How much is too much? How often can or should you play the biggest star in Country music? And how much Morgan Wallen is too much Morgan Wallen?
When I started programming Country radio, I learned from the best. Bob Glasco and the late Rusty Walker at Rusty Walker Programming Consultants. At the time, the standard artist separation for my station was 55 minutes.
My on-air talent would have a fit when I had those rare occasions when Garth Brooks opened and closed the hour. Two Garth songs in an hour was the end of the world.
There were a couple of issues with that thinking. First, radio and television are the only industries that I know that reset themselves at the top of the hour. Can you imagine if, as an ordinary person, you stopped what you were doing at the top of the hour, stated your name and the town you were from? Silly right?
Plus, they were making the assumption that the beginning of the listener’s hour was also at the top of the hour. If they came in at 10 after then it hadn’t been 55 minutes since they last heard Garth.
I have always been a proponent of a tight playlist that played the hits and played them a lot. In 2018, I was tasked with turning around a Top 40 that had lost its way.
The first thing I did was cut the playlist to 112 songs and play Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande every 13 minutes. The result was a swift, no pun intended, quick and decisive turnaround.
So, for Country radio, how often should you be playing Morgan Wallen? He drops albums with 30-plus tracks, and the streaming data for that music surely indicates an appetite for his music.
To me, that means an artist separation of 12-15 minutes. Play the hits and play them a lot.
I asked Country’s Radio Coach John Shomby his thoughts.
“In my mind, with all of the songs he has, I would have a 20-25 minute separation at the most. He’s the format’s hottest artist, and the average listener can’t hear him enough.”
The additional problem with artist separation comes when an artist is featured on someone else’s song. Does that mean that they fall into a full artist separation or a special separation scheduler setting?
Shomby says, “I always made an ‘FT’ part of the separation rule, but it would depend on the sound and the participation of the artist. If he/she sings one verse and one chorus, I’d probably just separate it on its own by 10 -15 min with others.”
So, then you have the current and recurrents covered and separated. How can you force library titles in? The short answer is it’s going to be difficult. A shorter artist separation will help, but if you are like most and have gold scheduling last on your pass order, then you will likely have to hand-force it if you want gold to play.
Should the special artist separations be just for when an artist has a lot of new material out, or should it apply to our hottest artists and their library as well?
Shomby said, “Definitely the hottest first because they will usually have a lot of new material, PLUS the library stuff. Bailey Zimmerman, in my mind, would fall into that ‘artist with a lot of new material’ category. That separation would be the normal 45 minutes to an hour.
At the end of the day, it’s really pretty simple. Play the hits and popular artists, and play them frequently. Forget what we learned or what was right years ago. Attention spans are shorter.
No one is giving you all day listening anymore, not even at work stations. Tune-ins and occasions are shorter than ever.
Play the hits! No one ever went broke giving the people what they want.
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
