Research shows that listeners are more likely to stay tuned in if they hear familiar songs, and radio stations are responding with less variety than ever, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Kinnon Thomas, WUFT underwriter, said he has seen this firsthand is his various radio jobs.
“Stations do like to stick to a tight playlist,” he said. “They may introduce maybe one or two new songs a week.”
Only about 5 percent of songs played on the radio are titles that have been released in the past six months, Thomas said.
That means in a rotation of 500 songs, about 25 are new titles, and the rest of the songs are recurring — which means they’ve had six months or longer of play time.
To keep listeners tuned in, radio stations admit to playing less variety because their ratings show that listeners want to hear the recurring and popular titles more often, Thomas said.
“If a radio station only played new titles,” he said, “they wouldn’t make it, wouldn’t have good ratings and definitely wouldn’t be the top radio station.”
This trend of keeping the same list of songs in rotation may be a response to the popularity of streaming music applications, according to the story.
With apps like Spotify and Pandora, listeners can easily discover and listen to new music whenever they want.
Victoria Cappelli, a 20-year-old UF public relations junior, said she mostly listens to new music with apps on her phone.
“I like listening to new music,” she said, “but I don’t need the radio to discover it.”
When deciding on which new songs to release and whether to keep them in rotation, radio stations watch Billboard charts, record sales and SoundScan — a database that keeps track of music sales, Thomas said.
Cappelli said she interned at JVC Broadcasting in New York City. Through the internship, she was exposed to another way that program directors discover new music: pitching.
Bands give program directors their albums in hopes that a single will make it onto the radio.
But, she said, “Most of the time, they wouldn’t even open the CD.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 1/24/2014 under the headline "Oldies radio gets new meaning: Stations not playing new songs"]
