Tag Archives: music

To Day-part or Not To Day-part That is Today’s Question

Music Library / tagged consultant, country radio consultant, higher ratings, Keith Hill, muisc logs, music, music logs, music logs for radio, music scheduling, Musicmaster, Nielsen ratings, radio consultant, radio consulting, radio programming, unconsultant / June 7, 2018 / by Keith Hill

Some programmers are big fans of dayparting and have lots of them and on lots of songs. There are good thoughtful reasons. Long songs can be tough in mornings. Sometimes an extreme edge of the format can more safely be exposed at night. There are CHR and HOT HOT AC stations that are more adult by day and more youthful in appeal at night. Then there can be the question, “do you really want that 35 year old mom driving back from parent teacher night unhappy with here favorite radio station because its clearly different at night?”

Then there is dayparting without a daypart on the song card itself. It’s dayparted because the clocks only call for that category at night. A recent facebook discussion I had went like this:

Dayparting

Chris Thanks. Are you a fan of dayparting?

The UnConsultant nope. It’s like a tire with a flat spot. I’m more of a fan of playing only songs I can play all the time.

Chris Agree. So why do stations, in the beginning, play certain new songs only at night? A numbers thing?

The UnConsultant There are a couple of reasons. Some feel the “unfamiliar music” is the least safe thing to do. So they try to build slow familiarity … much like putting your toe in the water first. Secondly, it’s a perversion that comes from the strong efforts to promote new music on the radio. The value of an “add” on the charts is very high. They don’t care at first if the song is only spun at night or overnight, it’s an add, and that’s what they care about. They don’t have to work so hard to get us to play Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan or Florida George Line. But Alex Kolobielski & His Jug Band, well that’s where the heavy lifting is done. The Music Row and Indicator Charts are further devices that are part of the process. They celebrate the “add”… in time they want plays, but most of the promotion is for an add. Hence, radios response is a category that plays Mid-5am or 8p-4am. And yes a category that only appears in those hours is the equivalent of dayparting.

I spend so much of my time trying to get songs to rotate evenly through hours and departs that the idea of skipping one intentionally is something I generally try to avoid. It makes me ask, “do I really need this song?” How does it test? Will it be missed? Is there an expectation that we will play this song?

I get accused of being “old school” (or is it old skool?) I’ll take that accusation as a badge of honor. There are many old platitudes in radio, “more platter, less chatter” and regards music decisions like this, “when in doubt, leave it out!”

Agree? Disagree? Email UnConsult@aol.com to argue discuss or proclaim me wrong.

I help stations make good decisions so ratings go UP!

Keith Hill 252-453-8888

on Facebook at The UnConsultant

Score Your Core (Artists)

Music Library / tagged best, consultant, country radio consultant, higher ratings, Keith Hill, music, music scheduling, Musicmaster, Nielsen ratings, radio consultant, radio programming, unconsultant / June 6, 2018 / by Keith Hill

CORE ARTISTS

Here’s a fun game you can play. Grab a piece of paper and write down in order the most important core artist on your station. Rank them.

Now if you have research you can either have data from respondents to rank or give a 1 to 10 score of importance that artist has to them. A one being not very important, and a ten being I want to hear them the most.

Then go to your music software and look at the spins of these artists over the last 30, 60 or 90s days. Are they the same?

There are ways to adjust them up or down to match what the research tells you are the desires and expectations.

These things effect not only the impression or images that the station holds in the mind of the listeners but help drive TSL / ATSE.

If an artist is playing too much give that artist a higher Artist Separation. Or platoon rest a few titles. You could consider packeting a few of the lesser titles or perhaps packets of the slow tempo titles.

If an artist isn’t playing enough consider reducing the artist separation. Make sure there are enough titles by that artist to get the job done. And if all else fails advantage the songs by that artist. In some software its called percentage back and you put 75 in percentage back and when the song plays it doesn’t go all the way to the back of the stack order. It goes three quarters of the way back. Or 50% back would mean it will be half way back meaning it wont sit out a whole turn of the stack order.

