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Music radio

Music radio
Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio’s dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio. Music drives radio technology, including wide-band FM and modern digital radio systems such as digital radio mondiale. of air-time. The legal requirement for station identification in the U.S. is once per hour, approximately at the top of the hour, or at the conclusion of a transmission. News, time-checks, real-time travel advice and weather reports are often valuable to listeners. The news headlines and station identification are therefore given just before a commercial. Time, traffic and weather are given just after. The engineer typically sets the station clocks to standard local time each day, by listening to WWV or WWVH (see atomic clock). These segments are less valued by the most targeted market, young people, so many stations shorten or omit these segments in favor of music. While most music stations that offer news reports simply "tear and read" news items (from the newswires or the Internet), larger stations (generally those affiliated with news/ talk stations) may employ an editor to rewrite headlines, and provide summaries of local news. Summaries fit more news in less airtime. Some stations share news collection with TV or newspapers in the same media conglomerate. An emerging trend is to use the radio station’s web site to provide indepth coverage of news and advertisers headlined on the air. Many stations contract with agencies such as Smartraveler and AccuWeather for their weather and traffic reports instead of using in-house staff. Most radio stations maintain a call-in telephone line for promotions and gags, or to take record requests. DJs generally answer the phone and edit the call during music plays. Some stations take requests by e-mail and online chat. The value of a station’s advertising is set by the number, age and wealth of its listeners. Arbitron, a commercial statistical service, historically used listener diaries to statistically measure the number of listeners. Arbitron diaries were collected on Thursdays, and for this reason, most radio stations have run special promotions on Thursdays, hoping to persuade last-minute Arbitron diarists to give them a larger market-share. Arbitron

How it works
The radio station provides programming to attract listeners, and profits by selling advertising. Young people are targeted by advertisers because their product preferences can be changed more easily. Therefore, the most commercially successful stations target young audiences. The programming usually cycles from the least attractive item, to most attractive, followed by commercials. The purpose of this plan is to build listener interest during the programming. Because dead air does not attract listeners, the station tries to fill its broadcast day with sound. Audiences will only tolerate a certain number of commercials before tuning away. In some regions, government regulators specify how many commercials can be played in a given hour. Music is the main program item. There are several standard ways of selecting the music, such as free-form, top-40, album-oriented rock, and Jack. These can be applied to all types of music. Jingles are radio’s equivalent of neon signs. Jingles are brief, bright pieces of choral music that promote the station’s call letters, frequency and sometimes disc-jockey or program segment. Jingles are produced for radio stations by commercial specialty services such as JAM[1], in Texas. Jingles are often replaced by recorded voiceovers (called "stingers"). In order to build station loyalty, the station announces time, station call letters and frequency as often as six times per hour. Jingles and stingers help give the station a branded sound in a pleasant, minimal amount


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Music radio

Programming by time
Most music stations have DJs that play music from a playlist determined by the program director, arranged by blocks of time. Though practices differ by region and format, what follows is a typical arrangement in a North American urban commercial radio station. The first block of the day is the "drivetime" block in the early morning (typically 5 or 6AM) to midmorning (9 to 11AM). This block usually includes news bulletins and traffic and weather advisories for commuters, as well as light comedy from the morning DJ team (many shock jocks started as or still work on drive-time radio). Some stations emphasize music, and reduce gags and call-ins in this period. The midday block is mostly music. For a period around noon a station may play nonstop music or go to an all-request format for people eating lunch. In the early evening, the evening rushhour programming resembles the midday programming, but adds traffic and weather advisories for commuters. Some stations insert a short snippet of standup comedy around 5 o’clock when commuters leave work. The evening block, if present, returns to music. The overnight programming is generally low-key music with quiet announcing. Some stations play documentaries or even infomercials, while some others play syndicated DJs like Delilah. It is not uncommon to play more

Music formats

Top 40
The original formulaic music radio format was Top 40. In this format, disc-jockeys would select one of a set of the forty bestselling singles (usually in a rack) as rated by Billboard magazine or from the station’s own


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Music radio

Freeform and progressive rock
A later development was freeform radio, later commercially developed as progressive rock radio, and still later even more commercially developed as AOR (Album-Oriented Rock), in which selections from an album would be played together, with an appropriate introduction. Traditional freeform stations prided themselves on offering their disc jockeys freedom to play significant music and make significant social commentary and humor. This approach developed commercial problems because disc jockeys attracted to this freedom often had tastes substantially different from the audience, and lost audience share. Also, freeform stations could lack predictability, and listeners’ loyalty could then be put at risk.

