Jack FM -- "We play what we want."

[Agathon]

Shore is.

[Gen. Atkinson]

I don't mind listening to random stuff, a long as it's not that mass teeniebopping, sell-out crap most radio stations play. It hs to be random stuff that
ROCKS!!!!!!

[JohnT]

However, there is an element of randomization that is beyond the iPod - the fact that you can't pick which songs a radio station has on its playlist. Of course, you can have your friend load your iPod with a bunch of songs that you don't know about, but knowing the sort of ****ers that hang here, I'd expect an iPod full of Barney tunes and disco favorites.

Many decent-to-good songs on that list, but it's still rather pedestrian - nothing you wouldn't expect on the Clear Channel radio station that's dedicated to that songs particular format.

[Agathon]

However, there is an element of randomization that is beyond the iPod - the fact that you can't pick which songs a radio station has on its playlist

I hate radio playlists.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
iPod Shuffle does that and has no ads.

Apple was the last MP3 player maker to add this functionality. They copied everyone else.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I have never heard in the New York market, but apparently they just started in Kansas City -- maybe it's a Canadian thing?

Nope, they bought one pop station in San Diego and a classic rock/semioldies one in LA, so they're all over. Same slogan, same random shtick.

The SD one is an improvement, because now occasionally there's something to listen to on that part of the dial, but the loss of the LA station sucked, because they used to have a pretty good playlist, and were the only groovy 60's thing in town after KLSX imploded into talk radio.

[Agathon]

Apple was the last MP3 player maker to add this functionality. They copied everyone else.

I didn't realize that anyone else had designed an mp3 player around this feature. The biggest selling flash player IIRC.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Stuie


And in Philly it's "Ben FM: We play whatever we want."

I wonder how they decide what name to use in each market...

Here it is "the janitor's name"

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
I didn't realize that anyone else had designed an mp3 player around this feature. The biggest selling flash player IIRC.

By "designing around", do you mean stripping it of features?

My original Nomad II flash player from 1999 had a button dedicated to "random".

[DRoseDARs]

Well, the cat's out of the bag...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050524/ap_en_mu/radio_on_shuffle

Variety Format Takes Off at Radio Stations

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, Associated Press Writer Tue May 24, 1:25 PM ET

CHICAGO - The posters hanging on the walls of the broadcasting booth at Nine FM are as eclectic as the music the radio station plays — Pink Floyd and
Aerosmith sharing space with the Marx Brothers, the Rat Pack and the Beatles.

"We play anything" is the station's mantra, and to prove it, program director and afternoon personality Matt DuBiel's afternoon mix moves from
Boz Scaggs to Prince to Cheap Trick.

With names like Jack and Bob (or Fickle and Nine), radio stations promising an anything-goes mix of pop and rock hits are springing up across the country. The variety format is seen, in part, as a way to appeal to listeners used to loading their own iPods with music from different genres — or to keep those thinking about switching to satellite.

But more than that, it's a mea culpa to music lovers who started tuning out as their favorite stations shrunk their playlists in the 1990s, leaving the same old songs to play hour after hour.

The stations tell listeners "we play what we want" or "we play anything." But they're really carefully crafted to keep advertisers happy, observers say. Song choices target a lucrative but musically hard-to-define demographic, 25- to 54-year-olds, who want to hear new music but not rap and bubblegum pop, and who declare themselves too young to listen to the oldies.

"This is oldies wrapped up in new wrapping paper and a new bow," said Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, a trade publication owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc.

The variety format began in Canada three years ago and migrated into U.S. markets a little over a year ago. While the original Canadian formats, called Jack and Bob, differ somewhat — Bob introduces more new music and Jack sticks to older hits — they and other U.S. variety stations share some basic themes.

They're heavy on the '80s and '90s. They play mainly hits, but hits that haven't been heard on the radio for a while. They aren't afraid of "train wreck" segues, running, for example, a classic rock hit into an '80s pop confection.

For Harvey Wells, vice president and group station manager for Newsweb Radio Group, Nine FM's owner, inspiration struck sitting at a college bar with his 21-year-old daughter. After hearing hard-rock AC/DC followed by pop from Huey Lewis and the News, then followed by country singer Kenny Chesney, he asked her if she thought the mix was strange.

"And she said, 'Why strange?'" Wells said. "'It's just good music.'"

People always liked a variety of music, but as radio stations consolidated under corporate owners, playlists got shorter, said Bob Sinclair, president of Sinclair Communications, which launched the first U.S. Bob station in Norfolk, Va., 14 months ago.

"The big suits worried about their Wall Street stock price ... and there were these so-called experts telling station owners (that) to be successful you have to narrow your focus to a particular segment of music," he said.

Listeners tuned out. Americans 12 and older now spend about 19.5 hours a week listening to the radio, down from 21.5 hours a week in 1998, according to Arbitron's annual American Radio Listening Trends report. Radio advertising, which boomed in the 1990s, grew only 2 percent last year, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Bob Perry, a veteran radio programmer, started the variety format on the Internet radio station JACK.FM in 2000 and later licensed the name for terrestrial stations in Canada and the U.S.

One of the converted is 32-year-old Stacy Jill Jacobs, who recently started listening to Jack FM in Los Angeles. Jacobs has an iPod loaded with her favorites, but likes the station's eclectic nature and element of surprise.

"It's completely random, and the choices that they make are hilarious," Jacobs said.

Not everyone is a believer, though. Michael Saffran, who worked for years as a DJ, has listened to Fickle in Rochester, N.Y., and doesn't expect it to stick around for long. The scan button on his radio dial does the same job, he said.

"If you're going to listen to some wide range of music, it might as well be the stuff you pick yourself," Saffran said.

The Canadian Bobs and Jacks have had staying power, giving variety radio backers a weapon against naysayers who call the format another fad akin to all-'80s or jammin' oldies, both of which came and went quickly.

Sinclair's variety stations have done well in the Arbitron ratings, and only one — in Honolulu — has fizzled. Bob Sinclair notes Bob FM in Austin, Texas, has rated No. 1 in its market's 25-54 demographic.

Variety stations are rarely the leaders in any particular market, but they have proven a reliable way for station owners to boost their market shares, said Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Media Research, a consulting firm.

In Chicago, Nine FM, playing on three frequencies, hasn't made a dent in the ratings yet. But since its entry into the market, the city's alternative station has expanded its playlist and declared itself "on shuffle," and a hot adult contemporary station now says it plays "today's new music ... and whatever we want."

The stations will have to figure out a way to keep listeners once the novelty wears off, said Ross. That may include introducing new music into the mix, or finding interesting personalities — many now eschew DJs or give them little air time.

"The big mantra for Jack and Bob and all these formats is that they're a mile wide and an inch deep, and that will have to give eventually," Ross said. "That said, I'm not one of those people who believe this is a fad format."

___

On the Net:

Variety Hits: http://www.varietyhits.com/variety/

JACK.FM: http://www.jack.fm/

Bob FM: http://www.bob-fm.com/

[JohnT]

It's teh new Clear Channel!