not just in portland but radio everywhere ?I love my ipod but ijust once would like to jump in my car for a drive and not have to turn around because i forgot the damn thing at home

Oh boy....here we go...

dude...

how do you know that radio did not change at all and you are the one who did???

I blame the pot when I forget things.

I blame the cat when I "lose" things...

Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.

The Dude abides...

Thedude is chaneling djfresh.

What ever happened to radio??

Outsourced to India?

...What? You were expecting a diatribe on small playlists, fragmented audiences, loss of focus, linercards, and the stifling of creativity?

NAH...can't have been outsourced to India, you can still understand it. Maybe worse than outsourcing to India is that is has been outsourced to Canada! Take off Ay....Hoser!

What ever happened to radio??
I will tell you what happened:
1) There are a lot more stations on the air than we had 20 years ago.
2) There are many finely-focused radio formats on that were not available 20 years ago.
3) There many more syndicated program offerings available than there were 20 years ago.

These are facts. However, in my opinion, despite all of the above improvements, I find that the stuff on the air today doesn't compel me as much to want to listen compared to the limited program offerings of 20 years ago.

Yesterday, I was waiting to donate blood and was stuck listening to "Charlie FM." I can appreciate that the music played on that station is well liked by and recognizable to Gen-Xers like myself. However, the low-budget approach in how it was presented sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. As I listened, there was one mental image that I could not get out of my mind: Charlie FM is a guy sitting in an office behind a computer, manipulating a database of audio files containing the songs, liners and commercials. I would excuse this low budget approach on a small town AM station that is trying to stay afloat on a limited budget, but do we really need for a major market FM station to be operated like this?

What I find amazing is that technology allows for cost savings, Yet, the cost savings result in stations that sound second tier.* A case where techno advances make for a poorer product....

fewer staff equals an inferior presentation.

like buying a 2000 dollar stereo with all the bells and whistles, then hooking it up to a 20 dollar pair of speakers.

You now have a 20 dollar stereo.

* (in some cases, though some would argue the opposite)

>>What ever happened to radio??

Outsourced to India? <<

Well maybe not radio - but news reporting now is. Only a matter of time before voicetracking is done in India!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/ap_on_bi_ge/outsourcing_the_news

Notalent said:
"how do you know that radio did not change at all and you are the one who did???"

So true. But the fact is that both radio - and the people who are listening to it - have changed. It's like when I hear 40+ people say "MTV sucks - it's not good like it was when I was a teenager/20-something". Actually, MTV is programmed well - for the audience it's trying to reach, and that necessitates that it constantly evolve. Same with radio.

The fact is, as people age, by and large our tastes change as well - in music, food, radio programming, TV shows, everything. Many of the people on this board express dislike of hip-hop and rap and the programming/personalities that are part of it. But that's the meat of mainstream CHR these days, because the people consuming it, and the people CHR stations are trying to reach, like it. If you find a jock on a younger-demo oriented station "unlistenable" chances are they're doing their job well - 'cause your (and my) 43-year-old ass ain't who they're trying to relate to anyway!

From Mott The Hoople All THe Young Dudes...

..."I want to hear you, I want to see you, I want to RELATE to you".....

Let's talk about American Idol now.......

No Radiodawgz you are COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!!
I don't like certain stations because there talent is "Weak" meaning the talent sounds amature. Today with cost cutting, and consolidation, stations are putting just about anybody on the air in the portland Market. 10 years ago that would have been unheard of. Certain stations have cut so much meat off their products that the station suffers, and it sounds like crap.

In reading posts on these types of things I have a question. I always read and can hear with my own ears the decline of radio, good radio air talents. I get the impression that there are two seperate entities in the stations, the good guys, the air talent, and the bad guys, the corporate suits, sales, mktg, promo! When stations trim air talent to cut costs do they shred any suits as well or is that taboo? I would hate to do sales for a group of stations that had poor quality air talent! In order for a station to click don't you need quality in all three positions? You gotta have good talent with good salesman bringing in the bacon and awesome promotions people to get people away from other stations so the talent has an audience to play those ads for and be a part of those promotions? If one fails then don't they all suffer for it?
IMHO air talent, sales, and promotions need to hit it as a team effort for a station to succeed otherwise if they don't work well together then you lose ratings which result in cost cuts!

How come no one is blaming the music? Won't someone think of the music?