AOR (album-oriented rock)
AOR (album-oriented rock) developed as a commercial compromise between top-fortiesstyle formulas and progressive rock radio/ freeform. A program director or music consultant would select some set of music "standards" and require the playlist to be followed, perhaps in an order selected by the jock. The jock would still introduce each selection, but the jock would have available a scripted introduction to use if he was not personally familiar with a particular piece of music and its artist. Obviously a computer helps a lot in this process. A useful, relatively safe compromise with the artistic freedom of the jocks is that a few times each hour, usually in the least


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Music radio
from the series of albums produced by rocker Rod Stewart) has undergone something of an off-air revival, with artists such as Stewart, Tony Bennett and Queen Latifah putting their own interpretation on the music. During the mid-to-late-’90s, the "Mix" format -- a loosely-defined mixture of Top-40 and classic rock with something of an emphasis on adult contemporary music -- began to appear across the country. While the format has no particular standard identity, most "mix" stations have rotations consisting largely of pop and rock music from the ’80s and ’90s (and often the ’70s), with some current material mixed in. In addition, stations devoted to the pop music of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s on their own have developed as the audiences that grew up with that music grew older and nostalgic for the sounds of their youth.

Oldies, standards, and classic rock

Classical, pop, easy-listening, jazz, dance
These formats all have small but very loyal audiences in the largest markets. Most follow formats similar to the above (Top 40s, Freeform, AOR and Oldies), except with a different playlist. Public service stations following these formats tend to be "freeform" stations. Classical music radio is just as it sounds -radio designed to appeal to the listener of classical music. Most classical stations specialize primarily in instrumental classical music and chamber music, though there are more special interest classical stations (often found through media such as satellite radio or internet radio) that carry classical pop music or operatic music. Easy listening and Adult Contemporary are related formats that play largely downtempo pop music of various styles. The difference is mostly in the era and styles covered -Easy Listening is mostly older music done in the style of standards from the early 20th century (typical artists include Johnny Mathis and Frank Sinatra) combined with Big Band music and more modern performers in the same style such as Céline Dion and Josh Groban, while Adult Contemporary focuses more on newer pop music from the 1970s on. An ancestor to the easy listening format is Beautiful Music, a now-rare format (though XM features one channel of it, called Sunny) focusing mostly on smooth jazz or classical arrangements of pop music and original


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compositions in a similar vein. Perhaps the best-known Adult Contemporary station currently in operation is WLTW in New York City, better known as 106.7 Lite FM. Jazz stations generally play either traditional jazz forms or smooth jazz. The jazz station, more than any other except the college station, is stereotyped as having a small listenership and a somewhat overly highbrow on-air personality, and many are college-run stations. California State University Long Beach sponsors KJAZZ 88.1, which has a fairly significant online listenership as well. Two very well-known smooth jazz stations are WNUA in Chicago and 94.7 The Wave in Los Angeles, both of which were introduced in 1987, and still continue to enjoy tremendous success in the format today. Also, WUCF-FM in Orlando has been playing jazz music since 1978. Dance music is a niche, and so-called "rhythmic pop" stations have had a fierce but not always commercially sustainable following. There was a wide spectrum of discoformat radio stations during the late ’70s, but virtually all of them died out during the disco backlash; WXKS in Boston is one of the few notable survivors, now a Clear Channel Communications-owned top-40 station of considerable influence. Nevertheless there are a large number of dance music stations available both on the internet and on satellite radio, mostly specializing in various forms of electronica. Both major US satellite radio services include disco stations.

