After a while in the radio research business, I noticed something about my monitoring of radio stations, both clients and their competitors. I didn’t have to listen long to get a handle on a station. After four or five songs, you knew whether a station was “playing the hits” or variety. You could hear the musical parameters pretty quickly—the depth of the library, the breadth of era, the stylistic balance.
That’s what programmers were taught to do–represent their stations with one perfect quarter-hour. When PPM brought a new programming mindset, I heard that one less. it seemed more important to play the right song in the moment, especially when you were only expecting an 8-9-minute listening occasion. As Jason Kidd of Virtual Jock noted, when I put the question out to Facebook friends, “In our younger formats, one segue is all we have. If we blow that, the rest of the quarter-hour won’t matter.”
But others are still very conscientious of the quarter-hour when they schedule music, and when they set their music-scheduling rules. Bryan Truta, PD of Triple-A KTBG (The Bridge) Kansas City says “I’ve stretched this out to include a set of music—usually 6 or 7 songs, depending on the breaks.” Trutta’s genres are a little more complicated than most. In my day-to-day scheduling of Classic Hits (the format), I’m balancing Classic Rock, Classic Hits (the genre), Dance/R&B, and Pop. Trutta is going for is a mix of alt/indie, folk/Americana, R&B, dance/electronic, blues/AOR, Hip-Hop, and world music/reggae/jazz.
When I write about radio stations, I usually share their music with you in 45-60-minute music monitors. But what would looking at a random four songs show us? Here’s a sampling of radio stations I’ve listened to recently, taken four songs at a time. Rather than always going with the first four songs I heard (or the first four of the hour), I went for sets that I thought told the story of the radio station, so there’s definitely some editor’s subjectivity involved here.
It was easy to find a song or two in any given sweep that said something about a station’s philosophy. It was harder to convey a station’s full range, and with some Adult Hits stations below, I finally decided that I had to share at least a few different four song stretches with you.
The other caveat is that, more than ever, even an hour’s worth of music can’t show the totality of a radio station, especially as programmers realize the need to be much more than music. Radio Works’ Ralph Wimmer very correctly points out, “If you spend all your time focusing only on musical perfection, you are ignoring part of the equation. Your personalities, connectors, and relatable local content, along with music flow, are all elements of a perfect quarter hour.”
But it was still fun to look through my recent listening—a mix of stations recently in the news, reader suggestions, and just my usual audio tourism–four songs at a time.
‘90s/’00s Gold WSHE (The New 100.3) Chicago
- Daft Punk, “One More Time”
- No Doubt, “Just A Girl”
- Maroon 5, “Moves Like Jagger (Remix)”
- Candyman, “Knockin’ Boots”
As the ‘90s and early ‘00s solidify as a format, WSHE has reimaged recently, including adding remixes of some hits, which definitely gives them a “workout mix” feel. The Candyman title is the most telling of the four—an “oh wow” from the early ‘90s period of CHR that even some ‘90s stations don’t acknowledge. Also shows that SHE is willing to play rap in some form on a station that’s part of the AC universe.
Classic Hits WUKL (100.5 WOMP-FM) Wheeling, W. Va.
Backstreet Boys, “Larger Than Life”- Survivor, “Is This Love”
- Foreigner, “Urgent”
- Alanis Morissette, “Head Over Feet”
Around the holidays, this Classic Hits station moved frequencies and took on the name of the market’s heritage CHR station. On Aug. 10, it had a spectacular debut book, up 6.8 – 15.9. I heard them in early evening. What I got that mattered from the first four songs I head, in this case was corporate rock was a core sound (made sense in that market), that there was a significant ‘90s component, and that there were “oh-wows,” as indicated by any Survivor song other than “Eye of the Tiger.”
Country KOKE Austin
Aaron Watson, “Unwanted Man”- Scotty McCreery, “Damn Strait”
- Robert Earl Kean, “Gringo Honeymoon”
- Don Williams, “Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good”
I’ve always enjoyed KOKE’s mix of Texas and mainstream Country, filtered through the “progressive country” history of the call letters. In four songs, there was a recent mainstream No. 1 (albeit one that had both traditional country and Texas connections in its subject matter); two Texas Country artists—one with some recent mainstream success; and one Classic Country title. (Don Williams is often part of my KOKE experience. Earlier I’d heard a local artist who reminded me of Don Williams.)
Top 40 WKEE Huntington, W. Va.
Taio Cruz, “Dynamite”- Harry Styles, “Like It Was”
- Doja Cat, “Get Into It (Yuh)”
- Imagine Dragons, “Bones”
Heritage iHeart CHR “Kee 100” just became the highest-rated CHR in America in the spring 2022 Nielsen ratings. This was a good four-song sample for having an older gold title, and being able to make both Doja and Imagine Dragons work in a heartland market when I heard them in middays Aug. 10. (If I had started a little earlier during their ‘90s at 9), I could have included New Kids on the Block’s “Step by Step.”
Adult R&B WHQT (Hot 105) Miami
Mariah Carey, “Emotions”- SZA, “I Hate U”
- Maze, “Before I Let Go”
- Toni Braxton, “He Wasn’t Man Enough”
I’ve always appreciated the variety of Miami’s longtime Adult R&B powerhouse, Hot 105. In these four songs are an anthemic ‘80s, a recent example of the female R&B taking over both Adult and Mainstream R&B radio, and two songs from the ‘90s (now the center of the format for both stations) but less-played ones.
