Question: Roles of music and program directors

[Battle601]

Okay, I have a question that I'm sure someone on this board can answer, particularly those who work or have worked in radio or are knowledgeable enough about what goes on at a radio station.

As someone who is a regular follower of music, the charts, and listens to the radio (a lot), I still find myself asking this question:

What similarities and/or differences are there (if any) in the responsibilities of both the music director and program director at a radio station?

I have read and come to understand that the program director is the one in charge of scheduling (DJ shifts, syndicated programming slots, etc.) and that his/her decisions are important towards gaining a maximum listening audience. Does he/she also oversee what songs get added to the playlist or determine when they get promoted to heavy rotation?

Don't part of those responsibilities go the music director, who also acts as the assistant program director? With respect to my station, the music director also hosts the late afternoon shift weekdays as people are heading home from work.

If someone can please give me an answer regarding the complete roles of both program and music directors (what they do on their own, how they share their duties, etc.) I would greatly appreciate it.

And if the answer is coming especially from someone who is working or has worked in radio, if there's no problem in talking about their experiences (whether as a program and/or music director), that would be a great way to have this question answered.

[Slinky]

You've pretty much got it right.

As far as music, program directors make the final call on adds, rotation increases/decreases, and drops. They also have a lot of non-music tasks such as hiring new DJ's and syndicated shows, airchecking the DJ's, approving promotions, etc.

An assistant program director/music director's job is to assist the program director with all of the above, as well as actually sitting down at the computer and scheduling each hour of music. This is mostly automated with programs like Selector and Powergold, where you just plug in information about how often you want a song category to rotate and what songs you want certain other songs separated from. A music director would also be the one to take phone calls from the record labels when the labels are promoting a new song, since the program director is usually busy with other responsibilities.

The music director makes recommendations to the program director about what songs to add/bump up/drop, but the final call on that is with the program director.

[Battle601]

May 19, 2009 16:56:51 GMT -5 Slinky said:

You've pretty much got it right.

As far as music, program directors make the final call on adds, rotation increases/decreases, and drops. They also have a lot of non-music tasks such as hiring new DJ's and syndicated shows, airchecking the DJ's, approving promotions, etc.

An assistant program director/music director's job is to assist the program director with all of the above, as well as actually sitting down at the computer and scheduling each hour of music. This is mostly automated with programs like Selector and Powergold, where you just plug in information about how often you want a song category to rotate and what songs you want certain other songs separated from. A music director would also be the one to take phone calls from the record labels when the labels are promoting a new song, since the program director is usually busy with other responsibilities.

The music director makes recommendations to the program director about what songs to add/bump up/drop, but the final call on that is with the program director.

Thank you very much! That's interesting stuff to know.

I'm assuming that while the music director is responsible for scheduling each hour of music, the program director has to sort of double check, in making sure that all the songs are in the proper slots, and most particularly, decides how many times the same artist can be played over a certain period of time.

That being said, how far can program directors schedule their playlists in advance? Do they have an idea of what their playlist will look like in two to three weeks from now? And I assume that both music and program directors will follow the official charts and trade publications like Mediabase, R&R, Billboard, etc. to help them make their recommendations and decisions, respectively.

But this poses some other questions: How often does listener feedback play a role? For instance, someone calls in, E-mails, or sends a text saying that they want to hear a song, but if it's not on their playlist, is that something that's taken into consideration? And just for curiosity's sake, what happens if a station encounters requests from someone regarding a song that they heard or was played on another station?

Obviously, this would be up to both the music and/or program directors to do something. It's interesting because my station over the last few months has had this weird tendency to add several songs before they start to impact radio, only for them to be dropped after a short run, then be re-added once they're close to peaking on the charts. So there will be cases where other stations in the format or other competing stations in the same market will be playing those songs, while it seems like my station is missing something. Then by the time they finally add or re-add a song by a given artist, everyone else has moved on to the next one, and suddenly, my station's playlist is behind and to a degree inconsistent.
To the point that some of the playlist moves seem rushed just to catch up with everyone else.

[Slinky]

May 19, 2009 17:51:18 GMT -5 Battle601 said:

I'm assuming that while the music director is responsible for scheduling each hour of music, the program director has to sort of double check, in making sure that all the songs are in the proper slots, and most particularly, decides how many times the same artist can be played over a certain period of time.

The computer should take care of that last bit, actually. In music scheduling programs, you can set up "rules" that govern how much space there is between tracks by the same artist. If the MD knows what he's doing, the PD shouldn't really need to do more than a cursory look at the music logs.