Music radio


Urban (hip-hop/R&B)

Public radio formats

Alternative and modern rock

Community Radio

Dance music radio


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Music radio
Also, satellite radio either charges subscribers or is operated by a public broadcasting service. Therefore, satellite radio rarely carries commercials or tries to raise money from donors. The lack of commercial interruptions in satellite radio is an important advantage. Often the only breaks in a satellite music station’s programming are for station identification and DJ introductions. Internet radio stations exist that follow all of these plans. Much early commercial radio was completely freeform; this changed drastically with the payola scandals of the 1950s. As a result, DJs seldom have complete programming freedom. Occasionally a special situation or highly respected, long established personality is given such freedom. Most programming is done by the program director. Program directors may work for the station or at a central location run by a corporate network. The DJ’s function is generally reduced to introducing and playing songs. Many stations target younger listeners, because advertisers believe that advertising can change a younger person’s product choice. Older people are thought to be less easy to change. Music radio has several possible arrangements. Originally, it had blocks of sponsored airtime that played music from a live orchestra. In the 1930s, phonograph records, especially the single, let a disc jockey introduce individual songs, or introduce blocks of songs. Since then, the program has been arranged so that commercials are followed by the content that is most valuable to the audience. Programming is different for non-traditional broadcasting. The Jack FM format eliminates DJs entirely, as do many internet radio stations. The music is simply played. If it is announced, it is by RDS (for FM broadcast) or ID3 tags (for Internet broadcast). Satellite radio usually uses DJs, but their programming blocks are longer and not distinguished much by the time of day. In addition, receivers usually display song titles, so announcing them is not needed. Internet and satellite broadcasting are not considered public media, so treaties and statutes concerning obscenity, transmission of ciphers and public order do not apply to those formats. So, satellite and internet radio are free to provide sexually explicit, coarse and political material. Typical providers include Playboy Radio, uncensored rap and

Regional differences

Cost of programming
Stations usually adopt a music format to gain the greatest number of listeners for the least expense. Since the content has already been produced, the station merely adds the lowcost on-air programming between records. Music radio stations pay music-licensing fees to licensing agencies such as ASCAP and BMI. Commercial stations often get their CDs free, but still pay royalties to play it on air. Some small neighborhood stations play unlisted locally-produced music, and avoid these fees. Licensing issues nearly destroyed early Internet radio. In the U.S., Congress intervened with a royalty structure that was expensive to small independent operators, but easier than the RIAA’s standard scale. Both XM and Sirius provide commercial packages allowing exclusive license-free use (though not rebroadcast) of their music programming by businesses.

Commercial radio
Commercial stations charge advertisers for the estimated number of listeners. The larger the audience, the higher the stations’ rate card can be for commercial advertising. Commercial stations program the format of the station to gain as large a slice of the demographic audience as possible. A station’s value is usually measured as a percentage of market share in a market of a certain size. The measurement in U.S. markets has historically been by Arbitron, a commercial statistical service that uses listener diaries. Arbitron diaries were historically collected on Thursdays, and for this reason, most radio stations have run special promotions on Thursdays, hoping to persuade lastminute Arbitron diarists to give them a larger market-share. Stations are contractually prohibited from mentioning Arbitron on the air. Market share is not always a consideration, because not all radio stations are commercial. Public radio is funded by government and private donors. Since most public broadcasting operations don’t have to make a profit, no commercials are necessary.


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hard rock stations, and "outlaw" country music stations. The wide reach and selective, non-broadcast usage of the internet allows programmers access to special interest audiences. As a result, both mainstream and narrow-interest webcasts flourish; in particular, electronic music stations are much more common on the Internet than they are in satellite or broadcast media.

Music radio

Music radio and culture

[1] JAM Creative Productions Many MP3 examples of jingles. • Jinglestop, Jingle, Reklam Muzigi, Produksiyon hizmetleri For Jingle Examples. • Josselyn Jingles has many samples of jingles online.

See also
• • • • • Playlist Music scheduling system Audio theater Radio format List of radio programs

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