Why isn't music changing? Almost everything these days sounds like a retread of older stuff like we're in some kind of timewarp. A lot of the rock music released today could have been released ten or twenty years ago and not stood out. I used to listen to the radio to find out what music I want to buy. It seems like forever since I last heard a song on the radio and immediately had to buy that record. Now I'm flipping stations just so I don't have to hear that damn song for the ten thousandth time in my life.

It's no wonder so many stations are playing songs from other decades. It's just as good as new music.

"It's no wonder so many stations are playing songs from other decades. It's just as good as new music."

Ah, its many times better than new music!

A big Amen to that!

Double Amen to that! The new Music coming out today is CRAP! Why do you think Jammin is doing awful???? The Hiphop coming out today is garbage and nobody is into it. The Buzz had an awful book and that is because the music is CRAPOLA! Its not good music. Even if you do like Nelson and Terry or Mitch and Daria, you have to sit through those god-awful songs from Carrry Underwood! Since when is country considered pop music. I wish that CRAP
would stay on country stations!! I know plenty of women who are tired of hearing "get the party started"- That song is so burnt out, no wonder people are turning off their radios! If you look at the ratings, the top stations are mostly retro stations that play older music ie- KGON, K-HITS, CHARLIE. There is a reason why these stations are doing well, they are playing music that people enjoy hearing!

Funny, Beano... I was just thinking they should keep that crap on the Pop or Rhythmic stations and leave Country alone!

Hey Beano, If it makes you feel any better, Ive noticed that lately the Buzz has been playing very little MatchBox 20 and the Goo Goo Dolls. Hopefully they have thrown that SHIT out the window because its AWFUL and nobody wants to hear it!!! I think the Buzz will have to do a complete make over with the music, its not working and the ratings are dropping. I think the buzz has a very poor variety of music! I realize its the "personalities" that carry the station, BUT people are fed up of hearing Shaggy and Blue October every 10 minutes.

If 12+ ratings are any indication(I know, I know)then The Buzz's biggest threat appears to be Charlie! Rather ironic, isn't it?

Charlie plays better music!
People are getting tired of these CORPORATE STALE PLAYLISTS!!! While Charlies play list may sound slightly corporate, I've heard some songs on that station that I havent heard in years!! I think other people are taking notice of that too.

I listen to Jammin' just because they play music I've never heard before. Hip-hop is the only music I've heard that's been changing and sounding unique over the past few years. It's not my favorite genre, but at least it will surprise me sometimes. All the other new music I've been hearing is indistinguishable from music released five, ten or twenty years ago.

I still say we need a station that plays '50s music.

Hey Buns...people like Matchbox 20 and the Goo Goo Dolls. I know because I have seen the research of actual listeners!

Cue to start bashing the use of research in radio now...

Exactly what is a "corporate playlist"? One that reflects the carefully researched preferences of the station's core audience? One that's driven by listener tastes instead of those of record companies eager to hype their own product and DJs bored with their jobs -- which IS playing the music their core audience actually wants to hear?

I've never heard a single corporate staffer, manager, or programmer say "to hell with it. We're not going to play the songs the audience wants to hear." Every one of them has bent over backward to make sure the core audience (P1s and P2s)are super-served.

As Dexter said -- cue the bashing...

I agree with this.

However, want to hear is a result of what?

IMHO, this is somewhat circular. True, there are tunes that are better than others, but the set of really great tunes is smaller than the set of those most often played.

Isn't it possible to cultivate this to a degree, thus differentiating one station from another?

"....DJs bored with their jobs --"


where is the research on THAT comment?

Decades of listening to DJs tell me how tired THEY are of playing the same songs over and over.

K-Earth in L.A. played songs like "Unchained Melody" and "Pretty Woman" every 7-10 hours for at least a dozen years. During that time they were the #1 or #2 Anglo station 25-54 in L.A. And during that time, oldies fans voted 5 to 1 in every music test that they want those songs "played more". (In addition to testing the appeal of each song, we also had them indicate if they'd like to hear the song "more often" "about the same as now" or "less often."

The K-Earth jocks like Steele and Morgan never complained. Steele actually liked to keep a copy of the music test with him, so he could drop the weakest tune from the hour, when needed.

I WISH WEAK, UNTESTED SONGS WOULD GET MORE AIRPLAY!!
I know PLENTy of people who still listen to the radio but are always complaining of hearing the same burnt out songs OVER AND OVER AND OVER!!!!!!!
TESTING ALL OF YOUR MUSIC IS WHATS KILLING RADIO!!!

