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Edison’s Sean Ross published an interesting thought provoker about the new CHR approach to spin currents over 100 times per week. Below are my thoughts. The italicized comments are from Sean’s note:
Among advocates of ultra-high spins, the prevailing logic has often been that Top 40 is going to be saddled with the image for repetition anyway, so why waste time fighting it when you could be playing a hit record? More recently, some have thought of it as an appropriate strategy for a PPM world where a station's cume is larger and its Time Spent Listening is shorter. In today's instant gratification world, why not hear the strongest record every time you tune in?
From focus groups and perceptual studies about the only negative thing that we consistently we hear about Country radio stations is repetition. That said, I like the thought of making sure that a hit is on the radio all the time. The trick is finding them. Very rarely do we see burn on Country product. In Dallas we saw higher burn numbers because Twister was playing records 80-90 times a week and when you added in The Wolf and KSCS songs were spinning around 200 times a week in the market. I believe that this is what contributed to fatigue that has over taken Country Radio in Dallas in the last 18 months.
And for some PDs, ultra high spins are not just a matter of playing the strongest song available at any given moment; they're also about burning the hits out for the other guy and creating a war of attrition. And, indeed, a number of the stations confronted with that type of Top 40 station did indeed get out.
Twister would have been a better partner to KSCS had they simply started records earlier and not played the same titles as the other Country stations in the market at the same time, just at twice the frequency. Had they gotten out in front and played songs earlier they could have stolen the “hip” image from the Wolf without contributing to the burnout of the format in Dallas. Instead all three of the stations were on about the same schedule of adds. I think that Twister was trying to burn out Wolf titles but John Sebastian was smart enough to broaden his library and play “Wolf” songs that the other two stations would not touch. Which is why The Wolf ended up the number one Country station in Dallas for the last year.
Now that the Wolf has abandoned that image it will be interesting to see how Citadel responds.
Whether because of "the long tail" or fewer major-label releases, there are fewer hits in most genres now. While one response is certainly to pound the hits that do exist, there's also something to be said for not burning out your powers because you don't know how long you'll have to live with them. And few songs have the ability to hang in there for six months like "Apologize" did;
Certainly this is not a problem for Country Radio. We have tried to slow down the format since that famous Larry Rosin presentation at the CRS about 7 years ago. But it has not slowed down the Superstars. In the last year we have seen songs going into the top 5 in 10 weeks, to number one in 13 weeks and another CD cut is on your desk the next week. We are sure to be back to 3-4 singles a year from superstars and then the B acts will be not far behind.
The problem will be how to handle 2 currents, one power recurrent and 2 recurrents from the same act. Add 10 library cuts from the act and you’re playing the act 18-20 times a day.
You can't do it without research. Because even if there's no such thing as playing the right records too much, you have to know what those songs are;
Unfortunately we are not seeing more stations doing research. And if you’re going to spin songs 100 times a week you had better know the hits. I am not even so concerned about burn as a I in identifying songs that lack any listener passion as soon as possible.
If PPM is the motivator, we haven't yet seen a CHR battle between fast and slow rotations yet. KRBE and Z100 are faring better than Q102 at the moment, but they also have the advantage of being the only CHRs in their market. But it's interesting that the PPM strategy in, say, Rock has resulted in less intense rotations and a broader gold library. And Z100, in particular, has done a good job of having it both ways--three songs top the 90 spin mark, but there's also a broad library and other relief throughout the day.
We have seen this in Houston with Country Radio because CBS and Cox are dramatically different. Jeff is a lot quicker and plays a deeper current list. The stations are back and forth ratings wise.
Twister in Dallas certainly approached this spin rate but the station was not a major player in Dallas because of signal issues and the number of other stations in the market that were taking the marketing lead the and all of the attention in Dallas.
Someone is going to give it a go in Country and we’ll get a real read on the success but certainly the PPM issue is significant in the applicable markets. We have found that the average person listens to 5 stations not 2.5 and they are comfortable listening outside of the format so we had better be playing the hit songs. The major question becomes whether currents, recurrents or gold is the right recipe.
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