Sit down. I want to discuss variety.

Ah, variety. The “v” word.

Somewhere along the way the concept of a radio station “playing the hits” has gotten an unfair rap. Yes, everybody has a variety of tastes. Yes everybody’s iPod has a tremendous variety demonstrating they have discerning and a broad range of tastes. However here’s the tricky part: everybody’s definition of “good” variety differs. Let’s say that my iPod is loaded with Barry Manilow, Edith Piaf and Godsmack along with everything in between. Damn, do I have variety! And it also illustrates my great knowledge and broad spectrum of taste in music!! And let’s say that on your iPod I can listen to Fats Domino, the New York Philharmonic, Marilyn Manson, Bruce Springsteen and everything in between. Well, you have pretty great variety too. But if you programmed a radio station based on your definition of variety I’d hate it. And vice versa.

In the U.S. it’s been shouted from all corners that terrestrial radio isn’t doing a good job of serving its audiences because of, among other things, small playlists. In other words, lack of variety. It’s a lack of variety because many stations simply “play the hits.” And again, apparently that’s a bad thing.

But terrestrial radio has developed this way over the years for certain reasons – competitive reasons. A radio station that is dependent on advertising revenues has to attract a large amount of people in order to support itself. And since it has to attract a mass audience, it has to choose a format and program it so that it has mass appeal. A single terrestrial station has no choice but to “play the hits” to attract this mass audience. It plays the hits within the parameters of its format of course, but none the less it plays the hits.
If it doesn’t play the hits, rather choosing to play a wider variety and deeper choice of music, they may end up with a more passionate audience, but it will be a smaller one. The station may “sound better” to certain ears, but those ears will be fewer. And if they do that, the station now has to play the game of selling a smaller, but more passionate audience to the radio-buying community. This is tricky. To a radio buyer the qualitative stuff only goes so far. Radio sales people and radio buyers don’t do qualitative well. They are trained to sell and buy quantitative – they like having numbers, big numbers, to base their decisions on. It makes it easier to defend their decisions to their bosses if the numbers are on their side.

But blah, blah, blah…here’s the point: On a platform such as satellite radio there’s no need to choose between playing the hits and not playing the hits; or playing a broader range of hits; or playing tunes that are a hits of a different definition. Because when you have a platform, there’s room for all kinds of channels. And not only is there room, it’s critical to have all these types of channels! Again, here’s a little secret: there’s nothing inherently wrong with channels “playing the hits.” Really.

On XM there’s a channel called Top 20 on 20. You know what that channel does? Shockingly, it counts down the top-20 hits of the week in order, from number 20 right down to number 1. Then they do it again. And again. And again. And you know what? It’s a great channel and it’s always one of the higher ranked channels on XM. You know why? Cause people like the hits. And you know what else? When people want to hear something else – something that has more variety – they can go to a number of other channels on the platform to satisfy their needs. You like Folk music? Good, there’s a channel that plays nothing but folk music. Opera? Fantastico! There’s a channel dedicated to it. You in the mood for rock music, but don’t want to hear the same old rock hits? Great – there’s a channel that plays nothing but the album cuts. Think “Backstreets” instead of “Born to Run.”

And in fact, the hit-based channels actually give the platform freedom. For by having the hit-based channels the provider now has the ability to create channels that have a broader or different mandate. The platform operators can now provide their subscribers with channels that would never fly in an FM environment where attracting advertising revenue is the main goal. Having the platform gives them the freedom to deliver it all to the consumer. Hits, non-hits, hits by hair bands (I’m not kidding – Hair Nation on Sirius) channels dedicated to one artist (E Street Radio, Rolling Stones Radio on Sirius) or channels dedicated to one theme (the 2008 Presidential Race – the POTUS channel on XM). It’s all there and more.

Hits – it’s not a four-letter word.

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