Hey Tdanner, are these stations doing LOCAL RESEARCH??? Or is it coming from some big wig in New York saying Matchbox 20 tests well.
Maybe thats why Movin is doing so horrible. They are sticking to a bland list of songs that some Corporate guy in New York is telling them to play.
I highly doubt that Movin 1075 is doing Local research. Maybe if Movin 1075 started throwing in a few more of the Non researched songs, they might actually get ratings!!!!! I agree with Beano in the fact that people are getting tired of hearing the same CRAP over and over. How many times do we need to hear "get the party started" By Pink?????
That song is so burnt out and so overplayed, its driving people away from their radios. I have no problem with researching your playlist, that is fine, BUT I think it is ridiculous if you stick only to the research songs and can't deviate from the researched songs often.
By the way, my thoughts have not been researched, these are only opinions.

I have never worked for groups that relied on anything other than local research. Local auditorium tests 1x a year for recurrents and gold on current based stations, local auditorium tests 2x a year for library based stations.

Since songs require familiarity for accurate evaluation, some companies do use group call out, with a local breakout included. Weekly Callout is so incredibly expensive to do correctly, that few stations outside the top5 markets can afford it on their own. So a group might use a sample of 40 from Orlando, 40 from Miami and 40 from Tampa to get their weekly 120 sample size.

(Generally speaking, a sample size of 120 will have an error range of about + or - 5%.)

And the pool of new tunes introduced comes from where?

What ever happened to radio? YOU LOST YOUR PASSSION FOR IT! Take a break, or move on... but whatever you do, don't sit there complaining about how radio ain't what it used to be.

DJ's that get tired of playing the same old songs need a break. As a radio veteran who moved on, I have to say, I miss the biz. Granted, it took me about 7 years to be able to say that. But give yourself a little distance and the memories acquire a lovely patina. When I left the biz, I thought if I had to introduce "Every Breath You Take" one more time I would lose my marbles. It had become a boring mind-numbing job.

What I miss bout radio:
1. You can go home after 4-6 hours. A real 40-60 hour a week job is hard to adjust to!
2. You work around fellow brain-injured people who know how to have fun.
3. Nothing is life-or-death.
4. You get to hear music all day.
5. The general public is fascinated with what you do and they still think you get to play whatever you want (if you're doing a good job!)

Although I have no regrets, I do have some very fond memories. I left before I HATED it. I now miss it! Go figure. Now radio sounds good to me again. Especially live radio! I still return here to hear the latest buzz in the biz.

Don't Forget to Dance.

yes but was ONLY pretty Woman and UNchained Melody tested, or did the group also get to hear Ooby Dooby and Ebb Tide... Maybe those songs worked in once in a while would "Rest" the biggies and prevent burnout for both the listener and the jock. If the audience thinks Roy Orbison ONLY had one hit, then the other titles keep Pretty Woman FRESH as well as enlighten and evoke memories from the listener. Why play Big Girls Don't Cry every time when th Four Seasons had a slew of equally memorable hits. Sorry just the size of these surveys means too much has to be left out. If there is no room or time to present a wider variety of options to the group then the survey is skewed from the start.

Ever hear Jackie Wilsons Reet Petite? Most oldies listeners don't get the chance either, but If Higher and Higher tests well, Spinning Reet Petite on occasion won't chase them away.

What is lost in programming is programmers who really know the formats they work in.. With people "PD" of multiple stations you lose the ability to keep the play list fresh through knowledgeable people. I'll program you a fantastic oldies station, but would have to rely heavily on someone elses expertise to give you an outstanding modern country station.

So bury someone with PD duties for Oldies, Country, and a CHR station plus an airshift and production, and bet at least two of the stations are less than stellar. So extra emphasis on someone elses research and outside decision making........

Now you keep your core for a time, but how do you build the core? How does MOVIN build their core?
How does a tight playlist oldies station like KBSG build their core and prevent burnout? What does Z100 do to rebuild? Research will help find the answers, but won't answer them.

Research said Alice would succeed, and Free FM, and Jack and Jammin Oldies. Was the research wrong? Flawed? Rushed too few samples? Research might be wrong when it shows people want LESS annoying DJ TALK..... Whose term is annoying anyway? Kind of subjective term isn't it?