In Musicmaster the field to use is Rotation Weight. Musicmaster’s rotation weight is far superior to just percentage back limited to 100 or less. In Musicmaster’s rotation weight it supports up to 999. The number 200 would mean that a song would be twice the distance back in the stack, thus sitting out a lap of the race so to speak, and that 999 well that’s missing ten laps. Perhaps that would be a good thing to do with a novelty song.

Tuning a music database for a radio station is akin to getting your blood just right. When you go to the doctor they take sample and you get a report on your good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, and a bunch of other things they hassle me about.

The blood analogy is a good one I think because your blood goes everywhere. Blood travels to every organ of your body. If your music isn’t quite right then your ratings will likely suffer in mornings, middays, afternoons, evenings, overnights and yes even on weekends and holidays. Not Good.

There is literally a “panel” of things I look at when I tune up the music for a radio station to go win the Gold Medal in the Nielsen Olympics. What medal does your station get?

Go For the Gold Call Keith Hill 252-453-8888

He said WHAT?

Music Library / tagged best, consultant, country radio consultant, higher ratings, Keith Hill, library, music, music scheduling, Musicmaster, Nielsen ratings, radio consultant, radio programming, unconsultant / June 4, 2018 / by Keith Hill

He said WHAT?

If you are a program director or general manager of a radio station perhaps you can relate. If you have never worked in radio this is a story that can happen any day.

I was PD of the #1 rated station in El Paso KHEY known as Y-96.

I didn’t live too far from the station often I would walk to the station listening to my walk-man.

On this day I had heard the morning show. It was a good show. There was plenty of information, fun, lots of local stuff.

When I got to the station the General Manager was looking for me and he was unhappy.

It seems a 20 second bit about a Burger King in Oregon had gotten the ire of the folks at our local Burger King restaurants who were a fairly big sponsor.

My morning guy (Mark Montana) had simply found a story about a Burger King in Oregon where a patron ordered a burger and when he unwrapped it to eat it he found a large copper staple in it, presumably from the cardboard box it was shipped in.

The air check of it showed that the bit took 22 seconds! It was broadcast at 7:19am.

Apparently the regional manager for Burger King there was a big fan of Mark Montana and Y96 until 7:20am. Then he called the GM and GSM and said he wanted his annual advertising scheduled cancelled!

When I got in all of this was explained to me. I was perplexed the most. I thought that in placing advertising they were 100% in charge of the schedule of the advertising and the messages in the advertising. They could promote breakfast in the morning, lunch in midday dinner in the afternoon. They could run their specials. They could develop events, limited time menu additions. But instead on this day we discovered what really worked. Just one twenty-two second message at 7:19am reached everyone. That one road-block ad was that we picked the content of was more powerful than the thoughtful approach of a campaign.

At first my GM and GSM were unhappy with me making light of it.

I told them, “surely they can’t think that this one message destroys the good will and images of Burger King in one fell swoop.” As they listened they realized that their PD who spent 100% of his time worrying about images, promotional messages and reach to as many folks within the FM signal we had was onto something. So I put on a tie, threw on a jacket and I was off to see the regional manager of Burger King.

I really was humble and apologetic but I wanted to reason with him. I told him my first thought was to run a campaign where “if you find a staple in your burger you win $1,000,000.” He said to me “no one will ever win!” I yelled, “That’s my point!”

Instead they had some internal food safety and marketing person on the phone on air for 3 minutes the next morning. Not great radio by any means, but it made them feel good that they said, “food safety was of the highest importance and this would not happen again.”

And we gave em a couple of remotes and a few hundred dollars in free spots. All because Mark Montana read an AP item about a staple in a Whopper at a Burger King in Oregon.

To me it proved more than ever radio works. In fact it’s more potent that we ever thought. While repeated messages really work. Do not under estimate the power of even one single message. Funny how the mind works regards message on the radio. One mention of food poisoning at Keith’s Taco’s and whammo no more lines at Keith’s.

How come one add that says “why waste your money on pizza that’s really like sauce on cardboard. El Paso’s best Pizza is El Rio Pizza. It’s worth more than we charge and oh God is sooo good even folks from Mexico sneak over to get a bite.” But for some reason just one add like that we worry no one hears it. Make it a negative ad and everyone heard it. It can’t be both!

