Heavy Music Rotations

The people who listen to your radio station the most might have the opinion that the station plays the same songs over and over. If you had a focus group with these core listeners, you would probably find that they are not upset about how quickly songs are rotating. Rather, there is more of a curiosity about why the station repeats songs, more than an adamant dislike of the practice. 

People only notice repetition when it’s a song that they don’t particularly like. Great care should be taken to make sure the songs in your hot category don’t polarize listeners.  This is not a place for novelty songs or specialty songs. The best songs for heavy play are the ones that are the cross-cuming songs, or what I refer to as horizontal songs - the ones that are getting exposed in other venues and on other radio stations. Keep in mind the purpose of playing songs heavily: to make the station relatable to the occasional listener. These should be the songs that help draw listeners in, not ones that are polarizing.

By the way, at many radio stations, the songs that rotate the heaviest are the horizontal recurrents, as they are the ones that are best known by a larger audience. 

Your core, loyal listeners will always want the station to be more adventurous. These types of complaints from the loyal core should be expected, and even welcomed. It means they really care about your station. If you don’t get any complaints from core listeners, it means they’re not intimately involved with your station.