Bill Drake tested every song in the danged Whitburn, I think. He'd troll the halls with the book like a monk at vespers. Every jock at K-earth was invited by the PD to submit up to 20 songs they thought we should be playing. We tested 700-1050 titles twice per year. When the results came back, fewer than 100 songs changed rotations, and fewer than 50 were added or dropped to the list.

Reet Petite is NOT Higher and Higher. Higher and Higher is a song that listeners say they like a lot. Reet Petite is unfamiliar with no emotional hook for the listener. And listeners have told us over and over and over and over and over that unfamiliar equals negative almost all of the time.

You build core by satisfying your cume. You build cume by 1)marketing the heck out of the station to attract new cume, 2)hire a totally outrageous shock jock who will get fast buzz (because you can't let profit flag for more than one quarter), or 3)run a tight playlist so that every time someone crosses paths with your station they hear a stone-cold-smash hit.

Jack worked in a couple cities for a couple books, and the world jumped on the bandwagon WITHOUT RESEARCH. Ask those who know how the decision to flip KKSN to Charley was made. Historically, deep track stations have done well for 6 months to a year during the "gee whiz I haven't heard that in a while" phase. Then they remember why they haven't heard it. Then they go back to the station that plays their favorite songs.

Alice, Free, and Jack aren't formats, they're marketing brands for the Adult Contemporary, FM talk, and 70's classic hits formats. In the past few years a number of groups have bought into the idea that the brand is more powerful than the product. (Almost no one thinks McDonalds makes a really good hamburger - but they sell more of them than anyone else.) Jammin' Oldies was not researched prior to launch, and in L.A. it only took K-earth one research study to verify that it wasn't going to be successful.

And finally, shoot any researcher who asks a question using a biased phrase like "annoying DJ Talk." Again, that's the marketing line written after the research study. The study hopefully
addressed personality and content through a whole series of questions and dimensions. For example:

You said XYZ was your favorite station. Would you say you listen primarily for the personalities, primarily for the music, or a combination of both.

Top of mind recall of favorite jocks.
Top of mind recall of least favorite jocks.
Aided recall rating of 10-15 market jocks.
Perhaps dimensions like "really knows the music" (AOR surveys), "too offensive for my taste," "relates to me and my friends."
There are research instruments such as Likert Scaling which use a highly polarized statement (Religion is the Greatest Evil in the World) and then ask respondents how much they agree or disagree with the statement. A well written questionnaire usually includes the opposing viewpoint in equally strong terms. It isn't subjective, it's a highly reliable research tool tested over decades of worldwise use across almost all disciplines.

The bell cannot be unrung. I don't think jocks will ever have a voice in the selection and scheduling of a station again. So I will close with the late Mike Phillips' favorite analogy. I don't think there's a jock who ever worked for him to didn't hear it a half dozen times.

"Imagine that you are dating a really hot stewardess. She's only around for 4-5 hours at a time, a few days a week. You know that her very favorite dessert is deep dish apple pie. She tells you over and over again at the pie shop that It's her favorite. Well, she's coming over to your house for dinner, and you would really like to get laid. So, are you gonna serve her deep dish apple pie again, or are you gonna give her pumpkin, for variety?

I love all this talk about RESEARCH it is the damn funniest thing I have ever heard!! Research is the biggest waste of money EVER! Talk about THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY!
Heres an idea, hire a programmer who knows a format and let them go out on a wim and play what they think their audience might like.

Im so tired of these winey babies talking about how they miss the old KISIN, Well guess what, CHARLIE IS HERE, and it is here to stay., The variety is awesome, MUCH BETTER THAN KISIN and I don't hear the same STALE SONGS DAY AFTER DAY!!! Im happy that a station has stepped up and has the balls to play some different styles of music instead of playing the SAME STALE SHIT OVER AND OVER AND OVER!!!! While Charlie will be on the radio in another 10 years, 107.5 will have gone through its 17th format change because nobody understands how to program a radio station over at 107.5
I hear just as much BUZZ with Charlie than I have when the station first came on the air, and I hear it EVERYWHERE I GO!!!!
I'll admit I didn't like the station when It first came on the air, but after I actually sat and listened to it, I relaized this is the most fun I have ever had listening to the radio. And No Im not in radio, but i think its awesome that a station like Charlie has come to portland AND IS KICKING ASS IN THE RATINGS!!!
By The way Danner, Does Charlie research all the music they play???? I thought only researched playlists do well in the ratings. Well its been over 3 years!!!

