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Originally Posted by Joelack99
I worked in radio and in the music biz (half a hundred years ago). So I used to know a tiny bit about this.
It’s not a financial decision, at least as the question is framed. Different songs do not bring different royalties. What You Didn't Know About Terrestrial Radio Royalties
It is a financial decision in that the rates advertisers will be willing to pay are based on the numbers listening. (And also on who the advertisers are. So who advertises? Largely The Villages itself, so their preferences are likely taken into account.)
But my guess is they are mostly playing songs that will let the listener say, “Wow, there’s a great one I haven’t heard in a long time.” Beatles and Stones and the blockbusters still get played but perhaps down rotation and maybe songs that you don’t get on the other oldies stations. Call and ask the program director if you want his or her take. Or call and request what you want. If enough people do, they’ll play it. |
As a former radio air talent (23 years) I can tell you that music stations operate on a clock and a music rotation process.
The songs all get a category. New music might have two or three sub categories like new releases that haven't charted or are low on the chart, current hits which are songs at or near the top of the format chart or fast climbers (with a bullet) and re-currents which are hits that are basically going down the charts or already dropped off. Then there are what they call gold hits or classics and those can be subcategorized in several ways too.
Then each category get slotted into in the hour and given a certain number of slots. The currents, re-currents and new songs also get a certain number of spins per day based on how many songs you have to play in those categories plus how many slots the subcategory is given in an hour.
On an oldies or classic rock station everything is still categorized but has different names and could be based on age of the song. I once worked at an oldies station we played music in a 20 year period 1953-73. Songs were categorized by decade and popularity with the top hits of the core years, 1964-1970, getting the heaviest play, music from 53-59 getting light play, 60-63, 71-73 and secondary hits of the core years getting moderate play.
I hope this helped.