With 60 Years of Music to Pick From, Can't Portland Oldies Stations Offer More Variety?

With 60 years of music to pick from, why can’t oldies stations offer more variety?

By Marty Smith

I get why Z100-type radio stations play the 25 biggest current hits over and over. But (in Portland, at least) oldies stations also seem to pick just a few songs and repeat them ad nauseam. With 60 years of music to pick from, can't they offer more variety?

—Ernest & Julio Down by the Schoolyard

It's not that I don't trust you, Ernest, but—partly to be able to say I was "doing research" while passed out in my car at Denny's—I switched my radio to KWLZ (96.3), the Eagle (106.7) and Charlie (97.1) to see what's up.

I learned two things: First, losing my customary pickup line, "BBC World Service and chill?" didn't change my social life much either way; and second, oldies radio is almost as repetitive as hits radio. Is there some kind of wormhole connecting Top 40 to oldies, such that every Taylor Swift is balanced by an equal and opposite Grand Funk Railroad?

Local program directors weren't talking. That doesn't surprise Steve Warren, longtime music-radio consultant and author of every program director's favorite one-handed read, The Programming Operations Manual.

Warren says stations spend tens of thousands secretly developing the perfect playlist. "Every station wants to be playing 'the best songs,'" he says. That means the most familiar and highest-rated, as determined by focus-group dial testing.

But testing is spendy. Say you can afford to test 300 "hooks" (a typical number, Warren says). Great! Now, the entire universe of popular songs consists of three groups: 100 songs that tested well, 200 that tested not as well, and approximately 1 gajillion that you didn't test at all.

If you're a program director, your smart move is to keep playing those 100 highly rated songs. If the ratings tank, at least it won't be your fault for taking a chance on untested material. (If you want to hear oldies deep cuts, check out KISN-FM 95.1.)

Of course, none of this explains how—judging by airplay—we apparently think "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band is the Greatest Song of All Time. Portland: the thinking man's Spokane.

QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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