Month: July 1996

Another Playlist, Another Chart

7/19/1996 

In last week’s issue of Monitor, Sean Ross asked the question, “What would a Modern/Adult Top 40 chart look like?”

The first answer off the top of my head would be, “Who the hell cares?” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Monitor has decided to answer a question nobody has asked and solve a problem that doesn’t exist.  Our industry needs another chart like it needs me to dress up like a woman again and appear on the cover of Network 40.  (Okay, that’s a bad analogy.  From time to time, I do feel the need to dress up in lingerie and hang out with my “sisters” at the Queen Mary Club in West Hollywood, but that’s another story…and there’s definitely no chart attached.)

This Editorial is not meant to vilify Misters Ross and/or Michael Ellis.  It has always been Network 40’s position that trade magazines should reflect the needs of the industry…both records and radio.  In most instances, Monitor has strived to do that.  However, by proposing a “Brand New Chart” and calling it “Modern Adult,” it seems that Monitor may be creating a problem.

Tina Turner sang, “We don’t need another hero.”  Does the industry really need another chart?

Instead of creating a “Brand New Chart,” perhaps we should redefine our old ones.  In the coming weeks, Network 40 will redefine A/C and Hot A/C with a chart devoted to Adult Top 40.  This chart will be a reflection of aggressively programmed Adult Top 40 stations across the country.  The Network 40 Adult Top 40 chart will be a reflection of those stations that are aggressive in programming, promotion and music.  It will include those stations that focus on adult demographics.  What it won’t include is an attempt to “niche” stations within the broad category.  It won’t try to define stations by particular records added to playlists.

The beauty of the Top 40 format and what makes it unique, be it Mainstream or Adult, is its total lack of uniqueness.  Top 40 is now, and has always been, a format that plays the hits garnered from all the other formats.  If the Top 40 format makes no formal distinction between Pearl Jam, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton and The Fugees, other than the fact that the current records by these artists are selling, requesting and researching, why should we?

There are always variations on a theme.  No two radio stations are alike.  If most fit into a broad category, who are we to decide that a certain, chosen few need to be separated into a group of their own?

Or course, when an obvious trend occurs, as in the case of Adult Top 40, Crossover or Alternative, it is evident that format charts for these stations need to be created.  When stations within the format “niche” themselves out of the broad Top 40 boundaries, and when enough of these stations fall into the same niche, a chart devoted exclusively to a particular style of music and radio stations that play it is necessary.  Stations need to be niched based on what they “don’t” play instead of what songs appear on their playlists.

In the late 70s and early 80s, the RKO Radio chain dominated music radio like no other company before or since.  The chain had the leading Top 40 stations in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Memphis and programming control over the leading Top 40 stations in Detroit, Chicago and San Diego.  It was the strictest form of radio in history.  Every station was programmed almost exactly the same.  Every station ran the same promotions at the same time. Every radio station added the same records every week.  Records were added to the chain.  Yet even in this restricted environment, some stations added records that were unique to their market.  The James Montgomery Band (just one example of many) was added in Boston, but never made it on another RKO station because the record was unique to Boston.  The other programmers knew this. The music industry knew this.

Here’s a news flash:  The programmers and record promotion people know this today.  We don’t need another chart to figure it out.

In the first place, the number of stations Monitor is including in this “Brand New Chart” is too small.  Fourteen stations do not make a “niche.”  For the record industry (and those programmers who pay close attention to national charts), movement is all-important.  With only 14 stations, a drop by just one station could reflect a downward move on the chart.  With such a finite sample, a record’s success on this “Brand New Chart” could be jeopardized if just one or two programmers didn’t believe it fit their particular sound.  A record doing well on 90% of the stations could be stymied on this “Brand New Chart” simply because it isn’t deep enough.

Second, what is Modern record?  Is it defined by what these particular stations play?  Then Seal, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Melissa Etheridge and Los Del Rio (just name just a few) are Modern artists. These were listed on the latest playlists of some of the stations “chosen” by Monitor to represent this “new” format.

We all understand that individual stations are unique.  What works on one does not necessarily work on another.  Aren’t we smart enough to figure it out without a chart to guide us?

In the article penned by Mr. Ross, he asks (in the first paragraph) the rhetorical question: “Modern/Adult…is it a format?”

If we aren’t even sure it’s a format, should we be creating a chart?

I have much respect for Sean Ross and Michael Ellis.  Michael and I worked together at WAPP in New York.  I can say with authority that Michael is definitely passionate about music.  But even at WAPP, he took too much time working on the chart.  The boy has a thing with numbers.  I had to pull him off the computer just to teach him how to drive a car.

In the fax describing this “Brand New Chart,” Sean and Michael asked for input.  I hope this Editorial will suffice.  You may “input” it wherever you like.

We don’t need another “Brand New Chart” based on a format that doesn’t yet exist.

