The Safe Add Is Safe for the Label. Not for Your Station.

I read this article Troy West (PD at KLOVE/AIR1) wrote on his LinkedIn recently and jumped up and down with joy and enthusiasm! I love it so much. And I’ve seen you to this time and time again with KLOVE recently (Jet Trouble, Bay Turner, Carly Ann Taylor, Andrew Ripp, Jervis Campbell, Hopeful, Bodie, Forrest, Samantha Ebert and plenty of other songs they’ve tried over the past few years). I love this approach! I asked if I could share it to my website and he said he’d be honored…it’s worth the read! — Josh

Every programmer who runs a station of any size knows the call. A label rep pushing hard for the song that tested clean, hit the right demo numbers, streaming numbers are bonkers. It’s an easy yes. It’s also how you end up with a playlist that has no pulse.

I’ve turned down that easy yes before. Not because the song was bad. It was just safe in a way that didn’t do anything for the station. I’ve also sat through the follow up calls asking why. That part isn’t fun. But it’s the job.

Barrett Media wrote something a while back that named exactly what I couldn’t quite put into words during those calls. Rigid music testing and focus groups sanitize stations. They strip out the texture that actually builds listener loyalty.

In the article I read, Barrett Media called them chocolate chips. That’s the phrase that stuck with me. The surprise song. The song nobody expected in that slot. The one moment in the hour that breaks the pattern before the listener even realizes they were bored.

You cannot lean on this every week, because I’ve watched programmers take this idea and run it into the ground. If every add is a stretch, your station isn’t distinct anymore, it’s just unpredictable, and unpredictable doesn’t build habit any better than boring does. This works precisely because it’s rare. Listeners can tell the difference between a station that occasionally takes a real swing and one that’s just guessing week to week.

When it lands though, there is nothing safe that touches it. It’s the song somebody texts a friend about. The song that makes a listener say did you hear what they just played, instead of reaching for the next preset on their way to something else.

Play it safe often enough and you get a station that sounds like every other station in the format. Take the right swing at the right moment and you get something people actually notice.