ANY programmer who believes "every breath you take" Should be played in heavy rotation should be shot!
We're living in the 21st century, rules are different, this 1950's guide to radio and programming needs to be thrown in a septic tank and someone needs to take a big shit on it!

Someone didn't read the previous post.

I just want to give Tdanner a big hug right now, a radio guy who "gets it".

Hey Tdanner, I'll see you at the next test!

TDanner -- AWESOME post.

tdanner is a Girl.
And totally spot on with that post.
Geniuses who aren't in radio don't get what she said.
Although I am still pissed at her for calling me "socially immature", I am down with research. Research helped me take a weak little old AM that had played "beautiful music" for 30 years into a money making machine. I used the same type of twice monthly testing that she described above with a tiny tiny bit of my guts. That not only made our station a hit, but the owner now owns all but one station in the market, all from the success of a little old AM (also facing stiff competition from the legendary late Bwana Johnny). We also were nominated Small Market Station of the Year by the old Gavin Report and lost to Monterey California a town 10 times our size.
Research is the key. Guts are important and as has also been said above, a team of sales, programming and management.

About 3 o'clock tomorrow morning, it will occur to you what you have done wrong.

Forgive me, but tdanner is a Woman.

A couple of thoughts occur to me...

Teri, have you ever colored outside the lines?

I didn't say replace Higher and Higher, with Reet Petite, my point was you HAVE TO REST SOME OF THE TITLES FROM TIME TO TIME OR RISK BURNOUT. the song artist chosen was just an example. This is where a good PD who knows the format can help keep the station fresh, and why if you rely totally on research alone, you risk listener indifference.

and lastly, while my wife not approve of me dating a hot stewardess, I might serve something slightly different. Maybe a deep dish apple/ berry pie with a brown sugar crumb topping. Familiar enough but just a bit different... Sometimes you take a bit of a risk because familiar isn't special any more.

So, keeping with the radio theme, the apple berry is adding something to the oldies format.....Same, with a bit of difference in the same package....

the pumpkin would be replacing the Apple oldies with HIP HOP. BLOWING OUT THE oldies and flipping the format. bad analogy...

I've never seen a successful station suddenly fail with a little tweaking, but I've seen loser stations perk up with tweaks.

And listeners have told us over and over and over and over and over that unfamiliar equals negative almost all of the time.

I believe this but radio is just taking the easy road. Almost all unfamiliar music gets negative response because almost all unfamiliar music isn't good. Smart radio finds the good unfamiliar music that I'll want to listen to. Dumb radio plays the same stuff I've been hearing my whole life. Everything in my record collection was unfamiliar to me before I heard it!

I've been listening to KNRK's All Locals HD2 for days now. Lots of mediocre music, lots of good music, and some totally fantastic music, and almost all of it is brand new to me. I love it!

When I was growing up, our little city had an AM top 40 station. You'd call the request line and if you didn't get a busy signal, the DJ you were listening to would answer it. You could request a song and almost always within 15 minutes, he'd actually play it!

Nowadays I bet if I called the station, got the DJ to answer the phone, and requested a song, I'd expect to hear him flip through papers and say, "Sorry, our research showed that the song you're requesting didn't test well in this market. It's a great song and I'd like to play it but we can't risk alienating our listeners by playing a song we know they don't like."

:-)

Burnout is one of the great myths of radio.

Novelty songs ("We Are The World" "don't cha wish your girlfriend" etc) burn out. Flash in the pan CHR tunes burn out.

Great recurrent and library songs virtually never burn out with anyone except radio folks. A super-heavy P1 listener might spend 35 hours a week with you. That means they hear a possible 500 tunes. (And believe me, they didn't HEAR all of them.... radio recedes into the background outside of the less than 10 hours a week they spend commuting). They will sit through a couple tunes that are good, or maybe even OK, to get to the ones they love -- but they won't stick around through stuff they don't know and they won't stick around for stuff they don't like.

I have lunch every week with a group of "radio guys." Because they order exactly the same thing every time, and have for the more than 5 years we've been doing this, I occasionally suggest that they try something else "for variety" so they don't burn out the Cajun Cobb or the Tuna and Soup. How often do you (really) order a cup of tea "for variety" at Starbucks or at work? Aren't you burned out on coffee? You drink it every day! Burned out on beer? Burned out on Burgers?