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

Fireworks

7/12/1996

It was hot in Los Angeles over the 4th of July weekend.  Hot enough to spread suntan lotion over my body like warm, guava jelly (forgive me…I’ve started another novel and have the tendency to stretch those analogies waaayyy too much).  I was so far from politically correct this weekend that I would have needed the Concorde to get me back in time for work.  There were steaks on the grill…yes, Virginia, it was real meat…and beer, not white wine, in the cooler. I was wearing a baggy bathing suit for a while, but it came off so I could get “tan all over.”  I’m so fucking cool.  I know tanning isn’t the thing to do right now.  Sunlight be bad.  According to the latest scientific data, it may cause skin cancer and even kill you.  But I’ve got news for you…so will life.  If you live it…you will die.  I like to go to the tanning salon for a couple of hours early in the day to get a good base.  Then mix that zero protection lotion with some pure baby oil to really get the home fires burning.

Beside, I’ve never met a scientist I wanted to date.  Their skin is too white and they eat nothing.  They do, however, tend to have great drugs.

The weekend was perfect.  There were steaks, beer and plenty of people by the pool.  Then someone said, “Turn on the radio,” and shortly afterward, it took a turn for the worse.

This is not the first Editorial I’ve written on the shortcomings of disc jockeys.  Would that it be the last, but we know better.

I am amazed that we, as programmers, will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on music testing, music scheduling software, computer hardware, processing and equipment to make our stations sound as good as possible.  We spend thousands of hours making clocks, writing and producing promos.  We sweat blood over music scheduling…making sure each song is perfect, the mix is the best…the blend as smooth as butter.

Then we put an idiot behind the mic and blow the whole package.

It’s like putting a monkey behind the wheel of a formula race car and entering the Indy 500.

What’s wrong with us?  Are good jocks that hard to find?  Or are we finding time to do everything else except instruct the very people in whose hands we place our future?

It’s probably a little bit of both…plus some other reasons.

It is a fact that except in a few instances (Rick Dees, Scott Shannon, Gerry House, Mason Dixon and, of course, Howard Stern, to mention just a few), disc jockeys (should we call them CD riders now?) don’t add audience to your station.  Outside of morning drive, our listeners generally tune in to hear music.  Morning, midday and evening jocks come and go without a hiccup in the trends.

However, if a good jock can’t necessarily increase your audience outside of morning drive, a bad jock can certainly drive them away.

The proof was evident this past weekend.

It is a known fact a audience loyalty is tested on weekends.  During the week, we’re creatures of habit.  We get up at the same time, go to work or school at the same time, drive home about the same time and go to bed about the same time.  Our habits seldom change.  We’re comfortable with the radio stations we’ve chosen and seldom deviate from that path.

Weekends are a different ballgame.  Weekend plans vary.  The friends we spend time with are different from those we associate with during the week.  Our lifestyles are different.  We’re apt to be exposed to different stations on weekends.

Why, then, if weekends are important in exposing our product to different listeners, do we, as programmers, often put our weakest performers in such a valuable position?  Why do we allow these weak performers liberties we wouldn’t tolerate from full-time personalities during the week?

It’s one of those great mysteries of life.

Judging by four days of listening over this past holiday weekend, programmers spend too little time explaining the basics to part-time air personalities.  And evidently, programmers let even fulltime personalities get away with sloppy formatics during weekend shifts.

Can I point out a couple of tings that are particularly irritating?

First of all, shut the fuck up!  Weekends should be about the music on the station.  I’m not interested in opinions about politics, world peace or the meaning of life.  All comments from jocks on the weekend should focus around the music (there’s a novel concept) and any promotions the station is running or sponsoring.  Nothing else.

Why do I have to hear a weak jock doing a phoner with a 12-year-old listener?  Especially with the lame question, “Hey, what are you doing today?”  Hey, asshole with the puke voice, I’m changing the station! Don’t get me wrong…occasional phoners are great, but they should be short, sweet and to the point…not conversations between a lame jock and a phone pig.  “I’m Kim from Malibu, loving the Top 500 countdown on KIIS FM,” works fine.

Can we get rid of the weather “forecast?”  There’s not a jock out there who can “forecast” the weather.  Just tell me how it’s going to be, all right?  If tomorrow is going to be like today, just say it.  A couple of degrees difference in the temps doesn’t warrant a stop-set.  And puhleeze, don’t tell me the high temperature “expected” for today when the sun’s setting.

Can we throw way the crutches? “On a great day,” “On a Saturday,” “On a Sunday,” or anything else you’re “on” is irrelevant.  I’m out there in it…and by the way, I know it’s Saturday.

Any jock in today’s time with today’s technology who steps on the vocal of a record should be caned, then canned.  Or vice-versa.

When cutting to a jock at remote, can we lose the “live from the beach” and “thank you very much.”  We assume you’re alive, even if the break would probably sound better if you were dead.  And there’s no need to thank the jock who’s doing the intro…we don’t care.

All is not lost.  Some programmers do prepare weekend talent and listen to make sure the station is tight.  Some part-time talent can make the weekend an opportunity to shine.  Lightning on KROQ Los Angeles and Tony Banks on WPLJ New Your are two that come to mind.

Can’t we work harder on our weak ends?