Today’s take away is.. 1) radio works and its very potent. 2) when it’s a negative message we think everyone hears it 3) our ads really are not clever enough. If you run ads that people take about, email mp3’s of them to each other because they are funny or entertaining, then you know you have a winner.

Makes me think a great campaign would be about a staple. “At XYZ restaurant sometime in the next 30 days we’re going to put a staple in one meal. Find it and win $5000. Well instead of a staple you’ll simply find the word staple on the bottom of the plate.”

Where has our clever gone? It’s time we tooled in … “he said WHAT?”

The Four Rules of NO!

Every week I do calls with radio stations. Music calls, strategic calls, promotional calls, brainstorming calls, talent coaching calls, air-check reviews, liner writing sessions and more.

Many years ago I worked long and hard on writing some proactive positive list of to dos for radio talent. Too often we tell folks, “don’t do that.” So I worked on lists of things that you should do. Make sure you are local, topical etc . Sometime soon I might dust off portions of the positive proactive. But, this past week something happened. The situation was a local named restaurant had thrown out some patrons, mother and her young armless son. That’s right the young man did not have arms.

Upon arrival the mother took the child into the washroom and helped him wash his feet. You see because he eats using his feet. This young man used his feet the way most of us use of hands.

They ordered a breakfast of pancakes and the child used a foot to pick up the syrup and then pour some syrup on his pancakes.

Other patrons complained and the restaurant manager asked them to leave.

Like most morning radio shows we prep and gather the stories of the day. This one was not only a story that day but for this market is was a LOCAL story.

We discussed how to approach it. One thing we came up with was to approach it like the ABC show “What would you do with John Quinones.

Often I will describe the idea that a person on a morning show will do a “Seinfeld-esque” observation. “I was at the grocery store yesterday in a hurry and someone ahead of me with 9000 items got in the 15 items or less line. Then you turn it over to the audience so that it can be discussed and you make the listeners the focus.

The question by the air talent and PD/Ops was do we mention the restaurant.

It reminded me of a station I had worked a long time ago where there were “The Four Rules of No” posted.

They were:

1) Do not say anything bad about the radio station.

2) Do not say anything bad about the music or artists on the radio station.

3) Do not say anything bad about an advertiser.

4) Do not say anything bad about a potential advertiser.

Pretty simple really. And I note that 3 and 4 are pretty similar and 4 covers every business on the planet. So it’s fairly all encompassing.

I dusted this off in the discussion. The point was we were going to make the story about a “restaurant.” rather than actually naming the restaurant. The morning show talent pointed out that everyone was really going to know the restaurant anyway.

The point of today’s blog is really the 4 rules of NO. I think I first saw them in a radio station in Syracuse, New York more than 35 years ago. Funny, how simple things can hold sage wisdom and be timeless.

This is a tease…

Tomorrow I’ll dust off a story from El Paso, Texas where my morning man mentioned Burger King and got us all in trouble. We turned the trouble around and the point of the story is to show how powerful radio really can be. For now it’s rare that I tell you NOT to do something, but the 4 rules of NO are something I recommend.

WEEKENDS!

Your BIG Dayparts are Mornings, Middays, Afternoons, Nights and … wait for it
WEEKENDS!

Too often I see radio stations that think about Monday thru Friday 6a-7p and that’s about it. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll dust off one of my favorite questions… “Who is your Wolfman Jack?” You’ll have to watch American Graffiti as homework for that one.

This Weekend I ask… what is your philosophy regards weekends?

The answer depends a lot on your format, your market, your competition, the weather, the season, etc.

Let’s face it there are formats that do really well Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm because of at work usage. Certain AC formats sell and position themselves as “Thee At Work Station.” Years ago I worked at a station that the PD adopted the positioner “Your 9 to 5 station” imagine doing mornings or nights on that station! We cleaned some of that up by making the morning show… “getting you ready for your 9 to 5 workday” and the evening show as “relaxing after your 9 to 5 workday.” But that’s not what this blog is about its about WEEKENDS!

Are your weekends the same and Monday thru Friday or are they different?