And to repeat one more time (to the deafening screams of those who've heard/read it a dozen times before...) the fact that you are on this website, either in radio or passionately into it and/or music, places your opinions so far off the bell curve of the general public to render them moot. You may be willing to sit through "lots of mediocre" to get to the good. Most listeners aren't. They just want to hear their favorite tunes. Reality bites. But it's still reality.

oh for the good old days when radio sounded like radio, not this post 1996 communication-act pile of shit we are left with today


www.monitorbeacon.net

....so far off the bell curve.....

so you lose that whole segment because it might skew your results? this group is as much a listener as the drones you either expect or desire.

Ahhh, that's why when a phone survey asks am I more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton or Obama, and I answer write in, or third party, my opinion gets tossed as being outside the desired response.

Here is a simple poll give 500 people a list of 3000 songs between 1960 and 1976 and have them circle their 500 favorites for the other 2500 have them answer highly likely, somewhat or unlikely to tune out when it plays.....
that gives you high rotation, low rotation and no play songs....... nearly every song on the list will have someone who thinks it's a dog.....

Presentation is everything. if your oldies station played the 500 losers then the format would surely fail. on that we agree, but mix one in as a lost 45, or a back from the dead feature, and you've expanded your play list, created interaction with the listener, and had a little fun within the confines of the format. Sorry, but I still believe that radio has created a passive audience either by design, or neglect, and it runs the risk of losing audience to other sources permanently. We all listen to CDs or Ipods, What do you do to make sure they come back?


If you discount the opinions of those of us with an interest, then your results ARE SKEWED! If you don't include answers outside your focus then you don't get a true picture. The fact that there are more than a few voices here pointing out some perceived flaws says there might indeed be some flaws.

In hopes this can shed some light on the topic, I share with you our research process at my current station...

We ask nearly 300 listeners, in our target demo, each week about our most played songs. After playing a clip of the tune we ask them to rate it on a scale of one to five, whether they want to hear it more, less or the same.

Here are the results from just one song last week. And keep in mind I've played this song nearly fifty times a week for going on eighteen months now.

52% gave it a 5
23% gave it a 4 (that's a total of 75% with a 4 or more!)
16% gave it a 3
Only 9% gave it a 1 or a 2

48% said play it MORE!
40% said play it the same
Only 11% said play it less.

Based on our TSL the average listener to my station has heard this song over 500 times since we started playing it. Nearly 9 in 10 of them are still saying "play it more or the same". And this song isn't some fluke, I have many MANY songs that I have been playing for years that people still love.

Could I find songs that don't have as high of a positive passion? Could I get another 150 songs that most people don't hate? Would they only be "somewhat unlikely" to turn the station if one of these "style" songs came on? Sure. But why play something else when I could be playing the song they like more? Giving the listener something they are less passionate about doesn't make you "cool" or "creative", it makes you a "favorite station" for fewer people.

At one station I programmed the GM told me they were getting too many calls from listeners saying they were "turning us off" because we played the same songs over and over. So we did music research with our core, dumped 75% of the play list and then played the favorites, over and over, and over, and over. Within a week the phone calls stopped! Three months later the cume and TSL were both up to record levels.

Moral: People NEVER complain about hearing their favorite songs too much, only songs they don't like!

I have a solution for those who crave more variety: Listen to ALL of the stations on the dial!

tdanner, no offense meant, I just wanted those who were differing with you to quit saying "guy" as I knew you were female.
"girl" is a compliment. Refers to young and vibrant, "woman" is my mom.

...also, a song penned by Bernard Webb. Points for anyone who can tell me who that really is.

The Google gave the answer in 0.36 seconds. Wonder why he chose a nom de plume for this song, and I wonder where he got "Bernard Webb" from?

He wanted to see if people were buying the name or the songs. It looks like it was the latter. Here's another clue for you all.

T. Danner's observations are brilliant and absolutely correct. So why do I feel like blowing my brains out after reading them?

I shall seek professional counseling.

Have a nice day.

There's only one "hit music" (CHR/Hot AC) station in Oregon, that doesn't stick to the researched hits. That station is 104.3 KKMX "104-5 Kiss FM" in Roseburg. With the availability of internet and satellite radio, I don't know how KKMX can survive. The station is playing a bunch of songs that barely (or never) hit the charts, and the PD is too clueless to realize this.

