Richard Sands got the “radio bug” at 5 years-old, listening to his transistor radio. After a long stint programming the iconic Live 105 in San Francisco, Richard ventured out to create “The Sands Report,” the #1 Alternative radio news weekly. It's a forum where he reports on the comings and goings of the format, while always offering up his insightful take on Alternative – and radio in general.
Richard recently interviewed Bridge Ratings CEO & Founder, Dave Van Dyke, about traditional radio’s dilemma. This interview was published in the March 15, 2023 issue of The Sands Report.
Richard: Last month you had a blog post about “Radio’s Dilemma.” What is that dilemma, Dave?
DVD: It should be a god-send, but radio has too much music to consider and expose for their listeners. When one considers all the music that has come before, there is an ever-expanding pool of possible songs. From a catalogue perspective, music discovery has increased in recent years as the internet has reminded original consumers of classic tunes to resample and discover and revive lost gems as younger generations discover that they love much of the older music as well as the new. Lots of classics. Plus, new music! Current music presents its own quagmire for radio programmers as listeners consume current and recurrent music differently than previous generations. For example, in addition to new album releases, many of today’s major artists may drop multiple new tracks from forthcoming albums in a given week. Part of radio’s dilemma is figuring out how to properly expose all this music.
RS: Streaming has made it a whole new ballgame, hasn’t it?
DVD: Exactly. Consumers have access to just about all the music ever recorded and have created self-selected libraries of favorites, interesting discoveries and classic finds. With artists dumping so much music into the marketplace, it’s a field day for music lovers, but presents a nightmare scenario for programmers. The industry generally continues to use the old-school 1980s playbook, reflecting airplay exposure based on the way labels used to release music.
RS: With so much new music constantly coming at us, how can radio sift through and figure out what is the best new music to play?
DVD: This is where it gets tricky. Radio has proven—in general—that it does very well “playing the hits” and that is what continues to bring listeners back to the dial. However, we’re at least ten years beyond when radio should’ve pivoted to systems that represent the way people actually consume music. Digital music consumption has changed the landscape and radio’s systems have not kept up. It takes courage in today’s radio business environment to do things so differently that it gives a perceived change to the listener. Considering how many wonderful tools are available to them to help sift through the avalanche of new music monthly, those tools really haven’t changed programming all that much.
RS: What is research showing?
DVD: We’ve found on-demand streaming and other forms of traditional music research provide very different listener reactions to music. One analysis revealed that traditional music testing of hooks gives false positives about the lasting benefit of a song’s true appeal. On-demand streaming analysis shows actual consumption appeal over time. We’ve seen many examples of songs radio clings to in high rotations when actual consumption of that song is fading. Part of this problem stems from programmers programming by consensus, i.e. utilizing airplay charts to make music decisions. Some songs maintain significant passion on our streaming charts for weeks or months, most, though, fade. It’s knowing which songs to jettison and how quickly.
RS: And your conclusion is...?
DVD: Move songs through the system faster. Our StreamStats streaming data allows programmers to see quickly whether a song has potential. If it doesn’t expand its reach in our research with their audience, it is advisable to drop it.
We’ve found that many songs that are major hits that do fade in consumption rank, do so not because of “burn” or building negatives, but because of a more benign reason: other newer songs are replacing the time spent with weekly music consumption.
RS: What’s the best way for radio to meet the demand for new music?
DVD: It’s going to require completely different clocks or sequence structure. We have seen stations we consult turn songs over much quicker—not necessarily rotating them faster, but rather retaining them on the list for shorter spans and as research guides you, hold on to a handful of exceptional high consumption/high passion titles and either discard or place songs that have stickiness into different categories. Programmers can measure “stickiness” with on-demand streaming data or other research tools.
RS: Thanks for your time, Dave. Last question: Is there an opportunity here to work with labels? The labels should be our partners in the ever expanding world of music.
DVD: Though we are often on opposite sides of the desk, both parties benefit from a strong relationship. Unfortunately, more often than not, the label has different goals than the programmer, but there are times when promoting the artist, the label is interested in is a benefit to the programmer/station. Our best broadcasters are already partnering with labels...It is possible to do on-air features of songs a label is working allowing a station for example to get listeners involved for their responses to new songs that show promise through streaming data.