Songs on the radio

[disconnected]

I’m hoping someone can explain the radio process. I’m wondering how come our local radio stations play the same songs over and over again.
Is it because humans like repetition and familiarity? Do the stations need to pay for song use?
It’s just baffling to me how the classic rock stations play The same songs, the mix stations play the same songs, the alternative stations play the same songs etc etc for years.

Why is this?

 

[disconnected]

Or is this just local to my area?! Think of the 1000’s of songs! How many times can the local mix play “Safety Dance”

 

[Fino]

It's the same in my area!

I think one reason is that people keep requesting certain songs.

Another reason is I think they're required/obligated to play the hits. The songs that are in the top ten and such.

The artist and their label receives a minuscule royality, so someone must be paying?

People love repetition! We're biologically disposed to it! When we recognize something, we're rewarded with pleasure. It's how the pop song format came to be. It's repetition and the repetitious song is repeated. Inception!

When I first hear a song I love, I listen to it over and over then a few times a day then once a day then every once in a while. So I understand them doing that. Do you ever do anything like that?

 

[oregano]

A lot of the "classic" and retro stations, they tend to play the songs that people most remember from that period of time. For example, a station playing 80s music will play the big hits that the audience-mainly people who were teens and college students in the 80s-remember most and identify most with from that time period. So you get big hits like Safety Dance and Money For Nothing and Down Under and such over and over and over. The more obscure songs from that time period don't get airtime because nobody remembers them.

As for current music stations, which in the US mainly means "urban" music like rap and R&B and "country" music, it gets somewhat more complicated. A lot of the decisions are made by executives at the big record labels based on focus groups. With the rise of YouTube the grip of the big suits at big record labels in Hollywood and New York has loosened greatly, I remember when Gangnam Style became popular in 2012 local radio picked it up and was paying royalties directly to Psy's label in South Korea and the big labels in the US were caught flatfooted.

Today teens are sharing YouTube links among themselves and using services like Pandora and cutting out broadcast radio entirely and youth music radio is circling the drain. With country, the audience is older and less tech savvy and the big Nashville labels still have some pull. But over the air radio is increasingly moving to nostalgia formats and talk radio. Here in California ethnic formats are big due to the diverse population, Sacramento has a radio station that broadcasts solely in the Hmong language, and another one that is mostly in Russian!

I personally find myself spending a lot of time with "amateur" or two way radio (yes I'm licensed) and a brief listen to a news station in the afternoon. My generation (Generation X) was very familiar with over the air radio, both AM/FM and shortwave, but the youth do everything over their smartphones, which is why what we traditionally consider "radio" is in a slow death spiral.

 

[ftfipps]

I know what you mean by the radio playing the same songs over and over and It does bug me. When I was a kid in the 90's the radio stations played the same stuff all the time. Luckily we didn't mind because that decade created my favorite music. Alternative rock that was coming out of the pacific northwest harnessed all the beauty in depression and sadness that all human beings feel from time to time. The crazy thing about it is I would go on Youtube at present day and play one of those hackneyed, worn out hits from back then and they're still amazing.

In the end, It is all about what band has a new album out, what bands are on tour; etc. I personally enjoyed the Canadian radio stations I heard when I was near the US/Canadian border.

 

[Kyou Nukui]

I think radio is payed for by commercials, so they prioritise the songs that appeal to weak minded sheeple who will buy what they're told they should buy and like what they're told they should like: chart music.

 

[Sherlock77]

Then avoid commercial radio entirely, as much as possible...

I listen to university stations, I'm presently listening to dance music on CJSW – Calgary's Independent Radio 90.9FM Most large Canadian cities have independent radio stations at the local university

I also actively listen to http://ckua.com/ here in Alberta, a much wider variety of music, a lot of indie artists, not the same song all the time, a lot of singer/songwriter music, world music, roots music, etc... Not the typical stuff

Also radio stations like that have little to no advertising, ever, if you want to avoid that aspect.

 

[Progster]

Yeah, commercial radio drives me mad, especially at this time of year (Christmas) - it's not just that they play the same song over and over again, but I don't like the kind of music that they normally play, they interupt or cut off the song at the end, and they keep playing moronic commercials. It's torture if you have to work anywhere where they have a radio on, or if you have to ride in someone's car and are forced to listen to their crappy music, or when you are staying with someone and they have the radio on 24/7. I very rarely listen to the radio, and much prer to listen to my own music, and make my own playlists.

