Who decides what songs get top-rated on the radio?!
Question:
Who decides what songs get top-rated on the radio?
When the DJ says a song is number 5 or 4 or whatever on the charts, I'm always like "says who?! No one asked me to vote!" Usually the top rated songs are crap, imo. Who's deciding this?
And for that matter, who decides which TV shows get top ratings?
Answers: Great question. A star for you.
Radio stations use a number of sources to determine what's what in their market. This would follow closely on what's where nationally. They use trade publications like:
Radio & Records
All Access
AllAboutCountry
Billboard (though BB is not used as much as it once was)
and web sites like SoundScan
This is usually compared to local sales and research to determine what you hear and how often.
It can be a complicated process using various input sources then weighted locally.
Every Program Director has instructions that are passed down to the Music Director and they reach a consensus... and you hear it.
Obviously there's more to it, but that's about all the time and bandwidth and attention span we have tonight. Check those sources on the web, they'll be easy to find, and you'll start to get the picture.
BTW Soundscan is owned by Nielson; and the second part of your question about TV? Neilson.
And Arbitron does audience research for radio & TV (to a certain extent) both in the US & UK (under a different name). But they don't do music.
Confused. Think how we feel ;<)
-a guy named duh The radio stations usually have websites, and on there people vote each week for the song they like best. Whoever gets the most vote is Number 1, 2nd most is number 2 song Depends on which chart they are talking about. Radio and Records uses radio plays or spins. Soundscan uses total sales. There are plenty of other charts including companies that call you on the phone, play a clip of a song and ask you to rate it.
TV uses Nielsen ratings, which calculates how many people watch a certain show or program. I worked in the industry for over a decade, it was and still is based on sales.
You vote with dollars babe!
Yeah! a great question, I can see the blind leading the blind.
Hope my answer helps you it goes by the number of people that call in to request that song! Duh, again has pretty much all of it. I would add:
Outside the top 50 or so markets most stations are following the lead of the top 50 or so. This is done with the lists previously mentioned. Those lists are either compiled on sales or "spins" (number of individual plays per week on reporting stations). The lists based on spins weigh more than the sales, especially as sales continue to drop in the music industry and are not as true a measure of popularity as the number of times any particular song is being played on the reporting stations.
See, not every station's spins are counted. In a sense it is a similar theory to listener ratings only in reverse. And it is true to assume reporting stations carry more importance in the industry.
Add to this there are basically two charts for the popular formats - the hot and the recurrent. The hot is the newest 20 and the recurrent is a list of songs still popular but have fallen out of the top 20 while continuing to garner major spins from the reporting markets. If you monitor a station closely, and their jocks stay "on the list" you can divine within a week if a station is a "hot" or "recurrent" station, sooner if you know what you're listening for. Few recurrent stations report because the music pimps want as many spins as possible on their new releases.
So the stage is set - take your average station, a non-reporting station. Their list will start with whatever chart they use and play the top 20 and hit heavy the top 10 songs. You'll also hear the recurrents, probably more than the top 10 because they are safe, new and proven. Then you'll hear some songs played due to other factors like regional and promotional importance, etc. Always these rules will be affected by managerial preference in that some artists or songs would never be considered until they were in the top 5 while others go to air instantly and might never crack the top 20. It is truly alchemy.
And then there is always the possibility when you hear a jock referring to a song being a particular rank he's trying to promote whatever nationally syndicated countdown show they have on the weekends and is forgetting to remind you the name of the show. Sounds silly but it happens.