That being said, how far can program directors schedule their playlists in advance? Do they have an idea of what their playlist will look like in two to three weeks from now? And I assume that both music and program directors will follow the official charts and trade publications like Mediabase, R&R, Billboard, etc. to help them make their recommendations and decisions, respectively.

Most of the time, it seems like adds are done on a weekly basis. If a big artist like Britney or Beyonce leaks a track mid-week, that song might immediately go into rotation, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I've never worked in radio so I'm not really sure how far in advance they schedule. Music scheduling programs give the option of scheduling weeks or months at a time, but I'd imagine that, at most, they'd schedule a week at a time since they're adding new music every week.

But this poses some other questions: How often does listener feedback play a role? For instance, someone calls in, E-mails, or sends a text saying that they want to hear a song, but if it's not on their playlist, is that something that's taken into consideration? And just for curiosity's sake, what happens if a station encounters requests from someone regarding a song that they heard or was played on another station?

A song that's not already on the playlist isn't going to be played. When you hear "requests" played on the radio, it's just because the person coincidentally requested the song at around the same time it was scheduled to be played.

If a song not being played by the station is getting big requests, PDs will take note of it. That doesn't mean it will automatically get added the next week, but it would probably be discussed in the weekly music meeting. The problem with requests is that, since less than 5% of the audience actually call in/text requests, if you based your playlist on requests, you'd only be satisfying that small part of the audience. The songs that do get requested tend to be the love/hate songs like "I Love College", while the middle-of-the-road songs like "You Found Me" don't get as many requests.

Obviously, this would be up to both the music and/or program directors to do something. It's interesting because my station over the last few months has had this weird tendency to add several songs before they start to impact radio, only for them to be dropped after a short run, then be re-added once they're close to peaking on the charts. So there will be cases where other stations in the format or other competing stations in the same market will be playing those songs, while it seems like my station is missing something. Then by the time they finally add or re-add a song by a given artist, everyone else has moved on to the next one, and suddenly, my station's playlist is behind and to a degree inconsistent.
To the point that some of the playlist moves seem rushed just to catch up with everyone else.

I'm guessing that you're in a fairly small market and the stations there don't have enough money to do their own callout research tests.

In small markets, it's basically the following cycle: PD or MD thinks song will be a hit. If it gets good listener reaction OR it's climbing the chart fast OR the PD has a good gut feeling about it, it gets bumped up in spins. If not, it gets dropped. So when songs start out climbing the chart slowly, they're more likely to get dropped if listeners aren't reacting to the song. But then later when the song starts climbing the chart faster, it gets added again because the station is using the chart as one of its main music research tools.

In the big markets, they're more reliant on callout research. After about 100 spins, a song will go into callout research, and then the station will have an idea about where it stands and bump it up or drop it. This is why the add-drop-add phenomenon happens more in small markets than big markets.

[atlantaboy]

^Hey just wonderin if you knew whether PDs ever pre-set the amount of spins a track will get that week (just because it seems like some #s like 99 plays per week seem to come up kinda frequently)

[Slinky]

I doubt any of them set actual spin totals. It's probably more of a coincidence. PDs don't really care about how many total spins a song gets in a week. They only care about how often a song is being played (every hour, every 2 hours, etc.).

[Battle601]

May 19, 2009 20:58:36 GMT -5 Slinky said:

I doubt any of them set actual spin totals. It's probably more of a coincidence. PDs don't really care about how many total spins a song gets in a week. They only care about how often a song is being played (every hour, every 2 hours, etc.).

I figure that was the case. In the case of my station, a song in heavy rotation is played about every 3-4 hours, while a song in regular rotation spins every 5 or 6 hours. Even with these rules set, and given how PDs don't really care about how many spins a song gets in a week, that somewhat explains why a song is not guaranteed to get all the spins as scheduled, once you factor in time constraints, commercial breaks, and to a certain degree, the order in the category of songs (which sometimes gets changed every now and then) during a music block.

It's also interesting how you pointed that out seeing how the number of spins per week for a song does not come only from the ones it receives from the station's playlist, but also the extra spins from syndicated programming, the station's weekly programming (outside of jock shifts) and even mixshows (where even a small segment of a song qualifies as one spin and at times, the song is played more than once and even that's counted towards its weekly spin count total).

May 19, 2009 19:39:20 GMT -5 Slinky said:

I'm guessing that you're in a fairly small market and the stations there don't have enough money to do their own callout research tests.

