Commercial Radio Shows Its Lack Of Relevance, Exhibits #354 and #355
Written Oct. 13, 2009 by Larry Rosin in Content + Music Industry with 9 Comments
Let me take you back to the 1970s. The often goofy theme songs from Laverne & Shirley, Welcome Back Kotter, Happy Days, SWAT, and Rockford Files all chart, and a few go number one. TV themes were among the secret weapons that Top 40 programmers pulled out, when they weren't digging up novelty records or album cuts. Were they all good or enduring records? It doesn't matter now. For kids of the '70s, they were all "pop culture," long before that phrase took hold. And radio didn't have to work to reflect pop culture, it was still in the business of helping to create it.
Fast forward to today. I have made a consistent theme of modern Top 40 radio's failure to jump on things that are selling music or everyone is watching on TV or whatever. Basically, I have learned that if radio does not get songs promoted to it, it simply will not play them. In other words, in this time when we need to be more creative and daring than ever, instead we are the most conservative we have ever been.
The latest example is the buzz-alicioius show Wednesday nights on Fox: "Glee". Every week there are a number of songs on the show, and pretty much every single song they've released so far is in the iTunes top 200 for sales right now (including songs that are on upcoming shows). The show is huge with teens and doing well with 18-49s. Hunt down some of these songs online (including last week's mash-ups) and listen for yourself.
Radio's response? Of course, it has hardly played any of these songs.
Meanwhile, there is a new song from Michael Jackson. Heard of him? I think he'd gotten some attention this summer for something. Take a look at Mediabase. Outside of Urban AC, most of the stations that have acknowledged "This Is It" have given it 3-4 spins since Monday. Some gave it a single spin. So far, much of commercial radio just decided that a 'new' Michael Jackson song was not of interest to its listeners. Wow.
OK, write in the comments I'm nuts. That all these songs, including the Michael one, suck and that our job is to keep sucky music away from the masses. That PPM makes playing anything that isn't totally safe too risky to consider. But I think radio should be at the forefront of these things. Top 40 Radio should be on all these songs that are getting so much buzz. We go to seminars about how to create buzz for our radio stations: gee whiz, why don't we just play the buzzed-about songs?
Reader Comments
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I was amazed that Susan Boyle got 33 million hits and hardly any spins. Sure it's not a record you put in recurrent, but for a week or two, at its apex on YouTube, how could you lose? EVERYONE was talking about it. The buzz had to have worn off on any stations that played it.
That's exactly what's wrong with radio these days and it's because the real radio people aren't making the decisions anymore. Creativity is a no-no for the suits (lawyers, sales geeks, etc.) who run radio now. They don't understand it and so they fear it. God forbid one of those pesky "talents" starts to think he's important to the station's success. I'm a former jock and believe me, I used to jump on stuff like you discuss, Michael, Susan, the songs from hot TV shows, etc. That's what made radio fun and "hot" with the audience; when they couldn't turn away for fear they'd miss something.
Remember a week or two ago I said I usually don't agree with you? :]
My sister is 19 years old and had never heard of Michael Jackson until he died. She wondered out loud (rather, over text) to me why everyone was making a big deal. If that doesn't show you something about the age divide on contemporary music radio, I don't know what will. The MJ got enough spins to top the New Airplay at CHR, so it wasn't underrepresented, but it belongs in rotation on Urban, Hot AC and Urban AC. I'm glad it's doing well in at least one of those three formats.
Re: Glee and the like, I think we forget that there's still a lot of bigotry in mid-size markets that drives the midsection of the airplay charts, people that are either subject to CONSULTANT-driven top-down programming or program to appease sales "because Walker Ford won't buy a station that plays things from ." Glee isn't a runaway hit and arguing that with people who are convinced it's just a show about a bunch of high-school gays (until it moves to after Idol, anyway), you're going to have a tough time selling those songs.
Susan Boyle is the late 00's version of Amanda Perez: great voice, but not at all marketable.
For all these things, as far as contemporary formats are concerned, I kind of agree with Jerry... I don't think you need to PLAY them, I think your TALENT need to embrace them and comment and be allowed to have an opinion. I don't think they need airplay, though. The last thing radio needs to do is do whatever TV does. If you try that, you're losing just based on the physical medium.
I must have skipped the last paragraph of your article... my apologies.
"Playing buzzworthy items" is not the same as "creating buzz." That's just "continuing buzz." It might make you look at least topical, but that's not creating your own UNIQUE content that people care about.
Playing songs from Glee or Susan Boyle in rotation isn't going to generate buzz about your radio station, it'll just amount to the same as a blogger writing about it and not having an opinion: free publicity for content on a competing medium. (And that's even if your listeners care that you're playing it instead of the new Lady Gaga or Rihanna.)
I'm not saying that Top 40 is "doing it right" by any means. For the most part, they're not, and that mostly speaks to the current talent drought. I'm just saying that "creating buzz" and "playing buzzworthy content from another medium" are not the same, and "creating buzz" is obviously much more impactful.
I'm done writing books now. :]
What "Glee" is doing aren't really mashups -- they're taking one song that sounds like another (or has a similar tempo) and throwing a verse into the main song. Real mashups are a full-on blend of music from Song A and vocals from Song B (or, in some more complicated cases, pieces from multiple songs), but usually not as much of a straight-on reproduction of the original song as "Glee" is doing.
If you want to hear some great mashups, check out some of the creations by Party Ben (former Live 105/San Francisco Creative Services Director)... his Oasis vs. Green Day mashup "Boulevard of Broken Songs" got some attention a few years ago, and his more recent Snow Patrol vs. The Police track "Every Car You Chase" should have gotten a lot of airplay but didn't.
Rules Lawyer!
:)
For an AWESOMELY EPIC mash-up you have to grab this:
http://74.124.198.47/illegal-art.net/__girl__talk___feed__the__anima.ls___/
Remember a feww years back the theme song for a tv show was so popular the group had to go bad and create a full length song to satisfy radio and listeners...that show was called Friends. Power to the creative people that have suite support. Give the listener what they want! It still works...
I think the "conservative"-ness you decry isn't new. In the mid to late-70s and even into the early 80s in Minneapolis-St Paul (not the largest but certainly not the smallest market in America), you never heard Bruce Springsteen or the Ramones or Patti Smith on commercial radio. Just the top 40 crap over and over and over.
Commercial radio now irrelevant? It's been that way a long time, baby.
When I programmed mainstreamed AC, we used Eric Norberg's current-focused research to find the secret weapons which helped us drive our top-rated, well-funded, expensively consulted direct competitor out of the format. According to Eric, mainstream AC partisans have responded better to Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed A Dream" and several songs from the Glee cast ("Don't Stop Believin'", "Alone", "Take A Bow", "No Air") than they have to some of the songs which are presently receiving heavy AC exposure according to the charts.