Quote:
Originally Posted by KC Tattoo
I could never understand why a radio station would play one song off an album and play it to death when that album usually has so much more kick ass songs on it.
I couldn't be in radio if I had to play songs I didn't like or not play all the songs I want to listen too lol.
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The labels release singles in order to promote albums. It's like a taste of the whole thing. They almost never send us whole albums and over the last decade or so they've almost completely stopped sending giveaway albums. The charts are made up of the most popular singles. That's how they sell things.
That may sound stupid but it works for us too because there's nothing that turns dials quicker than TOO MUCH unfamiliar music. If you played random cuts off say the top 40 albums at any given time you'd be such a mixture of unfamiliarity that you'd sound like a jumbled mess.
So you concentrate on one single at a time. It rotates high (plays too much once popular) because familiarity is key to winning ratings. If you aren't playing the most popular songs enough to satisfy a listenership that wants to sing along then your competition will be and they'll go there. I promise you, even though people may hate the practice, that's how you win...... getting too deep into too many albums is a sure fire way to lose.
AOR or Album Oriented Rock formats do just the opposite and for those listeners that works... but you never see an AOR station at the top of the ratings or sales figures in the market. (almost never)
It's not a perfect system but it works so it's done that way.
Hope that helps. Sorry to ramble.