Why can't KKMX's PD program a real hit music station, like "Q124" was in the late 80's/early 90's?

Jeff Young stopped teaching RADIO out at MHCC, it all went downhill from there.

Dexter --

I am now trying to figure out if I have a multiple personality I don't know about. Your post reflects everything I have ever seen in my research career. I'm going to go pat Jeff Clarke's hand now and feed him warm beverages and remind him that it will all be OK.

Just an FYI, Charlie has a random request hour and they Will Play anything you want. Its the most fun Ive ever had listening to the Radio EVER! And thats exactly what people at my work were saying who are tired of hearing the same CRAP over and OVER!

Thedude:
[N]ot just in [P]ortland but radio everywhere?

Bunsofsteel:
MatchBox 20 and the Goo Goo Dolls [...] it[']s AWFUL and nobody wants to hear it!

Perhaps the reason is so many stations play Matchbox 20 and Goo Goo Dolls, it's tough to escape it unless you're listening to Jazz or Classical. Back in '95, even KUFO was playing Matchbox 20's "Push," and in '96 was playing Goo Goo Dolls "Name," "Faded," and "Long Way Down." (It wouldn't surprise me at all if they deny it now). Seemed like they were picked up by the CHR and Hot AC stations and played constantly since - that could be part of it.

And, on Radio&Records site today:
In Vancouver, Zed's Dead
In its place, a new format: Introducing "95 Crave"[...] it looks like a rhythmic AC/hot AC hybrid.
...
Today's playlist includes stuff from Mika, Faber Drive, the Escape Club, Daniel Powter, Madness, Nelly Furtado, Ace Of Base, the Fray, Christina Aguilera, the Goo Goo Dolls, Shania Twain, John Mayer, Gym Class Heroes, Rick James and Mark Morrison.
...
Samuels tells R&R: "We have this touchstone of 'music that moves you' -- it's got to either move you physically or connect with and move you emotionally."

I was going to add emphasis of some of the artists because they've been listed either on this thread or others as songs that "connect ... emotionally" with some of the folks here as changing the station and/or turning the radio off, but maybe that's what people are trying to say about format flips - instead of being something that make people say 'wow, this is different music and it's great,' it's a different way of packaging the same material. Or, if a 'new' station changes format and adds some 'wow' tracks, those are no longer heard (or heard less) after a week/month, revealing the same songs that people are saying they're 'burnt out' from hearing.

As for the "flash in the pan" stuff... imagine for a moment that radio exists in its current form when the 'kids' that listen to Pussycat Dolls, 50 Cent, etc., today, are 40 - will the 'oldies' stations of the time still be playing "Don'tcha" and "In the Club?" Or, by that time will the people filling out the surveys say 'what's the point?'

Hey Newflyer, that was awesome! I forgot KUFO did play Matchbox 2o "Push" when it first came out. But that was the only Matchbox song they played, and they didn't play it for long. As far as the Goo Goo Dolls, there songs used to be slighty heavier rock until "Name" came out and thats when the group moved from playing on rock stations to lite rock stations.
As far as Charlie goes, they have been on the air something like 3 years and are continuing to do awesome in the ratings. I'm glad there are some program directors who like to think "outside of the box", and actually play some of these great songs that have not been played to death.
I can almost guarentee you if Charlie consolidated its playlist and only stuck to a "safe" playlist of researched songs, that station would have been gone a LONG TIME AGO!!!
Too many other stations are playing the Goo Goo dolls and that Matchbox 20 CRAP. People are noticing the great variety of music and listening because they Don't play only researched music! You get that "WOW i havent heard that song in a long time" instead of "Oh god, not this song again!!"

Additionally, those weren't the only songs they played. The harder stuff highlighted the slower songs, whereas a lot of the stations we're talking about play only the slow stuff. There was a lot of new actual rock songs from Pearl Jam, Seven Mary Three, Bush, etc. They were also playing plenty of Tesla, Scorps, Rush, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Queensryche, etc., so station energy wasn't a problem.
A few months' ago, I heard a sweeper on KUFO that went something like this: 'for the next few minutes, quiet is the new loud - until the next song, when loud will be loud again...' then heard Faith No More's "Easy." Definitely not a song I'd want to hear every day, week, or even month... but once in a blue moon is about right, and if I didn't hear it (meaning if I didn't have the radio on, or was listening to another station), it wouldn't have ruined my life.