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The author of this article has "hit the nail on the head". There are two aspects, people's preferences for "a presenter" and musical tastes.
The "presenter" presents links and segues to music usually if the link and/or segue has some relation.
For example, "...you enjoyed Sammy Davis Jr in 'Candy Man'. The backup singers to 'Candy Man' had a hit in their own right in a 1970 war movie...that's coming up..."
Another example, "singer Bruno Mars has teemed up with Anderson Paak with this great R & B and soul track....that's coming up.."
Presenters have their own trademark signature sayings "a rick a poody and a fan doogally" (phonetic transcription), "howdy hoady every bodey", or from the movie "...gooooooooooooooooooood morning Vietnam..."
Presenters also told the time to a precision, "....it's twenty five and three quarter minutes to eight and Captain Bristow from BOAC, I can see him waving his hands towards the camera, has just touched down in Sydney... Good morning to all the milkos, ambos and police..." (my artistic licence added.
Presenters had a particular denial or certitude to: "there's no such place called Gullarganbone" (John Pearce (RIP)), "there's no such thing as stress" (Stan Zemanek (RIP)), "...the pandemic is just a mild flu..." (various unnamed former presenters), "....climate change is a hoax." (various unnamed presenters), "....climate change is a crisis" (various unnamed presenters).
Choice of music options have expanded with various SOD providers providing customised music streams. The listener is not defined necessarily by the age demographic.
I posit that the listener has a wider music taste than what radio stations offer for a particular demographic. You cannot assume that a person in their thirties likes only the music presented on Nova or JJJ, even though that demographic has a higher proportion of people in their 30s than people in the 60s.
At the same time, one cannot assume that a particular age demographic listens to a particular genre of music. This has always been despite the recent introduction of customizable IP streaming services such as Spotify.
I've met people in their 20s and 30s who like the music of "The Beatles", "David Bowie", "The Kinks". They also have tastes for Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven.
Unfortunately the varieties of music people enjoy is not reflected with what's on air.
Participants in the ratings survey in recent years indicate that have 86%-87% of listeners. Last survey it was 84%. In the 1970s it was 98.5%.
I will never forget requesting Steve Murphy on "Lite 'n Easy 1269" (2SM) in 1988 for KC and the Sunshine's Band's "Give It Up". That was refused because it did not fit in their narrow repertoire of 1500 high rotation songs. But they played Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", which had a fast tempo as KC's. Ironically 2SM enjoyed higher ratings during its automated days during 1992,
2SM's automated music period in 1992 was an example where there no presenters. It was what people wanted. When the automated period in 1992 concluded, it was replaced by a format which plummeted in ratings.
So we cannot definitely say that presenters even those with a personality such as those of the 1960s on 2SM, 2UE and 2UW are what attracts people to listening to a particular network.
It also says to me that radio stations are not listening to their listeners reverting to consultants who will supply them with a ready-made library.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting and stirring Belfield
Further to the discussion on this page, like Facebook, streaming services such as Spotify are a 'goldmine' of what listeners want especially when it comes to customised streams.
The data could be broken down into demographics including age group, location and genre to name a few data fields on a database.
It would be more valuable than a representative sample of the population from a focus group.
Perhaps another income stream for these streaming services is marketing their database to radio stations. Radio stations can then research the database from the streaming service to find what the listener wants.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting and creative Belfield