Why are songs overplayed?

[radiorules]

That's an interesting question! To the public, radio overplays songs, but why does radio do that? Why do stations play songs over 100 times a week? Do they actually think that they want to be heard that much? Why is Outkast recieving 9400 spins a week? Are DJ's actually this clueless? In my opinion, i think overplaying songs is what's making people turn off the radio and instead listening to any songs they want at any time they want off the computer. POP and Rhythmic formats need to get a clue that their audiences don't want to hear a specific song that much times a week. A #1 song in my opinion should never cross the 8,000 spin mark per week, because after that it is overkill.

8,000 spins a week, that's good. The other songs below it shouldn't even be that far behind either. I would much rather have the top 5 songs all have spins between 6500-7500 then have a #1 song recieve over 9,000 spins and the rest of the top 5 far far behind in spins.

[BlahBlahBlah]

Because most listeners are idiots. Even on HitzRadio.com, I get a lot of people who would request songs I have just played 3 songs ago. They are that ridiculous.

[Crushcrushchris]

radiorules said:

In my opinion, i think overplaying songs is what's making people turn off the radio and instead listening to any songs they want at any time they want off the computer.

I completely agree with this. The most any song should be played is anywhere between 70 and 80 songs a week. Not at ALL more than that especially 100-130 times a week :o. Maybe playlists of pop radio stations need to be longer.

[jond7699]

I know I personally playout songs. If I like a song alot than I want to hear it alot. Until I am really really sick of it. But than again there are songs that I never get sick of hearing so it works both ways. I think that is why radio overplays songs. But it is unforunate

[Love Plastic Love]

Thats why I do NOT listen to radio. It seems as if about...10 songs are played continuously and thats it on my radio stations. I really do not care to hear songs that much. Honestly.
I would love for a song to never be played more than 60-70 times and a wider variety BE played.

[EvanJ]

BlahBlahBlah said:

Because most listeners are idiots. Even on HitzRadio.com, I get a lot of people who would request songs I have just played 3 songs ago. They are that ridiculous.

I agree with radiosucks in that I have already complained your station plays songs too close together. Wouldn't regular radio stations get requests for songs played recently also (possibly from a person who made the request before they started that session of them listening to the station) and not play them as close together as HitzRadio?

[tico]

Supposedly, according to "research", songs are overplayed as to build cume. But I wonder if said research failed to realize that:

a. higher cume doesn't necessarily lead to higher TSL (time spent listening), which is more important that cume
b. overplaying songs can drive listeners away

[j]

First someone spends 11 months of the year trumpeting the fact that Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" has the highest weekly spin total of 2003.

Then when Outkast trumps that with 9400 spins in a week, the tune suddenly changes to "Why is Outkast receiving 9400 spins a week?"

Hmn...

[Rob64]

haha so true

[Michael1973]

This has been a constant pet peeve of mine for at least the past 10 years. It makes me cringe when stations play songs to death and then offer promos with listeners raving about their great music variety.

For me, hearing a song played to death is usually a surefire way to turn me off the song for a very long time -- which really gets to me if it's a song I truly liked the first few times around.

[Ragin]

This is why radio has splintered into several formats too. I'd rather have fewer formats and larger variety than what we have now. Why? Because when I turn to rock radio to hear something different, I hear the SAME DAMN 5 SONGS EVERY TIME! Same with Pop, HOTAC, and Alternative. It is driving me nuts. With them combined that's still only 20 songs! Give me a 40-80 song playlist for crying out loud.

It used to be everyone pretty much heard most songs that made the top40. Now there are songs that make the top 40 that the majority of people have not heard even once! It's ridiculous.

If I owned my own radio station and appointed myself PD, the playlist would have variety and the biggest hit would get no more than 70 spins. That's 10 spins a day and it is way more than enough.

[FreakyFlyBry]

I personally like larger playlists and not hearing the top songs so much. I usually run an MP3 playlist of about 100 songs at a time, and I don't play some songs too much because I don't want to get sick of them.

[EvanJ]

golden said:

Supposedly, according to "research", songs are overplayed as to build cume. But I wonder if said research failed to realize that:
a. higher cume doesn't necessarily lead to higher TSL (time spent listening), which is more important that cume

Yes, somebody poseted on radio-info that a Las Vegas CHR-Rhythmic station was Number 1 in cume. The top CHR-Rhythmic station (it changed during the periods I'm posting) was this far behind Number 1:
Spring 2003: 2.5, 9th
Summer 2003: 3.0, tied 9th
Fall 2003 Part 1: 4.6, 10th
Therefore if one of the CHR-Rhythmic stations was Number 1 in cume, it had bad time spent listening per listener.
I guess CHR-Rhthmic overplays songs.

