Posted by John from Wisconsin on March 17, 2024, 3:26 pm
Never been in radio. Just a geek.
WHY does anyone program a station (clocks, add/drop songs, contesting, formatics,) only to have a countdown show, slow-song Sunday night, or some Back-in-the Day hits weekend show?
IE: (I'm in Michigan's UP) Listening to a National Countdown show. You certainly on your station don't play 40, or the 40 on the National Chart. I heard 5 songs I didn't know (including up & comers) and moved on. To sit through all the "filler" to get to #1 or the top 10, is something I guess I have no patience for. Now, later, it'll be another syndicated show and possibly another.
(IE: you have POWERS, Hit, re-current GOLD, etc) ... not the waiting for a song, etc. It just breaks all the formatics, my guess.)
So, you work hard and are under pressure to get good numbers (24hrsx5days) 120 hours a week only to have the weekend filled with anything but "local" or in-house programming.
Many are sadly running weekend, overnights & even nights jockless, so why not continue to format?
Hope I explained myself or the question properly. Thank you for your time/patience.
THIS is for ANY FORMAT: Top40/CHR: see above, Talkradio: Infomercials abound. News: Face the Nation, Meet the Press type shows.
Because it's cheap and easy to run. Generally barter. They don't pay anybody to run it. Just run the network or show's ads and it's good. Weekends are generally times when nobody is listening. The only shifts that really matter are Weekday mornings, middays and afternoons.
As for the Talk stations, that's how they make money on the weekends. Most of them run syndication and those shows don't air on the weekends. They have to make money somehow.
A lot of the bigger stations run by iHeart, Audacy or Cumulus have a syndication company that is co-owned or they produce syndicated programming. iHeart owns Premiere Radio. Cumulus owns Westwood One. Audacy is involved with much of the CBS Radio Network. Running it clears it for a market so they can say to advertisers it airs in this market.
When I was a kid, syndicated shows with Top40 countdowns were on your mind all week until they aired. Casey Kasem AT40, Dan Ingram's Satellite Top 40 Survey were a few of them. Today, with the 24/7 news cycle and instant gratification technology, besides cheap filler, no idea why anyone would listen to it.
Meet the Press type of programming? Sundays used to be a day people "caught up" on news. Church. Home with the family. Again, this has changed and why you see MTP on several outlets and times besides the original air time is sign of the times.
Westwood One also works with CBS Sports Radio, which is heard locally overnights & weekends on 670 AM The SCORE. Westwood One handles the distribution of the New York-based sports talk radio network, while WSCR's parent company Audacy produces it.
Interestingly enough, the rights to the famous CBS "eye" expired in 2019, but NOT necessarily the CBS Sports Radio name.
on March 17, 2024, 3:26 pm