Taylor Hicks - The Distance

How do Radio Stations Decide What to Play?

According to the Federal Communications Commission, there are 13,814 radio stations licensed as of September 2005, 4,761 AM radio stations, 9,053 FM radio stations, and 1,745 broadcast television stations in the country. How do those 13,814 radio stations decide what to play?

According to several studies, 95% of everything on the Billboard charts is major label, and the majority of the remaining 5% is major-indie (major indies have a marketing budget of $50,000 minimum per release, and this does not include making the CD).

Who Does Decide What to Play

All of commercial radio is now driven by playlists. The days when you could actually call up your DJ and tell him what you wanted to hear and 15 minutes later played are long gone. In fact, your DJ can't even play what he wants to hear. Except for those rare celebrity-based request shows, and the occasional local station that has a request hour, ALL commercial radio is pre-formatted by playlists. In fact, for a number of stations, if you tell me your favorite, I can tell you what they played for the past 24 hours, and sometimes even what they are going to play for the next 24, and in order, by the hour. AND....the DJ does not determine this, there is one Program Director for the station who does the entire schedule for all DJs. In the case of the large chains like Clear Channel, this may be done at the corporate level, so the programming for 50 stations may be done by one person.


How Do They Choose What to Play


Most Program Directors generate their playlists primarily from the Billboard charts (which reflect the playlists of the monitored stations, and in the case of the Hot 100, Pop 100 and BB 200, airplay and sales)..... About 95% of this weeks programming will be the most popular stuff from last week across the country. THEN, they will look at all of the available songs "going for adds" and decide whether they will add any of them to their mix, and if so, how many times (daily, hourly, weekly, etc), and what segment of time they will play. (A lot of times if they introduce a "wildcard" that is not at the top of the charts, they may place it on the overnight schedule where listening numbers are lowest.

Now.....it becomes a "self feeding" process. The highest songs on the chart automatically go back on the playlist, and how do you get on the chart - by having the most airplay.


Program directors have a number of tools available when making programming decisions that help them better understand their market.

-Software applications that rank core audience performance of stations in the same format, same market, or nationally

-Software applications that track radio listening and trends in specific markets
Audience-analysis software

-Arbitrends service, which delivers ratings updates between standard quarterly surveys

Deciding what to "add"

Knowing the audience is the key to a PD being able to identify the best music to add to playlists. To stay on top what their audience likes, PDs watch the charts and playlists from other stations in the same genre. They also have access to Radio & Records weekly charts of songs that were added by the most stations the previous week (they can also see if those stations are keeping the song in their rotation this week) Most Added" report, which it generates from data it collects from radio stations in major markets according to genre. In the past few years, many have also found new music on TV.

Radio stations (sometimes working with recording companies, distributors, promoters, artist managers or retailers) also conduct market research to see what listeners either want to hear and/or are already listening to. A newer version of this type of research involves Web surveys by which listeners can vote and comment on music. Check your local station's website and see if they have a club for listener's to join. Often they will allow this group to review new music, or offer suggestions, and if you are already a member, it is makes your opinion more valuable than joining the day you want to request something.

There are several online music sites that were developed to provide a listening focus groups, and they allow listeners to rate the music. They often will pit 3-4 partial clips of tracks, and the listener rates them. Often, a label will use this when deciding which track to make the single from the new release. These services are considered valuable enough that their weekly "top" charts are also listed in Radio and Records. Two of the most tracked are Promosquad and Rate the Music.

Online P2P networks can also influence playlists. Clear Channel owns BigChampagne which tracks the songs most frequently downloaded in the P2P networks such as LimeWire and others. The program sorts this data by geographic region and reports it to radio stations, giving the stations a more accurate feel for what is "hot."

Clear Channel also has a Web site, Clear Channel Music Network, dedicated to new music. New groups can register and post their music for PDs and consumers to listen to. If PDs like it, there is always the chance they'll add it to their playlist