"With today’s consumer wanting to custom tailor everything to their liking, the name MY is a perfect brand for radio. This is a station designed by the listeners to play music they tell us they want to hear. How do we know what they want to hear? Extensive market research and continual weekly music information to keep the station familiar, fun and family friendly."
The above quote comes from a 2009 interview between Radio & Records & Clear Channel Communications' L.A. programming VP Michael Martin, which KBIG (FM)-L.A. program director Dave Denes seconded later in the same interview, after mentioning a few top "adult" songwriters: ".....every song we play is or was at the top of the charts." That sentiment seems to be echoed by numerous other top 40/AC stations nationwide, as MTV's Corey Moss relayed back in November 2006 (FULL DISCLOSURE: I still remember those days better than most people I know, mostly 'cause I had just started middle school back then!): "While those songs (referring to 3 songs that were near the top of the charts back then) are cringe-inducing reminders of way back when we feared the bird flu (and the Steelers!) for the typical top 40 fan (since not every radio listener likes to hang on to "old" top 40 hits), they're current hits on the AC radio format, where "current" is a relative term." That sentiment might not be as (publicly) prevalent now, almost 7 years later, but later on in that article, Moss laments some disagreements among most "typical" listeners: "In other words, AC stations are where pop songs go to die a very long death. Or, to optimists, to get a second life." Gary Berkowitz, adult contemporary-leaning radio consultant, is quoted in the article agreeing with Moss (& yours truly, for the record): "The format [has] never been known for making its own hits. As I always say, AC listeners know what they like and they like what they know. Familiarity and comfort-ability is really important in this format, and what we've discovered is new music is not that important to our listeners." Meanwhile, Roy Trakin, senior editor at Hits, a radio trade magazine, thinks the format is more based on songs than their performers: "Let's put it this way: It's a song-based format, it isn't a personality-based format. There's no guarantee that the next top single is going to go on right away. Probably half the people don't even know who the artists are when they're listening. They just know the song, and the songs are fairly indelible." On the other hand, Steve Hunter, operations manager @ multiple Tulsa, Oklahoma stations, thinks (& I disagree with him, BTW) that most AC artists (were) "one-hit wonders": "A lot of the artists playing on adult contemporary radio right now are one-hit wonders and it's unfortunate; they're not really building that bond. I don't know if our listeners are going out and buying the album or if they're downloading the single. My guess is that they're downloading the single, but they're not making that connection." Moss goes on to mention 1 of many stations' biggest fears: "AC programmers also back their low turnover with market research, which includes testing for "burnout," the industry term for overplayed." Now, normally, I would agree with him there, but here's what I've noticed over the years: Most performers have found their way into the top 40, struggled through the top 40, displacing a few other former top 5/10/20/etc. hits along the way, all the while getting progressively more airtime. Eventually, I've noticed songs in the top 5 or 10 get overwhelmingly more plays than everything else, leading to that "burnout" mentioned above. Once those songs have fallen out of the top 5 or 10, & especially once they've dropped out of the top 40, they've gotten airplays "once in a blue moon" (as evidenced by the playlists on the 6 NYC FM stations I profiled last night!), but for some of them, whereas they originally got played perhaps 10 or 15 times a day (on average), they now get played perhaps between 5 & 10 times a day, if they even get played that often!
UPDATE #1: The following link mentions the 3 songs whose names I purposely omitted @ the beginning of this post to prevent any sudden "nostalgia" issues among you people: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1544498/adult-contemporary-radio-where-hits-go-die.jhtml
UPDATE #2: I've found all of those stations' (recent) playlists!
http://923now.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist is practically only stuff from this decade (so far), & nothing else!)
http://wplj.tunegenie.com (This playlist goes back quite further than 92.3 NOW, playing some late 90s stuff every so often.....)
http://www.z100.com/music/playlist/ (Just like 92.3 NOW, this playlist sticks mostly to this decade, but unlike 92.3 NOW, not entirely!)
http://fresh1027.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist goes back the furthest of the 1st 4 stations, playing almost everything from this millennium (so far), but little else!)
http://www.ktu.com/music/playlist/ (This playlist, interestingly enough, has lots of 2000s stuff, little, if any, 90s stuff, &, owing to the original 'KTU station's heritage as a disco station, occasionally plays some 80s tunes to satisfy those people who still remember the original 'KTU!)
http://www.1067litefm.com/music/playlist/ ("3 parts variety" has been 1 of this station's main slogans for a bunch of years now, & if it wasn't for 80s stuff, I'm not so sure this station would have the same format it has right now, if it would even be on the air @ all in such a scenario! Unlike 'KTU, however, this station doesn't neglect the 90s; in fact, out of all 6 of these stations, "Lite FM" plays the most 90s music out of all of them!)
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