In small markets, it's basically the following cycle: PD or MD thinks song will be a hit. If it gets good listener reaction OR it's climbing the chart fast OR the PD has a good gut feeling about it, it gets bumped up in spins. If not, it gets dropped. So when songs start out climbing the chart slowly, they're more likely to get dropped if listeners aren't reacting to the song. But then later when the song starts climbing the chart faster, it gets added again because the station is using the chart as one of its main music research tools.

In the big markets, they're more reliant on callout research. After about 100 spins, a song will go into callout research, and then the station will have an idea about where it stands and bump it up or drop it. This is why the add-drop-add phenomenon happens more in small markets than big markets.

As for my market, Montreal is far from being small, but judging from what you've told me, I get this feeling that my station is following some approaches of both the small and big markets. I most certainly think they perform callout research.

In the case of a song like "If U Seek Amy" it started out in evening/ overnight rotation for about a month (so that's about 5-10 spins a week) then it got bumped up to regular rotation for a few weeks (10-20 spins a week) before being removed from the playlist altogether. Over the last couple of weeks, it re-emerged again but more in recurrent form, so its spin count is close to what it would have in evenings/overnights.

And since my station is on the Canada Hot AC panel, the song in question has been slow in moving up the charts compared to CHR/Top 40, so in assuming that's what they use, it probably prompted my station's PD to drop the song and then re-introduce it as long as it was continuing to gain spins albeit slowly.

Wow, your answers to my questions are not helpful but very interesting. Yet at the same time, they're only beginning to raise more questions that I'm compelled to ask!

Thank you very much!

[atlantaboy]

May 19, 2009 20:58:36 GMT -5 Slinky said:

I doubt any of them set actual spin totals. It's probably more of a coincidence. PDs don't really care about how many total spins a song gets in a week. They only care about how often a song is being played (every hour, every 2 hours, etc.).

Yeah just wonderin about stations like KUJ/Tri-Cities WA...their powers all have exactly 80 plays per week, medium rotation tracks exactly 50 times per week, and lower rotation tracks exactly 35 plays per week - just seems like that has to be done by computer (unless they're just reporting estimates cause their market is so small...)

[Marv]

PDs and MDs may indeed follow the national charts, but any PD who uses those charts to program therir station is not doing their job.

Insofar as the number of spins per week a song receives, it depends on the format and the targeted audience.

The younger the target audience, the more spins that the songs in 'power rotation' tend to receive, with anywhere between 85-100+ spins per week being a trusty ballpark figure.

Adult-oriented formats such as Country & Hot AC can spin their powers as little as five times a day, and as many as seven or eight.

[Former Board Member]

I am a PD, so I can shed a little light on this thread.

Music decisions are made largely on numbers, obviously. Those numbers include national chart position, national callout scores, local callout scores, local requests, and local sales. Personally, I don't put as much weight into either the national chart position or national callout scores, particularly the chart since Clear Channel has launched their "Premium Choice Programming." In fact, I have created a custom panel in my Mediabase account titled "CHR NOT OWNED BY CC OR CUMULUS" to assist me with my decisions.

I can't speak for all programmers, but I do not schedule my music logs any further than one day in advance, except for weekends, since I use a couple out-of-market talents that have to have their logs by 5PM on Friday. Because of this, I will usually have Saturday scheduled late in the day on Thursday and then I do Sunday and Monday the first thing on Friday morning. Scheduling logs any further in advance than that is a bad habit to get into, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that there may be a new record from a core artist that wasn't expected to release until a certain date that drops mid-week. You want to make sure that you have room in your library for records like these, as well as being sure that you can react to big events around your artists by adjusting their airplay accordingly, if needed.

In regard to the number of spins per week, it's all relative based on how often you want your categories to turn over, as someone else has already pointed out. I like for my A category to turn over about every 90 minutes, so I schedule four of them per hour and keep seven in the category. I keep my B category at 2:30 - 2:55, so I schedule two per hour and have nine in the category. My C category is where I have my power recurrent songs and I like for those to turn over every 3:00 - 3:20. There are usually fifteen songs in that category, but I am carrying twenty, at the moment, due to a major concert in my market later this week. My D category is new music and I prefer a 4:00 - 4:30 rotation on those, with one per hour during the day (two at night) and seven in the category.

I program my station the way I do because of the market that we are in. It's a small market in the South, so things tend to be a bit more laid back here. Also, I do not have direct competition in the CHR format, so I am serving that audience, as well as trying to pull numbers in the F25-54 demographic. Because of that fact, I have to slow down my rotations, carry a deeper recurrent and gold library, and rely a bit heavier on those categories. All told, in a given week, my A category plays between 84-88 times per week.

[Battle601]

That's very interesting and I appreciate that you took the time to share those details with us.