 

[SusanLR]

@Kyou Nukui you got it right.
I love classic rock, but, the only radio station here I listen to plays the same things like it's a loop.
Personally I need music when driving to keep me focused. I can stand to hear some of the same
over and over with an occasional song from that era that I haven't heard in a long time thrown in.
It all has to do with money.
I could get Sirius and have a large variety, but, you must pay to listen. Money again.
At least the station here plays without commercial interruptions for long periods of time.
Every 80 mins. 80's see? Twice a day 180 mins. commercial free.

 

[Kyou Nukui]

@Kyou Nukui you got it right.
I love classic rock, but, the only radio station here I listen to plays the same things like it's a loop.
Personally I need music when driving to keep me focused. I can stand to hear some of the same
over and over with an occasional song from that era that I haven't heard in a long time thrown in.
It all has to do with money.
I could get Sirius and have a large variety, but, you must pay to listen. Money again.
At least the station here plays without commercial interruptions for long periods of time.
Every 80 mins. 80's see? Twice a day 180 mins. commercial free.

I had to goggle Sirius. I never even heard of satellite radio before. I can't imagine how that works.
I use Soundcloud which (if I don't pay attention when one of my play lists ends) automatically plays tracks based on my listening history and what other people who listen to the tracks I like also like, so it is somewhat like radio.
I have to pay (£5/month) for being allowed to store tracks for offline listening but otherwise it just uses my phone's data allowance which costs more.
I like that it finds/ plays tracks I would probably enjoy. I doubt that any radio station would ever play any of the music/ labels I like.. (EATBRAIN, Blackout, Shanti Planti, Merkaba, Lantis..) But I don't live in a city, so things might be different here.

 

[tlc]

Same thing here. As posted, radio is free to the general public, so the station does what's easiest. Have a set number of songs and playlists that they don't have to do anything with. One station's slogan "it's the station everyone at work can agree on". Yes they can all agree it's repetitive and annoying. Even the "classic rock" station plays the same 70s and 80s songs as they did when I was a kid. We have had a few good stations pop up but they don't last long, apparently the work involved in putting out quality music outweighs the revenue from advertisers.

Thankfully there are sources for better radio. I get radio on the satellite dish. Or Sirius/XM if you want to pay for it. And several sources on the net for good free radio. I think the best radio is when you hear things you haven't heard in a long time, but that takes work at a radio station.

 

[Iamnotarabot]

Why is this?

Like you i think they have to pay something to the artist so if they use to many songs they might have to pay more I guess.
And people also like routine I think,basically the radio I listen too most of the time you have the same old songs + a few song from the same genre that are trendy this year.

And this is funny because when I was a teenager I listen so much to the same radio I was playing the " guess the next song game" and It worked more than once.

Back then I thought I was playing a luck game but maybe it might be related to identify patterns to some degree, LOL?

 

[Bedlamite]

....they interupt or cut off the song at the end, and they keep playing moronic commercials.

This post is very informative. For the longest time I thought I was the only person that recognized these radio quirks. What Progster mentioned above just drives me crazy. I used to think that their engineers were incompetent but when traveling out of town I received the same "cut the music short" mentality. I also noticed they never cut their sponsors' advertisements off. However, I have a theory as to why radio stations conduct their programing in this manner. MONEY!!!! Just as someone previously stated, radio stations are financed by commercial sponsors. Think about it - if you cut off all the music played over a twenty four hour peroid by a mere five seconds, that time greatly accumulates and you can play more advertisements and get more revenue from those sponsors. Greedy bastards! (can I say that???)

 

[Progster]

This post is very informative. For the longest time I thought I was the only person that recognized these radio quirks. What Progster mentioned above just drives me crazy. I used to think that their engineers were incompetent but when traveling out of town I received the same "cut the music short" mentality. I also noticed they never cut their sponsors' advertisements off. However, I have a theory as to why radio stations conduct their programing in this manner. MONEY!!!! Just as someone previously stated, radio stations are financed by commercial sponsors. Think about it - if you cut off all the music played over a twenty four hour peroid by a mere five seconds, that time greatly accumulates and you can play more advertisements and get more revenue from those sponsors. Greedy bastards! (can I say that???)

I think that they do it because they want to grab the listener's attention to keep them engaged, and more importantly, to keep them from changing to another station, because the more listeners they have, the more money they can make from advertising. Since these commercial stations are there to make money, then yes, it all comes down to money in the end.

 

[Omnik]

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