Alternative KNTU (88.1 Indie) Dallas
Vance Joy, “Clarity”- Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
- U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)”
- Maneskin, “Supermodel”
A few of my Radioinsight colleagues are big fans of this North Texas University station that flipped in late July from Jazz to a surprisingly mainstream version of Alternative. As heard in the 8 a.m. hour, the mix is roughly 50/50 gold and recent. The library is wide, which you definitely get from any of the four song slices I could have taken. The currents span from the Triple-A end of the format to the poppier side.
AC WDEF-FM (Sunny 92.3) Chattanooga, Tenn.
Dido, “White Flag”- A Flock of Seagulls, “I Ran (So Far Away)”
- LeAnn Rimes, “I Need You”
- The Weeknd, “Can’t Feel My Face”
Now that they’re streaming, this heritage AC also made an appearance in Radio’s Best & Worst recently. I wanted to include this early August afternoon sample anyway because it shows a distinctive station that plays hits, without playing exactly the same hits that you’d hear on most other Mainstream ACs. There was a noticeable Modern AC component—not just Dido but Snow Patrol and Coldplay as well.
Oldies WTZQ Asheville, N.C.
Bob Seger, “Blue Monday”- Rolling Stones, “As Tears Go By”
- Teresa Brewer, “Music Music Music”
- Leo Sayer, “More Than I Can Say”
I discovered WTZQ’s standards/oldies mix on vacation and wanted to listen again during early afternoons on August 1 when I got back. Any four songs do a good job of showing the range and eclecticism that will definitely make them interesting to the Ross on Radio readers who are always in search of older gold. The Seger cover of the Fats Domino song is from the Road House soundtrack. It’s cheating, but I’m also going to include the segue I heard later from ELO’s “Rock & Roll Is King” to Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.”
Alternative KNRK (94/7 FM) Portland, Ore.
Beck, “Where It’s At”- Cannons, “Fire for You”
- White Stripes, “Icky Thump”
- XTC, “Dear God”—staged as “another Alternative classic”
I could have included KNRK, now back under the guidance of PD Mark Hamilton, in my recent look at three Audacy stations, including KROQ Los Angeles, and how they’ve retrenched from their poppier, more centralized approach to Alternative. These four songs were a pretty good microcosm of the station—recent pop/alt, ‘90s (but not grunge), one of the key bands from the time when “tru.alt” broke away from Alternative’s harder rock lean and a pre-Nirvana title of the sort that some stations are again turning to.
Country WUSH (US106.1) Norfolk, Va.
Faith Hill, “This Kiss”- Jon Pardi, “Last Night Lonely”
- Luke Combs, “Forever After All”
- Tracy Byrd, “Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo”
The four songs here were the first four I heard when I listened in middays in late July. There was a good spread of era over the last 25 years. The four songs also show how the line between pop and traditional Country blurs with time. US106.1 is “unapologetically Country,” so it’s interesting to note how time has brought Hill back into that end of the format, even with one of her biggest pop crossovers.
Adult Hits KFBG (100.7 Big FM) San Diego
Scorpions, “No One Like You”- Simple Minds, “Don’t You (Forget About Me”)
- Elton John, “I’m Still Standing”
- Wings, “Live and Let Die”
But I could have also gone a little later and heard:
- New Radicals, “You Get What You Give”
- Queen, “Another One Bites the Dust”
- Eagles, “Take It Easy”
- Salt-N-Pepa, “Push It”
The rise of the Adult Hits format nearly two decades ago also dented the “perfect quarter-hour” thinking. As a researcher, it was hard to represent a Bob- or Jack-FM to respondents in less than six or seven songs that conveyed the breadth and included an “oh wow” song without giving an outlier title too much representation.
100.7 Big FM posted record ratings this week, up 6.6-9.8. Emphasizing variety as “the Big difference” has been part of its strategy against much tighter Classic Hits rival KXSN (Sunny 98.1). PD Garret Michaels describes the station as “loaded with hits, but still predictably unpredictable.” In this case, I needed more than four songs to demonstrate that when I listened on the afternoon of August 10.
The first four songs I heard could have been most large-market Classic Hits stations—mostly rock-leaning, mostly ‘80s, although still playing “Live and Let Die” by Wings, rather than Guns N’ Roses. The second had more of an era spread (1972 to 1998) and a wider genre range. Like the first set, it has an early ‘70s title that most people still consider a hit, but that not every station still plays.
Rhythmic AC KMVA (Hot 97.5/103.9) Phoenix
Whispers, “Rock Steady”- Halsey, “Bad at Love”
- Backstreet Boys, “As Long As You Love Me”
- Nina Sky, “Move Ya Body”
Hot 97.5 has also had a recent upwards trajectory since segueing from Hot AC in June. Again, this Aug. 9 foursome as monitored by BDSradio includes only a handful of its styles, although it does show a wide range from ‘80s Jammin’ Oldies to a recent pop title. But I could have gone a few songs later in the 3 p.m. hour and gotten the following.
- Naked Eyes, “Always Something There to Remind Me”
- Lizzo, “Good as Hell”
- 2 Unlimited, “Get Ready for This”
- Kanye West, “Heartless”
It’s worth noting that Hot 97.5 is the sister station of KOAI (The Wow Factor), the broadly programmed ‘60s/’70s-based station that has had surprising success in the market over the last year. When I asked Facebook friends if the perfect quarter-hour was still an objective, PD John Sebastian chimed in. “No,” he wrote. “The Wow Factor breaks all those rules.” (I’ve monitored them a number of times, including here.)
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com