Where The Hooks Meet Drives

Beyond the patience required of practitioners of both programming and golf, there are similarities and differences.

You either get it or you don't. By the time you've programmed three or four stations, in different markets and perhaps for different companies, you begin to understand that programming, much like golf, is a specialty that isn't for everyone. One is a game of applied research, coaching and gut reaction. The other is a game with a stick, played on a big lawn in bad clothes.

There are some men and women who are good at both, but for a growing number of people these days, having to make such a choice is as inconceivable as it is unnecessary. There is a kind of visual paean that described connoisseurs of the two as possessing a "biblical sense."

For programmers, one of the problems lies with the "shedding" and "growing" audience, their changes and how that affects what you offer them. While the majority of the hits of the 70's and 80's remain staples for most urban stations, the listener's tastes are changing. Subtly, there are few songs that are going to go away. Lately there's been a kind of return to even more traditional jams. A lot of the Motown stuff and late 80's titles have been researched, found, and overplayed. You have to be more selective today than you did before. To replace music that's become charred, programmers must now try to introduce other titles of the same era.

Finding out what listeners like and dislike requires a well-designed research plan that provides clean and unambiguous listener requests. Just as it takes an experienced golfer to make those tough shots from the sand trap, it takes a creative programmer to turn requests into tangible elements to satisfy those listeners' desires.

Playing the hits is still what's happening, but recent studies indicate musical compatibility is the key to gaining and keeping listeners. There's a tendency to just find the titles that test best and don't seem burned out, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

Avoid Excessive Repetition

Lack of variety or hearing the same songs over and over is a common listener criticism and the reason for the early success for many "Jack" formats. However, opinions are beginning to shift. Fewer listeners in every format are criticizing stations for song repetition. The term "variety" raises additional questions. Most listeners think variety means different eras, tempos, and styles of music within a given format -- not different types of music. Listeners don't expect to hear different types of music on a single station. They do want a variety of music within the specific format.

Programmers who don't understand this or who are not looking at cluster compatibility data may be missing a big piece of the pie. Music tests show increasingly there are bodies of tastes within the core audience that really need to be addressed. If you're not making sure you're playing songs that not only test well and aren't burned out, but are also very compatible with those tastes, you may not be servicing the core audience as well as you think. There's still a lot of debate over the value of compatibility data in music testing, but ours are formats where that's a very important concept.

Experts concede that both golf and programming demand a heightened sense of awareness that engages the mind to the exclusion of everything else. The next shot may not be perfect, but there's a resounding dedication that keeps enthusiasts enthralled with the process of steady improvement. For experienced programmers, the key is still to "hook" the listeners early and then "drive" them to listen longer.

Word.