Couple of tweaks to Gold's schedule this weekend.
John Osbourne is back on Saturday morning, not sure if this is a permanent fixture or if he's just covering for David but as David now does a show on Smooth too it seems fair to let him have Saturdays off.

Simon Hirst brought forward an hour to Noon then 70's from 4pm and Andy from 8pm

Then Sundays sees Eamonn losing an hour with 60's Sunday starting an hour earlier from 4pm with Paul Coyte. I'd imagine Paul it VT'd as I think he's the announcer at White Hart Lane so could often be busy on a Sunday afternoon.

Not quite as many as Valerie or A Different Corner.

Let's face it the playlist is incredibly boring now and how the dj's dont get bored playing the same songs its beyond me. If I hear the 3 degrees again I go nuts lol. If they had less adds and a better playlist I would po do listen more.

Much as I really like Kool & The Gang's Get Down On It, it is now playing on Smooth Radio, the third time I have heard it playing between 7pm & 8pm inside 2 weeks, and I don't listen every single night at this time either!

Pathetic scheduling,Smooth taking regular listeners for fools(or maybe Goldfish)

....or as repetitive as the whinging on here

Plenty of comments on FB as well still about repetition. No harm with letting Global know what we think. They might get the message one of these days.

I very much doubt they will get or even want to get the message.

They see the Facebook comments as being from a tiny minority of negative voices. They probably see the 'majority' of their listeners half-listening to the same songs while the transistor radio blares out by the ladder alongside the roofs they are repairing; or driving along and happy to sing along to Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (angel found after the 2000th airing of the appeal on Smooth), Valerie etc. etc., regardless of how many times they hear them. Clearly, they are not seeking listeners with a need for a well thought out variety of music from the decades they choose to cover.

I assume it's people like me who are wrong and Smooth Radio's management who are right about what listeners want in terms of music played and presenter interaction (or lack of it) required to make money.

This is a rare thing. Someone on digital spy who 'gets it' and understands what Global want from the radio station.

I'm all for genuine feedback but from I can see it's verging on trolling. It seems to be the same people again and again - one in particular I recognise as someone who has been banned from here a few times who seems to post on most of the statuses no matter what.

A shame really as people do have a valid point about the repetition and stripping back of features.

Personality deficient and with a music playlist less than a lot of peoples personal iPods is the supposed surefire way to maximising profits, and listeners? Truly baffling.

It is ONE way of doing it, there are others of course however the way Global have chosen has been proved time and time again around the world to be a very effective way of doing it.

Boring.lazy presentation from the 'Kid' again today
''there's Bob Marley and the Wailers .at Smooth.and now heres the travel..''
Other highlights of the first hour- him telling us Abba's Dancing Queen or THE Danciing Queen.as he back announced it is ''my wife's signature tune'' .and that the Bee Gees 'Night Fever' was ''one of the most important songs of disco''.....
Come on 'Kid' put a BIT of passion into it for the money you must be getting.What a pair of utterly redundant links.
I'd like to hear Gary King do this show.He's got a bit of spark.
Unlike Jensen.:sleep::sleep:

CANDLE IN THE WIND ON AGAIN NOW.
This 'radio station' really doesn't seem to care about it's regular listeners does it?
They are just shamelessly 'trawling' for any new listener that might just catch a song.one of these so called 'tested' songs/Thing is they will drive any new listeners away again within a couple of days with the constant repeating of songs.
So it's a case of sod any regular.intelligent audience then.

After George Michael and Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins 'A Groovy Kind of Love' (again) 'Kid' he makes a redundant comment about it being her only UK number one.''Believe it or not'' and says ''you'll only hear this music at drivetime''.
Er.no Kid.. What a pointless thing to say,Extremely inaccurate too.

Thought Smooth had sadly dropped post 2000 songs?

I think you've posted comment on the TOTP1978 thread, therefore you must watch Top Of The Pops 1978 on BBC4 every Thursday night at 7.30pm where David "Kid" Jensen has presented a large number of the shows, including last weeks edition (still available on BBC iPlayer) and he infact comes over as probably one of the most enthusiastic presenters from all of those DJ's that did the job at that time, in terms of the music he introduces.

Another thought that occurs to me is royalties for music. Could this be one reason for keeping such a restricted number of tracks on regular rotation, in order to keep the royalty payments to the minimum?

Dropped in comparison to what they were playing but Buble gets the odd spin and a couple of others.

Smooth really is terrible now. Hell even Simon bates golden hour feature the same songs that are on all the time. Truly awfully radio. I for one have got rid of smooth on my presets. I might have a listen in a few weeks time and then I might hear Elton john ABBA or Phil Colins or Paul young pmsl.

No the size of the playlist doesn't have anything to do with the amount of money you pay PRS or PPL.

Excuse me for asking what to some must be some naive questions:

How exactly is the playlist content chosen?

Who chooses it?

What is the cost to Smooth for playing one of The Carpenters' many hits compared to a one hit wonder's like Europe"s only chart effort?

Why do certain big hits by a major artist (Candle in the Wind by Elton John, for example) get played to death, whereas other examples of the same artist's top chart successes (Sacrifice or Song for Guy, say) seem to be ignored?

Thanks.

Excuse me for asking what to some must be some naive questions:

How exactly is the playlist content chosen?


Via music research available to Smooth and also listener focus groups where target listeners are played tracks and asked for their opinion on if they want more or less of it ext. All of this is collected and then tracks are sorted in the scheduling program.

Who chooses it?

Listeners! The overall decision is down to the head of music for the brand. In this case i'm guessing Richard also has a lot of input due to his successes with Magic 105.4. He will always have input but at a guess smooth is currently his main focus.

What is the cost to Smooth for playing one of The Carpenters' many hits compared to a one hit wonder's like Europe"s only chart effort?
The same.


Why do certain big hits by a major artist (Candle in the Wind by Elton John, for example) get played to death, whereas other examples of the same artist's top chart successes (Sacrifice or Song for Guy, say) seem to be ignored?

Because they test badly with the target audience, they basically don't like them. Just because its by the same artist doesn't mean anything. For example Your Song is completely different to I'm Still standing in terms of genre and also style. In the same way that Ellie Goulding's cover of the track may have got onto the Smooth playlist but there's not a chance her song with Calvin Harris or Burn would get on the playlist.

That's great, thanks.

Very well explained but who do they use to do these so called surveys is beyond me. Do they do these tests on zombies. I think it's just the global way of making cheap radio. You only have to look at heart,gold and the rest to hear their dire playlists. If that's what people like its a sad world we are coming to.

I so agree with you.

Real listeners, they hold regular focus groups or Listener Panels as i believe there called. Each brand has them with the panels made up of a range of listeners from Smooth target demographic.

This is one of the reasons global is so successful in there brands, other companies in comparison don't do half as much research and testing.