I believe when you have a certain number of "Oh wow" hits in your playlist, it also makes the tried and true chestnuts sound a little fresher. That's something I try to achieve with my station.

I think it's unfortunate that radio has come to this, though. Gone are the days when a PD/MD would play a song because they had "a good gut feeling" about it and were positive that their audience would enjoy it too, as opposed to "We can't play this song because it doesn't test very well." Even more peculiar in the case of classic hits/oldies, if it's a song that had a good chart run and buzz around it when it came out.

Some may argue that radio audiences, for the most part, can't handle anything outside of the "tried and true" safe songs. Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that, but I believe a lot of it has to do with radio in general, which started its blandification process a few decades ago, therefore boxing itself in and attracting an audience that just wants a quick fix of the familiar tunes, as opposed to something that challenges them every once in a while.



PJ