Don't Hate The Radio, Hate Marketing

So here’s a situation that you might’ve experienced in the past. You’re driving in your car, and the radio is on. As the next song starts playing, you begin to say in your head, “Oh, I really like this song!” You start singing along and jamming out. A couple hours later when you get back in your car, the same song plays again. You might think, “Okay, I’ve already heard this song, but I guess I’ll listen to it anyway.” After getting in your car again another couple hours later, surprise! That song is playing yet again. Next you might say, “Alright, I hate this song now”, and then you get end up hating the song and radio station and then decide to plug in your own music that consists of anything not labeled as today’s hits.

Since I spend an average of two hours commuting to school and back home each day, I’m constantly in and out of my car and listening to the radio. One time while driving to school early in the morning, the popular song Dark Horse by Katy Perry played on 101.5. While driving in the afternoon to run errands, the song played again. Then, while driving back home late in the evening, Dark Horse played yet again. I used to love this song, but I began to hate the song and the station because they keep playing the same music day after day.

As you know pop music is my favorite music genre and I always get annoyed with radio stations making me hate songs that I used to like. I noticed that pop stations typically play singles that are released within the current year. Why doesn’t the station 101.5 play hits that were released more than two years ago? I figured if they play more old hits instead of always playing new hits, people wouldn’t get sick of hearing the same thing all the time. Eventually, I became curious as to why stations do this.

After reading some material online, it turns out there is a deeper meaning as to why radio stations might be thought of a skipping record – meaning that they just play the same music. I just figured that they overplay songs because they are popular and people request them. It actually turns out that one can think of a radio station as a marketing strategy. According to an article about radio overplay, stations try to “program their music to their audience who listen to that station more than any other station in the market.” So going back to the Dark Horse song, 101.5 includes this current song on their set list in order to ensure that the listeners who enjoy Katy Perry and other pop artists will always tune in to this station. Other competitor stations may also play this song to try and steal the audience of another radio station. If a station does not do an excellent job appealing to its audience, they will lose their audience. So if people don’t hear recent singles like Dark Horse on a regular basis, people might think that the station doesn’t play current music.

After doing this research, I began to understand why the radio overplays songs. They’re just doing it for the ratings and number of listeners. It’s important to realize that they have competition with other stations and have to do everything they can to keep the listeners. So the next time you hear a song three times a day on a certain station, don’t get mad at them. Just remember the fact that pop music is an inescapable trend and that it will always be in places such as your car.