Content from BPR
Researchers at Durham University have discovered something that radio programmers have known for decades…. the age we make the strongest musical connection is when the records playing on the radio get entwined with major life events in our formative teenage years.
The songs bring vivid memories flooding back in what is known as a “reminiscence bump”.
The study, published in the Music & Science journal, found “a reminiscence bump in adolescence (peaking around age 14) for both ratings of the autobiographical salience of songs featured in the charts during that period and the familiarity of these songs”.
The researchers said: “This suggests that memories that are central to one’s sense of identity are often inextricably associated with music. This may be related to the common tradition of coupling music with significant life events and the increased consumption and value placed on music during key periods of identity formation in adolescence.”
But we programmers already knew that didn’t we!!!
However, the “reminiscence bump” must be viewed objectively. Just because a song made the top ten in the charts for one week in 1991 doesn’t necessarily mean it has stood the test of time.
For AC and Classic Hits stations in particular, it’s all about what holds appeal today.
And that is why music research is so important to the success of any radio station.
Listeners’ tastes change over time…sometimes the favourites from their youth retain their strong emotional bond….. sometimes they don’t.
Let’s face it …. ask a 55 year old who is a fan of Talk radio today if they thought they’d be listening to Talk radio when they were 14!
Understand what the listeners preferences are now.
David Kidd
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Fully agree. In addition to the author's statement, how can you assume that a listener will like or KNOW all the hits that were popular for a particular era. To illustrate how many listeners of a particular demographic remember Reparata's "Captain Of Your Ship" at the same time as David Bowie's "Space Oddity" or R. B. Greaves' "Send A Message Maria"?
Then the hackneyed hits-and-memories/golden oldies/classic hits formats on air now have a narrow subset of the hits such that not all the music of a particular era for a particular demographic is off air.
As time moves on, the 'classic hits' will move into the era of the 1990s, 2000s onwards. Such formats are reflected on DAB+ channels. But not all genres of that era are reflected on these channels. An exception may be Coles radio airs contemporary, 'hits-and-memories' and electronic. The issue is that is you niche and sub-niche a category, there'll be nothing else to niche.
But as time moves on, what will the mainstream channels do to respond to listeners' tastes? The author states that the listener will remember some music and forget other music for that particular era.
I add that the listener will not want to remember the hits or never heard the hits of that era because the listener may not like the music of that era or may have emotional issues that occurred to the listener during a particular era.
Thus we cannot assume the normal stimulus-response scenario of whatever was played in the particular era will be recalled by the listener.
Consequently, the author's mention of the listener not paying any attachment to a particular song for a particular era, means that song is irrelevant.
It may well explain why people listen to talk radio, but other factors are the availability of other sources of music other than radio stations including YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and even purchasing vinyl new or used online.
Then as I said on this site, people may well have wider tastes that is provided by the broadcaster. People whom I studied with at University whose target market may well be JJJ or Nova do listen to classical music, David Bowie and the Beatles which is outside the audience of JJJ and Nova; I even overheard one first year student in the cafeteria discuss the music of Serge Ginsbourg of "Je T'Aime" fame with her friends.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting, dynamic and thinking Belfield