Well certainly they are different in some ways. One of thee most important ways Weekends are different is that is when most folks have their greatest radio freedom of choice. Monday through Friday there are many folks who endure a station that has been selected by the owner, manager, office manager… as a compromise choice for the office or retain environment.

But on the weekend you and you alone get to pick the radio station you want to listen to for running errands, doing laundry, washing the car etc.

Years ago at Arbiton when you would go to review diaries in the gray plastic trays I remember seeing a diary for an AC station. In fact it was one of the five biggest quarter hour rich diaries in the market! I’m going to blind the station, lets just call it BIG AC 108!
The dairy had listening Thursday 9 to 5 for BIG AC 108! Friday 9 to 5 for BIG AC 108. Saturday and Sunday, no listening. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 9 to 5 BIG AC 108! 106 Quarter hours of listening to BIG AC 108!

The diary comment was priceless. This 49 year old male from a nice upper middle class zip code in this top 50 market had really shown his true colors. His diary comment was “I hate BIG AC 108!”

I’m not going to give you 100% of the answer here in a free blog post. I will just tell you then there is a way to get more quarter hours posted to your station by thinking of your radio station as two radio stations. One by Monday through Friday and another radio station on the weekends.

Depending on the key images you need to drive home, and the situational position your station finds itself in your market you can make choices. One is to “throw a party for the format on the weekend.” Things like a 2 fer Weekend, Block Party Weeeknd, A- Z Weekend, Superstars Weekend etc. Another choice is to highlight an essence lane of your music. The 90’s weekend on BIG AC 108! The 80’s Weekend on BIG AC 108! If your Country, Classic Hits or Rock there are even more choices for themes.

These themes allow you to take your station, moves some parts around but still maintain your format and name but just snipe a banner across it that says this weekend “Party – Fun – Music Arranged Slightly Different.”

Under the umbrella of “The Block Party Weekend” you can play 4 Elton Johns, then 4 Fleetwood Macs, Then 4 Eagles songs. Your jocks can celebrate the music by throwing in tid-bits of interesting information about these artists, songs and bands.

Rock Blox

Or A Block Party Weekend in the Country

What did your station do this weekend? Same old same old? What if I was across town and my station was having a party this weekend? People gravitate to the fun, the excitement, the hype, the search lights, the confetti and cake. Please someone from a rock station call me.. next weekend a pretzels, peanuts and beer weekend! Every time you hear a two-fer of an artist call we will spin the prize wheel. You’ll win snacks. It’s just a fun factor and its driven by the music programming. Which might certainly be a little different than Monday through Friday. The same but a little different, that’s what I recommend on the weekends!

Need help with determining whats right for your station on the weekend? … and then executing it correctly?

Call Keith Hill 252-453-8888

What Is The Best Library Size?

Music Library / tagged best, library, music, size / May 29, 2018 / by Keith Hill

The good folks from MusicMaster have allowed me to be part of their Pro Team. The aw-shucks in me combined with my snarky attitude makes to say… “what a mistake on their part.” The truth they have the best music scheduling software available on planet earth. There remain really great questions about what philosophies you have to best achieve the best rating results. The longest ATSE (Average Time Spent Exposed – in PPM-measured markets) and TSL (Time Spent Listening – in legacy Diary markets.) So for as long as they’ll let me be part of the Pro Team, I plan on pontificating about some of the ways to think about the best way to go about scheduling music for excellent results, bonuses, better job offers and getting your competitors evicted from their homes. See today, I’m snarly and FUN!

“So, Keith what is the best library size?”

Answer 172 songs! See, I promised snarky and fun. Seriously, I go waaaaayyyy back to one of my old bosses and mentors Julian Breen. When I was a baby PD and Julian had forgotten more than I would ever know about radio he used to say, “Gentlemen your library size is your station’s blood pressure! How high do you want it to be?” First, you’ll notice we have evolved and now have women music directors, PDs, and general managers. I believe the intelligent approach to library size involves first making the decision to program your radio station for your P1’s. The folks who spend the most time with you. DO NOT pick a library size to appeal to your P2’s or P3’s… you’ll end up just playing 5 songs and that will wear out your P1’s.

