Why Do Radio Stations Play The Same Songs?
Photo by Buzz Bishop on FlickrBecause that’s what you want.
People say they want variety, in the end – they want familiar.
Charles Blow reports in the NY Times that:
“A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs.”
This is virtually a pure test. You can download (almost) any song you want when you go to iTunes. Sure some will search for the obscure garage band, but more than 99% of us stick with the popular and familiar. Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Nickelback.
It’s one of those situations where people have an ideal in their head on how they perceive themselves and their world and how they think they behave, yet strip away all the imagery and you have one result – you’re mainstream.
Don’t blame the radio station for playing the same song over and over again. They want you to listen to them, and you’re the one that chooses familiar over new almost every single time.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
Gotta somewhat disagree Buzz, but from a different angle. I gave up (mostly) listening to terrestrial radio many years back, and for this primary reason – you tune into CFOX or Z95 (or whatever it is now) hear some songs… less than an hour or two later, you start hearing the same songs again. I got fed up with it. There was actually a time between the lack of mass availability of digital music and more recent times where I simply didn’t listen to music at all because of this.
I remember when I first started dating my partner – she used to always have her radio in her appt dialed into 94.5 – and it had been several years by that point that I’d given up on radio (late 2004ish); I was mildly fascinated to see where radio was in the years since I’d given up listening to it… and it was the same. Even worse. If we spent an evening together with the radio on in the background, sure enough I’d hear the “top hits” at least twice, sometimes three times. Tuned out once again.
I don’t think of myself as out of the mainstream either – so I would imagine this format has turned off millions.
Radio spins the familiar hits because most listening is not done for long periods of time. People tune in for 10 mins in the car to the grocery store, for 15 on the way to the movie, for 20 on the way home from work.
Most contemporary music radio stations (CFOX, The Beat) are designed to be consumed like snacks, not meals. Consumed in small portions you’re more likely to hear something that’s familiar and you like, that’s a good thing. Consume these stations for a long period of time as the only staple of your diet and you’ll get sick of the songs, that’s a bad thing.
I’m trying to find a better way of saying “you’re using them wrong,” but I can’t. The radio stations are designed for light consumption (which is the way the majority of the population uses radio).
If “all” radio stations expanded their boundaries and mixed it up a bit more, then the listeners would be exposed to more variety and therefore purchase a wider range of songs, because the songs would then become more familiar to the listeners. People are not going to pay money for songs they are not familiar with. Vicious circle…
While I admit I am not a big “i” fan, and am therefore not familiar with all of it’s applications; I would think that if itunes had it’s own radio station that played all of it’s available songs, I bet you would see people buying a lot more non-mainstream songs, after being exposed to more songs.
Haven’t you ever gone into a store, to a party or to a friend’s house where they are playing some great music you have never heard before and you want to know what it is because you would love to listen to it on your own. Same story. While I would agree that people generally tend to gravitate to a certain genre, people do cross-mix a bit based on their emotions and how they feel.
It’s all about opportunity and exposure…
Does that ever bother you working as a DJ, trying to sound enthusiastic about songs you’ve heard about 8,000 times in the past few weeks?
It does seem that when stations try to branch out and play more variety, even within a restricted genre, they fail. 92.9 in Bellingham billed itself, for awhile, as “independent rock,” with an eclectic and (I thought) interesting playlist. They would even give out a cash prize if a listener noticed them playing the same song twice between 9 am and 5 pm or something. But they didn’t last, and are now a generic classic-rock station again.
Finally, I’d also suggest that younger listeners prefer to hear the same songs over and over again. I did when I listened to Top 40 radio when I was 12, and my kids (9 and 11) do it now. As you get older and want to listen to more variety, you’re usually at the point where you can afford to buy the music you want and listen to that.
That’s what I do, because trying to listen to almost any of the commercial stations drives me insane with the repetition. But I’m old, and no longer in the prime demographic for most of those stations anyway, even though I’m also a musician. So I end up listening to my own music collection, or CBC.
It does tell you that the market doesn’t always generate optimum solutions, though.
If I listened to the radio, this argument might have an outside chance of being valid. However, podcasts have taken over 90 percent of my listening time, and the rest is KCRW, KEXP, CBC Radio 3 and the SOMA radio network, all on my iphone. None of which is in the least bit mainstream. Nickelback? Feh.
That’s Buzz’s point. The biggest audiences are still in mainstream media (for now), and commercial radio aims for the middle of that audience. Those people seem to want the same songs over and over again. It may suck, but it’s true.
