10 minute questions

1. Music programming for radio is, deciding which songs/artists are put into playlists based on the shows demographic.

2. Station format is the main style/genre broadcasted across all shows on the station.

3. 2 Examples of stations are- BBC Radio 1 and Kerrang

4. A, B and C list playlists consist of songs organized by popularity. A list being the most popular and C list being the least.

5. Commercial stations sell advertising to generate revenue.
To attract advertisers, commercial stations play popular music.
Should they play less commercial music, the advertisers would pull out
and they would lose money fast. Eventually resulting in bankruptcy and being forced to shut down.

6. Radio techniques and their definitions

Start Bright, Finish Strong - an old 'hall music maxim' - "A tuneful or rhythmic familiar up tempo opener with only a brief speech introduction". This provides a "good start" that the listener can identify. A slower piece of music should follow. After that, the music can be contrasted in many ways.
*Quote from- Radio Production, by Robert McLeish

Limit new material - Keeps listeners in their comfort zone. Listeners may not always like/enjoy or identify with new material. Basically, you have to drip feed new material to your listeners, otherwise the listener will lose patience with the station and inevitably tune out.

Provide variation and contrast - You shouldn't play material from the same genre or artist because the listeners will get bored and tune out. Another reason to vary the material played, is to appeal to a wider demographic and ultimately to increase the number of listeners.

Scatter very popular items - you should scatter very popular items, to keep your listeners waiting for popular material and therefor keep them tuned in for longer. this technique is also used to bring more underground material to light and to popularize it. this allows the radio station to appeal to the underground as well as the popular music fans, therefore appealing to a wider audience.

Solid hits either side of new music (hammocking) - This keeps the listener interested, by playing a song they can easily identify, then playing some new music which gets the listener interested in the newer material. The new material drags the listener out of their comfort zone and the solid hit after the new song puts the listener back into their comfort zone. Hammocking also keeps the listener interested by playing new music between solid hits, forces the listener to wait for the next hit to be played. In the mean time, they have to put up with the new music. Hammocking also allows the station to appeal to older and younger audiences.
One example of hammocking is - "Motorhead-Orgasmatron", "Dethklok-Awaken", "Fields of the Nephilim-Moonchild".

Occasionally use a 'segue' to break up speech - A segue is used to break up the speech-music-speech sandwich by running track back to back. This keeps the listener interested, by dropping the speech. Too much speech during a show can get excruciatingly boring at times. As a radio listener, I have first hand experience of this.

Ultimately the purpose of these techniques is to attract the maximum number of listeners and to prolong listener interest for the maximum length of time. Until of course, the listener inevitably tunes out.