If you have Nielsen, Eastlan or some research intel you’ll be able to get a handle on those P1 listeners. It used to be that P1’s would spend 18 to 20 hours a week with your radio station. That’s rare today. The belief is that folks have more choices of distraction… the internet, phones, and audio other than radio. In future articles, we can get into how to fight those things. For now, let’s imagine a station with 12 hours a week average listening by it’s P1s. That 12 hours means they listen 102 minutes a day. (1 hour and 42 minutes a day) Then you need to know the typical number of listening occasions. Let’s say its 5 occasions a day. Well, that 102 minutes divided by 5 is 20 minutes 24 seconds. Now a moment is truth from someone who has studied it way too much. Those 5 occasions end up more typically being 20 minutes in the morning, 38 minutes in midday, 28 minutes in car in the afternoon, then 4 minutes and lastly one more time for 12 minutes in the evening. The point is morning shows can run 20 minutes to 40-minute occasions. Middays can run a little longer. It might be 50 minutes or over an hour and with perhaps one interruption. Afternoons in-car listening can be around 30 minutes. Evenings often these days show shorter length in the occasions. In PPM markets it can be many more listening occasions but shorter.

The truth is, listeners don’t listen as long as we think.

I claim if you take your P1 ATSE / TSL and divide by the occasions you end up with what you should program for. Important to note these are average of the P1’s There are those rare P1’s who spend 4 or 5 hours a day. God give me their addresses!!!!! We don’t want to wear them out with rapid turnover that causes fatigue. So, we’re not going to play 15 songs over and over every hour. Though many years ago Mike Joseph (who sadly recently passed away at age 90) used essentially 30 songs which were turning over every two hours. He achieved great success with this simple formula. The truth is listeners don’t listen as long as we think. Yes, the sales manager is going to tell you our station is on in a big retail advertiser all day long and they are complaining of repetition. Ask him/her why one spot a day isn’t enough for them in their advertising schedule?

There are different answers to the library size question depending on your format. If your format has currents and recurrent material or if you are a library based classic hits station.

Let’s quickly wrap up a thought on a station that plays Currents, Recurrents, and Gold and that needs essentially 15 songs an hour. And for simplicity lets say there are 5 currents, 5 recurrents, and 5 gold.

A Power Currents 2 Per hour – 5 Songs – Turnover 2 ½ hours
B Medium Currents 2 Per hour – 7 Songs – Turnover 3 ½ hours
C Light Currents 1 Per hour – 5 Songs – Turnover 5 hours
D Power Recurrent 3 Per hour – 21 Songs – Turnover 7 hours
E Reg Recurrent 2 Per hour– 30 Songs – Turnover 15 hours
P Power Gold 3 Per hour– 57 Songs – Turnover 19 hours
R Regular Gold 2 Per hour– 62 Songs – Turnover 1 day 7 hours

Well, that’s 187. (See that 172 earlier was the consultant in me slashing your playlist)

Those turnovers (or repeat intervals) on currents are based on those P1 average times.

Recurrents have some fatigue because they are older. And the gold is the best stuff from your Gold pool that creates the impression of variety. Musicmaster offers the excellent tool and facility for auto platooning (Thanks Joe & Scott it’s EXCELLENT!!!) You could find 5 more power gold and 5 more regular gold lets say and platoon rest 5 songs in each all the time. I like to rest songs 3 to 4 weeks. I also like choosing most played in the category. That way the 5 most played Power Gold move to the Platoon Rest bucket and sits out for 4 weeks. While 5 fresh songs come in. And by choosing the most played over time all the songs in the category should take their turn in the timeout rest Platoon Bucket! What you want is a long enough of a rest so that your P1’s get to the point where they feel you play a song too much. Just then you rest it. Its gone for 4 weeks and then they hear it again and it has gone from brown burned to fresh re-greened in their mind.

Next time my pontification on Artist Separation. While most programmers think of Artist Separation… I will suggest that the wrong way to think about it. Instead, I’ll introduce you to “Artist Density.” My claim, the right artist density drives listenership longer… ratings higher and you’ll be driving a newer nicer car as the result of what happens!