A radio station presenting a wide variety of music and styles has existed in the market for decades. If people really wanted unsigned artists and a diverse sound, CiTR at UBC would be a top choice.
Here’s something else to watch, a piece by Malcolm Gladwell talking about what people “say” they want, and what people “really” choose.
http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html
Asked to describe what they want in a coffee, people will say “rich and bold” without ever knowing what it means. Same for “variety” on radio. Trust me, you may say you want it, but you don’t mean it – the ratings and sales prove it.
Derek, to your question a bit back .. I did enjoy the songs when they were still new, but they burned on me VERY fast.
The type of music I ended up listening to in my off time was top 40 -ish. More euro based, but the same sort of sound. In other words, the stuff I wasn’t playing to death.
However, as many a PD would tell me when I made a beef about the music, when I was sick of it, the audience was just starting to get it.
To Buzz’s point, when people tune in, they have to be hearing a song they like, and when you market a radio station to a mainstream (wide) audience, you have to be playing that song now.
Radio is a mass medium, thus it requires mass appeal – now…and now…and now. Meaning for every new person who tunes in at anytime, it has to be a tune they like.
(BTW – out of 115,000 albums released in the US last year, 115 were hits)
Not a comment on the quality of music, just the appeal.
Buzz -
Are you trying to suggest there were 52,000 hit songs out there? That’s a pretty big Billboard Chart.
The inference is that the 80/20 rule applies. However, that is not true.
1) Read Chris Anderson’s Wired mag article on the Long Tail and how it applies to online music: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=2
2) The fact that there are 13 million songs available now tells us that there is a tremendous amount of “distortion” in the buyer market. How many of those songs are by aspiring American Idol contestants? There may be only 3 million songs realistically listenable – that’s still a tremendous amount – and the Long Tail would suggest that the vast majority of REAL music gets played.
3) With the Internet, the barrier of distribution is so amazingly low that we are bound to have so much content that even that will exceed the Long Tail’s ability to be valid. Eventually, you may get 1 song for every 10 humans on earth, so of course you’re going to have a statistical study that suggests that most music isn’t purchased.
The point is that you can’t take that study and conclude in ANY way that it means people want to hear Madonna on heavy rotation. It just doesn’t gut check with reality. Would YOU want to hear the same thing over and over? Do you know ANYONE who does personally? I don’t.
Read the comments from Phil and myself again. Radio is a snack that people want to be familiar.
geat post, its funny Buzz, b/c you just explained WITH science why it is the way it is and people say.. “NO!” But let me tell you… I work at a niche radio station (as niche as a commercial radio station can be) and our ratings are less than all the mainstream stations. where are you blog commentators? they need to find my show!
from my own blog, when i blog rad new or interesting classic alternative music, less blog hit, the Killers… it was my highest read post!
oh and db, read the long tail again… Chris Anderson says there is a need for HITS as much now as ever and that blockbusters will still exist (and should).
I think were ignoring Payola and the pressure from the labels put on the radio to play those same records over and over. Its drives up sales and interest in their artists. I Believe this is at least the case in most modern stations that’s play today’s hits. If you listen to a Hip-Hop and R&B stations it’s the same 20 songs over and over, and those are the same songs that have videos on MTV and BET getting played over and over obnoxiously. The Stations do not play it because people like it, people like it because the stations play it.
Pay for play exists more in the US than Canada. Which then affects Canadian charts because Canadian music directors mimic exactly what happens in the US.
Payola really existed heavily in the early years of radio when DJ’s had control over music on their shows. It now happens on a station basis where large commercial buys or concert appearances or trips are bundled and given to stations that add the records.
It’s similar to what happens in politics.. the ridings that elect someone to government are more likely to win government contracts for their community than the constituency that has an opposition member.
It’s not right, and people fight against it, but it does exist.
I do find your final sentence an interesting argument: “The Stations do not play it because people like it, people like it because the stations play it.”
How do you fix the system? Because there ARE radio stations that play variety and dont get the benefit of big label dollars, yet they languish near the bottom of the ratings..
ok its so stupid cuz its like i hear them just playing the same 5 songs over and over and over and over and over and over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n
I love to hear songs and i really like this blog. This is very nice musical blog and very interesting.I got lot of information here about radio songs. I used to download my favorite songs through freemp3. Well here i must share that i came to know about new free mp3 toolbar that allow to convert you tube videos to mp3 and allows you to download them to your computer. Try this to download your favorite songs (http://www.free-mp3.ca)n