This post seen 15/May/2013: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130514care
i posted this comment:
so, it is discovered (again) that people actually prefer a limited catalog of songs. we music radio/broadcast veterans all learned that years, decades ago. shorter playlists produce bigger ratings.
ask them about it and they’ll always SAY they would prefer a station that plays “lots of different songs, a very wide variety”. but in reality, they wouldn’t listen much to a station like that because “oh, that station plays a lot of crap songs.”
i (and many others) have been involved in format competitions where our competitor station had a total playlist of maybe 800-1000 songs, we had a playlist of 650 and consumer/perceptual research would show the city’s listeners prefered our station because it “played the widest variety of music”.
now how/why is that?? because playing the BEST songs over and over is what they truly want to hear. the rub is: how to discover just exactly what the “best” songs are? the ability to do this is what separates the amatuers from the pros.