[crash46]

Because Clear channel all but destroyed the free radio market, and everyone else wants to be #1 like them.

I'm sure that if the PD's had a choice, they wouldn't choose to overplay their records, but they value their job over their own thoughts.

This is exactly why I refuse to work in the radio industry, even though I'd be perfectly competent...way too much corruption.

[irice22]

I've figured out me and all my friends hate when they overplay song, but with other people the case is different. A lot of the listeners are idiots, I guess they like to hear songs a lot!

[Radical347]

Haha, I remember years ago when Hits 106 was playing songs at most 50x, and everyone complained even then that they were playing them too much. Now they're still not as bad as most stations -- they have 3 songs in the 70-100 range but the rest are 50s-60s or below. Pop radio isn't for music fans. That's what Triple A is for. (The Point's top songs only get 22-24 spins, and I even end up getting sick of them.)

[radiorules]

j said:

First someone spends 11 months of the year trumpeting the fact that Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" has the highest weekly spin total of 2003.

Then when Outkast trumps that with 9400 spins in a week, the tune suddenly changes to "Why is Outkast receiving 9400 spins a week?"

Hmn...

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and blah!

[danwxman]

radiorules said:

That's an interesting question! To the public, radio overplays songs, but why does radio do that? Why do stations play songs over 100 times a week? Do they actually think that they want to be heard that much? Why is Outkast recieving 9400 spins a week? Are DJ's actually this clueless? In my opinion, i think overplaying songs is what's making people turn off the radio and instead listening to any songs they want at any time they want off the computer. POP and Rhythmic formats need to get a clue that their audiences don't want to hear a specific song that much times a week. A #1 song in my opinion should never cross the 8,000 spin mark per week, because after that it is overkill.

8,000 spins a week, that's good. The other songs below it shouldn't even be that far behind either. I would much rather have the top 5 songs all have spins between 6500-7500 then have a #1 song recieve over 9,000 spins and the rest of the top 5 far far behind in spins.

In the 60's and 70's many popular AM Top 40 stations played their top songs once an hour, what's your point? If anything many CHR/Pop stations are playing their songs less then the past few decades.

[krazymack]

I guess someone can call me an idiot, since I'm quite the oddball on the boards when I say that I enjoy the sound of a repetitive CHR/pop or rhythmic station. In my personal opinion, I enjoy hearing a song multiple times in an hour, I think it matches well with the overall sound and theme of a station. I LOVE the sound of commercialism. But that's just my own thing.

To answer the question, "Why are songs overplayed?" I feel CHR radio in both the Rhythmic and Pop genres doesn't only cater to the listener, but these stations function as disguised "promotional stations," as well. *cough* *cough* (Some maybe a beneficiary of payola.)

With this said, I would guess that the record labels are largely influential in making these stations play certain songs multiple times in a certain day. It is known that receiving significant airplay can boost record sales.

So the record labels probably use the radio stations as a medium to influence the listener to buy popular artists' albums. This is just my own theory on this issue.

[danwxman]

krazymack said:

I guess someone can call me an idiot, since I'm quite the oddball on the boards when I say that I enjoy the sound of a repetitive CHR/pop or rhythmic station. In my personal opinion, I enjoy hearing a song multiple times in an hour, I think it matches well with the overall sound and theme of a station. I LOVE the sound of commercialism. But that's just my own thing.

To answer the question, "Why are songs overplayed?" I feel CHR radio in both the Rhythmic and Pop genres doesn't only cater to the listener, but these stations function as disguised "promotional stations," as well. *cough* *cough* (Some maybe a beneficiary of payola.)

With this said, I would guess that the record labels are largely influential in making these stations play certain songs multiple times in a certain day. It is known that receiving significant airplay can boost record sales.

So the record labels probably use the radio stations as a medium to influence the listener to buy popular artists' albums. This is just my own theory on this issue.

Ok, you're an idiot. ;)

People that keep complaining about the reptitive nature of CHR are forgetting something: They are not typical CHR listeners. The typical CHR listener spends less than 20 minutes at a time listening to the station. The arguement could be made to play songs on a 20 minute rotation. You say you enjoy the repetitive stations, which is interesting, but that's not why the are that way.

