1 of 1- RadioActive
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Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
This goes back a long way. I used to work for a program director at a major Toronto radio station who insisted the playlist never featured two female artists back-to-back. It was OK with this guy if the records of two male artists played in a row, but not two women. He claimed two female vocals in a row turned listeners off and that it was a common belief in the industry.
I never understood the logic of this. If you want to spin, say, a Supremes song followed by Linda Ronstadt, I can't see why that would be anything but a good double play.
All of this was brought back to mind because of a column about the urban format on Barrett Media, from a former experienced radio exec. who brought this up all over again.
"During a recent listen to a couple of stations, one presented a sweep of Mariah the Scientist (still not sure what that’s all about), Ella Mai, and Mariah Carey. And before you ask — no, it was not a new Mariah Carey song. Not to be outdone, another urban station in the same market played Usher (a great song, by the way), Ne-Yo, followed by one minute and 30 seconds of dead air, and Babyface in its sweep.
Some may think this is no big deal; however, hearing three female artists and three male artists back to back was a big deal to me. For me, this signaled that someone was asleep at the keyboard or that it wasn’t a big deal to them."
Is this still common in the radio biz? Why does this attitude seem to persist, if, in fact, it still does? I've never really understood why the gender of a singer matters. A good song and a great performance is a good song and a great performance regardless of who's singing it.
Has anyone else ever heard of this programming belief?
- newsguy1
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
I've never heard this, but I am in news so might not hear a PD expressing such a view or order to the jocks.
I can't imagine a male PD saying that to a woman DJ.
But then in the time you refer too there were probably no female jocks.
There were hardly any women in radio newsrooms when I started out.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Very outdated if it ever was even valid. You do want to avoid playing too many similar sounding songs in a row, and the gender of the vocals is certainly *A* factor, but a black & white rule is silly.
A challenge in Rock or Country which are male dominated would be if you play two female artists back-to-back it's going to be a long gap until the next one comes up.
- RadioActive
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Agreed. A P.D. would probably get fired for even suggesting something like this today. But it was a very different time and there were different theories about what listeners wanted. I personally never agreed with it and never understood it. But some swore by it.
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Thread Starter- Dale Patterson
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
I remember it like yesterday - the assistant PD (or whatever his title was) of CKFH storming into the control room at 1:30 in the morning - girlfriend in tow - about my sin of playing two female vocalists in a row. Olivia Newton-John back-to-back with Phoebe Show. I just shrugged and he and his friend disappeared into the night. The subject never came up again.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- RadioAaron
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Once shortly after starting at a station, I discovered there was a rule in the scheduling software that would prevent two female artists from being scheduled back-to-back. Nobody knew who put it in there or how long ago.
- Dale Patterson
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Binson Echorec wrote:
I remember it like yesterday - the assistant PD (or whatever his title was) of CKFH storming into the control room at 1:30 in the morning - girlfriend in tow - about my sin of playing two female vocalists in a row. Olivia Newton-John back-to-back with Phoebe Show. I just shrugged and he and his friend disappeared into the night. The subject never came up again.
Would love to know what the girlfriend in tow thought of this rule.
I think he was there just to try and impress his girlfriend, (hey I'm a big powerful radio guy giving a lowly minimum wage operator a beat-down!) but I doubt she was amused.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- RadioAaron
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Quite the opposite. It’s got the most gender disparity after Classic Rock.
- Chrisphen
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Speaking from the outside, if someone dictated this restriction to me I would tell them to take a long, hard suck on my arse.
- mace
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
I remember it like yesterday - the assistant PD (or whatever his title was) of CKFH storming into the control room at 1:30 in the morning - girlfriend in tow - about my sin of playing two female vocalists in a row. Olivia Newton-John back-to-back with Phoebe Show. I just shrugged and he and his friend disappeared into the night. The subject never came up again.
1:30AM. Hmmm. I wonder if the assisstant PD had consumed copious quantities of adult beverages earlier that evening.
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
I remember the 'no t2t' rule well. It certainly was a thing, and just before I got the front door key to a radio station many many years ago and was allowed inside, it also wasn't uncommon for music directors to have to take into consideration 'race records'. That wasn't just back to back, that was every 1 or 2 hours. Same thing with radio newscasters though, 'women don't sound authoritative'. It was a long time before 'hell froze over' and we had a single female voice doing top of hour casts. Then again it wasn't long before that announcers were expected to wear a suit and tie in the studio.
And yes, I know who Elsie MacGill and Kate Aitken were, I'm taking nothing away from them but they weren't regular 'newscasters' and espeically the coveted 'top of the hour' spot.
My guess would be Barbara Frum in 1971 delivering 'news' on As It Happens.
And don't forget it's never 'Brant-Ferd' 
Congratulations radio, you've come a long way baby.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- Hansa
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Oddly, there was never a rule against playing three (or ten) male artists back to back.
- DirkSteele
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Re: Does It Matter The Number Of Male-Female Artists Playing On The Radio?
Is this still common in the radio biz? Why does this attitude seem to persist, if, in fact, it still does? I've never really understood why the gender of a singer matters. A good song and a great performance is a good song and a great performance regardless of who's singing it.
Has anyone else ever heard of this programming belief?
Doing music for years, library coding (including 'Female') was more about spreading out your library than any concern about "playing two in a row" or whatever.
If you are coding and working Classic Rock or Classic Hits and you let a set of 3 female artists in a row....then you could go a whole hour without another female act being placed simply because there aren't that many. Same goes for era's or genre's. If your Classic Rock is down to only a dash of 70's Soft Rock (5% or less), you don't want two or three of those in a row as it tosses the schedule out of balance going hours without hearing another one.
You can control all of that with categories or codes I preferred codes so positions floated through all the clocks and I didn't have to have 100 clocks over 3 grids to spread out category positions in the hours.
For me, it was never a bias or any of the other things claimed here. It was all about balancing your coding to give you the most consistent sound for longer term listening while ensuring the song rotation you design is actually making it to air through the schedule.
Last edited by DirkSteele (November 21, 2025 2:58 pm)