The radio industry in South Africa

I spend at least an hour in the car every day listening to the radio and I can’t help but wonder what on earth possess radio program managers to act the way they do. Quite simply, it’s the same songs on over and over again until you go totally out of your mind.Even songs that you enjoy turn to dribble once you’ve heard then for the umpteenth time.

Lets take a look at the 5FM top 40 chart: Number three is the first single off the new Lily Allen album titled “The Fear”. Now it’s a fairly telling fact that despite this song being released over four months ago it’s still on the charts. Considering the average album has 10 songs it seems totally ridiculous that they’re still playing the first single that was released last year! Why they cannot inject some variety into a playlist is beyond me. People will listen to your station if you play different music and even more so if you mix it up a bit.

Here’s the problem with modern day radio: it’s the most banal place for music ever. I get a better selection of music when I phone a call centre! I often find myself listening to talk radio, something that in South Africa is more tailored towards an age bracket of 60 plus. Not to say that I don’t find it interesting but you can only hear about incontinence so many times in a day.

So here’s what I recommend to local radio stations:

Playing only new music does not necessarily make you cooler or more in-touch with modern day music. I guess if you mixed it up a bit not only would you promote decent but older music to a new generation but you would also attract an older audience that might not necessarily listen to your station. So basically you’ve got a wider range of music which in turn attracts a wider audience, something advertisers seem to like. Yes, it’s important for you to play the newest music to keep up a certain image but it’s not important for you to put that new song up against a firing wall and kill it by overplaying it.

I think this theory will lead to a great music station. No one “cool” necessarily want to hear music from the 80’s but some 90’s and early 2000’s would be a good place to start. Think of it as normal VH1 programming. It’s a bit of the old with a lot of the new and that for me would make me want to actually listen to the radio rather than having to switch between my six pre-set stations to find the best of the worst.

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