Bill Virgin's Radio Beat October 26, 2006

Includes archive of Bill Virgin's columns fromJ une 2006 - March 2009

Postby radiofan » Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:35 am

On Radio: Stations say they're listening to what you want

By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER

Thursday, October 26, 2006



A Seattle radio station has built its marketing image on the tag line "We play what we want," with ads suggesting what it doesn't want is any requests from listeners for specific songs.

But some listeners may wonder whether that's any different from other stations that do purport to welcome listener requests. With playlists sometimes determined well in advance and in corporate offices far away, those listeners harbor suspicions that their requests are ignored or are for songs the station was going to play anyway.

But station programmers insist they do pay attention to what the listener wants to hear -- and asks for.

"Nothing matters more than what the listeners want to hear," says Scott Mahalick, program director for country station KKWF-FM (100.7), which has a daily feature in which it tallies the top five listener favorites. "It's critical, critical, critical."

Requests, he says, come from active listeners, the ones most loyal to the station. While there are other research techniques available, such as phone surveys and focus groups, listener requests are "the earliest feedback you're ever going to get."

Shawn Stewart, program director at KMTT-FM (103.7), says The Mountain takes requests as part of its daily feature "Desert Island Discs," as well as in evenings. Requests are particularly important, she says, with new music. "It's important to know if there's passion for a record," she says.

A slightly contrarian viewpoint comes from Joey Cohn, program director at jazz station KPLU-FM (88.5). The station relies more on formal research, as well as less formal survey methods including sending e-mails to listeners.

"The ones that that are the least meaningful are the ones that come in on a daily basis through e-mails and phone calls," Cohn says. "It's better when you're taking the time selecting the sample. ... Sometimes it's hard to make rhyme or reason from calls that come in."

A piece of music can generate a response just because it's different, but that doesn't indicate it's popular with the station's broad audience, he adds. Cohn says he prefers to work listener response and feedback into the programming, rather than rely on it for research.



If requests can get a record played, can the opposite occur -- that a record can be killed by generating no response, or by motivating listeners to call to say they hate it?

Sometimes, yes. "We have very active listeners," Stewart says, and when they respond with "the echoing sound of silence" that can decide a song's fate. While other songs may generate a reaction of " 'Wow, I really hate that'," Stewart says, "you've got to take risks."

"In my experience we call those 'passion songs,' if they immediately generate 'dislike' calls," adds Shellie Hart, operations manager for Clear Channel's KUBE-FM (93.3), KFNK-FM (104.9) and KNBQ-FM (102.9). But that doesn't necessarily doom a song. "Then you typically count on twice as many 'like' or 'curious' calls about a song and (it) will end up being a novelty hit," Hart says. A recent example: "Laffy Taffy" by D4L. A more dated example: "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred.

In other radio notes:


King County Executive Ron Sims takes listener calls at 10 a.m. today on "Weekday" on KUOW-FM (94.9). Attorney General Rob McKenna takes calls at 9.a.m. Friday, also on "Weekday" on KUOW.


Dub Championz performs on "Sonarchy" at midnight Saturday on KEXP-FM (90.3).


KEXP-FM (90.3) will be broadcasting live from the CMJ Music Marathon in New York next week, with performances by more than 20 bands during the week.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat in the Seattle P-I
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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