[Arson]

I personally prefer a larger playlist. I would tune into any station that played the Top 60 CHR/Pop songs plus either all the songs on the AC/Hot AC chart or the Top 50 songs on CHR/Rhythmic (depending on the lean).

I agree that most listeners like the repetition. After all, they request the same songs over and over for morning, noon-hour, early evening and nightly countdowns. Even songs that have been overplayed for weeks are still on the top x at x.

[danwxman]

Gil said:

I personally prefer a larger playlist. I would tune into any station that played the Top 50 CHR/Pop songs plus either all the songs on the AC/Hot AC chart or the Top 50 songs on CHR/Rhythmic (depending on the lean).

I agree that most listeners like the repetition. After all, they request the same songs over and over for morning, noon-hour, early evening and nightly countdowns. Even songs that have been overplayed for weeks are still on the top x at x.

They don't neccessarily "like the repetition"...They just like hearing their favorite songs whenever they tune in. And they only tune in for a few minutes.

[BlahBlahBlah]

EvanJ said:

I agree with radiosucks in that I have already complained your station plays songs too close together. Wouldn't regular radio stations get requests for songs played recently also (possibly from a person who made the request before they started that session of them listening to the station) and not play them as close together as HitzRadio?

Well before it was more or less a bug that led to songs being played closed together. Before a song is delayed 60 minutes from its requested time before played. At time of request, it checks with its past 30 songs to see if it has been played, before queuing it. However, if a song is already in the queue, the program does not catch it, therefore playing the songs closely.

However, a couple of months ago, I have significantly lowered the time it delays from 60 minutes to 5 minutes. Because of that, the chances of having songs being played close together now is much lower than before.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

BlahBlahBlah said:

Well before it was more or less a bug that led to songs being played closed together. Before a song is delayed 60 minutes from its requested time before played. At time of request, it checks with its past 30 songs to see if it has been played, before queuing it. However, if a song is already in the queue, the program does not catch it, therefore playing the songs closely.

However, a couple of months ago, I have significantly lowered the time it delays from 60 minutes to 5 minutes. Because of that, the chances of having songs being played close together now is much lower than before.

So anytime I request a song that you have on your playlist, it WILL be played? And if you're not home, you can't reject it! I can request 'in this life' every day while you're in school! hahaha!

[FreakyFlyBry]

The said:

So anytime I request a song that you have on your playlist, it WILL be played? And if you're not home, you can't reject it! I can request 'in this life' every day while you're in school! hahaha!

I think Sunny has it set up that you can only request current songs. ;)

[ct2874]

danwxman said:

In the 60's and 70's many popular AM Top 40 stations played their top songs once an hour, what's your point? If anything many CHR/Pop stations are playing their songs less then the past few decades.

Remember back in the late 80's when some radio
stations would have a cheesy promotion of the
"three-hour guarantee"? A station would play a
particular song, then not air that song again for
three hours, and in some cases, if they broke that
"guarantee", if you called into the radio station (say
the ninth caller, or something) you would win some
prize. I know that AC stations do that "no repeat
workday" idea, but can anyone name an AC station
that has pretty strong overall ratings these days?
(and no, WDUV in Tampa doesn't count--something
tells me that's a figurement of the overall scope
of Tampa Bay-area radio being so awful that this
station which borders along the lines of easy-listening
is getting such high marks).

[Ragin]

danwxman said:

Ok, you're an idiot. ;)

People that keep complaining about the reptitive nature of CHR are forgetting something: They are not typical CHR listeners. The typical CHR listener spends less than 20 minutes at a time listening to the station. The arguement could be made to play songs on a 20 minute rotation. You say you enjoy the repetitive stations, which is interesting, but that's not why the are that way.

Which is interesting, because you think the advertisers would rather the station cater to a listener that will actually hear their ads!

[jimmy74747]

ct2874 said:

but can anyone name an AC station
that has pretty strong overall ratings these days?

WLTW has been the #1 station in NYC forever. Same with WRCH in Hartford. WMJX is near the top in Boston.

[BlahBlahBlah]

FreakyFlyBry said:

I think Sunny has it set up that you can only request current songs. ;)

Yep, exactly. Before when I put the entire playlist up, people would keep request the same recurrents, screwing up the playlist.

[j]

jimmy74747 said:

WLTW has been the #1 station in NYC forever. Same with WRCH in Hartford.

Really? I barely listen to WRCH. Connecticut gets 3 other AC stations, all of which are better than WRCH imho.