currents, Recurrents and Golds based on popularity. (For Currents, you’re already doing that with A, B & C.)
Music research indicates that only a small amount of songs is really hot, so when you’re indexing say 400 tested songs along a 1-100 scale, considering ‘80+ scores’ as your most popular songs, you may end up with just 40 titles (10%) that people really ‘love’, and 360 titles that are ‘nice’ or ‘okay’ (just an example). So it does make sense to factor in the popularity, for which you could fine-tune your song category list like this:

Current A / Current Power (very familiar, and very popular)
Current B / Current Secondary Down (very familiar, but on the way down)
Current C / Current Secondary Up (less familiar, but on the way up)
Recurrent Power
Recurrent Secondary
Gold Recent Power
Gold Recent Secondary
Gold Classic Power
Gold Classic Secondary

CREATE YOUR FORMAT CLOCK

Of course, we now went from 6 to 9 categories, and to adjust a well-known movie quote: with great amounts of music categories comes great responsibility for music directors. Especially smaller categories (like power categories) come with a greater risk that a certain song will end up in the same position within the hour if you were to use the same format clock or category sequence everywhere (also depending on whether there’s a great amount of unbreakable scheduling rules).
The more song categories you have, the more format clocks you need, which is luckily very easy when you have a main format clock with several different variants that you then alternately schedule in a rotating clock grid. You can find more information in a previous article about Contemporary Hit Radio music scheduling & format clocks. I hope this is helpful for now, but do let us know if you have any more questions about music categories for your music scheduling.
In Music Scheduling Q&A #2, we’ll talk about how many songs there could or should be in a given music category!
Thomas Giger is a European radio broadcasting specialist and publisher of Radio))) ILOVEIT, based in the Netherlands, and serving the radio industry worldwide.

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