Despite the flood of songs, the radios are monotonous

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The numbers on the clock radio jump from 5:59 to 6:00, the music plays: “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher – sweet sounds that make jumping out of bed easy. The next morning, same time, same sound. It crawls every day for eight years, eight months and 16 days.

“Groundhog Day” is the name of the 1993 comedy in which Bill Murray (now 72 years old) traps TV weatherman Phil Connors in a time warp: Always February 2, Groundhog Day, a woodchuck in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, USA the remainder of the winter is predicted.

“And mole day” has since become a common phrase for tiresome repetitions, an exclamation that probably comes to many people’s minds when the same song plays from their radio alarm clock in the morning. “They always play the same music” is a common criticism of broadcast stations.

Where does this feeling come from? And even right? SonntagsBlick Magazine was interested and asked how the various pop stations available in Switzerland are putting together their music programming in the digital age. The answers often contradict the widespread public opinion.

Half a lifetime of non-repeatable music

The prerequisites for a diverse soundboard should actually be getting better and better: By estimates, humanity’s song stock should contain 700 million compositions. What is certain is that Spotify offers over 100 million tracks by the end of March 2023, with 100,000 new songs expected to be added every day.

Against this issue, the headline of “big song surplus” was made in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” at the beginning of the year. Assuming an average of three minutes per song, a person will have to listen to music day and night for half their life and then go through the current Spotify offering once. Undoubtedly an overload.

Well, it can be said that there are radio stations that stopped this flood. But why turn off the faucet so that it just hums monotonously to stay in view? The more songs there are, the less it seems to be entered in the respective music programs.

According to the respective music editors, the playlist of the daily program is based on the following number of titles: “Hundreds of songs” (Radio Energy), 600 (Radio Basilisk), 600 – 1000 (CH media stations such as Radio 24, Argovia or Radio Pilatus), 2000 (Germany’ from SWR 3) and 5000 (SRF 3). However, all stations always sound very similar.

An example last Monday showed that all these stations played Miley Cyrus’ (30) most popular parade song “Flowers” at least once. “Our program should appeal to as wide an audience as possible,” says Andy Studer, 40, head of Energy Switzerland’s music division. “That’s why we use songs that a lot of people know.” It’s a common argument.

The higher the spin, the smaller the playlist

“The whole music world?” It is the name of the master’s thesis written by cultural scientist Matthias Lund for the University of Lüneburg (D) in 2019. He says: “The development of mass broadcasting in the US is leading to the top 40 stations that include only existing chart titles in their rotations and play them in constant replay.”

Already 70 years old: US radio owner Todd Storz (1924–1964) introduced the principle of rotation to his stations in the early 1950s after observing that jukebox guests in bars and restaurants always chose the same songs. Storz then decided to release popular songs more often.

Rotation – that is, the frequency at which a track can be heard in a unit of time – is regulated differently by the desired stations: On Radio 24, Radio Pilatus, Radio FM1 and Radio Argovia the same song can be heard three to three times at most. Five times in 24 hours, up to four times in SWR 3 and up to two or three times in SRF 3. For Gregor Friedel (55), head of music and musical events at SWR 3, it’s customer service first and foremost.

“Every listener has their own time when they turn on SWR 3,” says Friedel. “Our goal is to give everyone the opportunity to listen to the latest hits throughout the day.” And so the replays are deliberately set so one can have these titles aired at a different time each day.

However, as early as 2008, Holger Schramm (50), professor of media and business communication at the University of Würzburg (D), pointed out that a higher rotation leads to a smaller playlist. Lund puts this by an order of magnitude in his work: “The result is a reduction in the range of a few thousand titles to a comprehensive range of several hundred.”

Audience is the best music editor

Michael Schuler, 53, head of music programming at SRF 3, contradicts this: “We will use different titles in 2022 compared to 2012.” Music executives at other stations claim to have “similar numbers” (CH Media), “same level” (SWR 3), or “constant number of songs” (Energy), at least during this period.

More important than the number of songs available is how they are released. Since music is stored digitally (Radio Basilisk, Radio Energy, SWR 3) or predominantly digitally (CH Media, SRF 3), computer algorithms are also used to assemble the music program.

“We are working with a music program called ‘Music Master’, which compiles the program according to the specifications I have set,” says Jean-Luc Wicki, 52, Head of Music and Order at Radio Basilisk. Exactly 40 years ago, the American Joseph Knapp (70) developed the music-selecting program and it is used worldwide today.

CH Media’s radios also rely on the computer. “However, the idea of ​​a hard drive playing music has little to do with reality,” says Nicola Bomio, 40, Head of Radio CH Media. “If you want to be successful in the marketplace, you must be lovingly curated.” Therefore, one person per station is responsible for the music.

It’s also a one-man job on Radio Basilisk. Radio Energy currently employs five Energy stations and three for various music channels. Four people work part-time at SRF 3. And eight editors work in the music department of the southern German publisher SWR 3.

But on Good Friday, it was shown once again who made the best music choice: the audience. From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on SRF 3, “Euri Songs, base Easter Playlist” was the motto – and suddenly there was a musical variety that no music editor or computer program could manage. And it wasn’t there again.

Source : Blick