A lot of people, both radio and record industry, have started subscribing to monitor services like Mediabase 24/7, Monday Morning Reply -(if it still exists) and others. Those monitor services will spell out the actual playlist as it's heard on the air, along with rotation percentages.

I just want to add- I don't want to come off as anti NQC. I enjoy hearing the live NGC music that Crossroads sends out and I like the idea of a "family reunion" - my only question is why do we put such emphasis on it? How much impact does it really have?

I used to listen to Catoe when he was at a station in my area...before he moved on to his current job. Catoe played a song now and then that I wouldn't have played (particularly this one woman who had so much vibrato you could have thrown a cat through it). He also bogged down the show with too much talking at times.

Overall though, Catoe played a great selection of music and kept the listeners "tuned in" when he was on the local station. Unfortunately, the station was only gospel for a few hours each day...not full-time SG.

We could definitely use more DJs with his willingness to weed out the poor quality music from the airwaves.

41 out of the current SNews Top 80 sounds about right...or I should say, it sounds about right for what an SG radio station should have been programming 3-4 months ago when the data was current.

--Making hay while the sun shines--
sgnforum@musicscribe.com - BLOG - SGHistory.com

I wonder what would happen in the Kingdom of God if all the SG singers who cannot sing but insist they can would devote their time and energy to doing something more useful with their spare time - like feeding the hungry or teaching a Sunday School class or helping their neighbors?

I wonder what would happen in the Kingdom of God if all this stuff about making it on the charts didn't matter to people who INSIST the only reason they are doing this singing stuff is to glorify God? Doesn't God know they're doing it?
Why do they need to see their names on these absurd, outdated charts?

I wonder what would happen if someone would just try to tell them the TRUTH? Oh wait, somebody IS trying to tell them to truth. They just don't want to hear it.

Seems to me that if all the BAD SINGERS, and poor quality groups would admit the truth, then SG radio would have ONLY GOOD and HIGH QUALTIY music to play. It isn't ONLY the radio programmers, but the record companies who record these folks and take their money and run.

So then, Bruno is correct when he points the finger at all these ridiculous compilation discs, and the record companies who send them out. Isn't he?

I can't take credit for the vibrato/cat line. That was a favorite phrase of my college professor, Dr. Phil Perrin.

The only part of record "labels" who record poor quality groups for a fee and comp disc distributors who put poor quality songs on a fee is the manner of the sale. If they tell the client, "We do this for X dollars," then there's nothing wrong with selling that product. On the other hand, if they tell the client, "You are a wonderfully talented artist and we can take you to new heights if you hire us to do this for you," then they are shysters.

The bottom line with regard to this stuff making it to the airwaves, though, is that nothing is forcing SG radio to play poor quality music. It's just that most SG radio programmers either can't tell poor quality from good, or they don't have the word "No" in their vocabulary when it comes to determining what songs are fit for public consumption.

SG radio has the wrong idea about who their customers are. They think it is the artist/record label/radio promoters who call them regularly trying to get them to play a song. They are star struck if a group drops by the studio. The artists aren't the customers.

Some would say SG radio's customers are the listeners, and that's true for non-profit stations. Well, actually, it's those who support the station with financial donations.

For most AM SG radio stations, though, the customer is the advertiser. This doesn't mean it's radio's job to play what an advertiser asks them to play. It means that radio's job is to get as many listeners as possible so the advertiser will get their money's worth when they buy spots.

Example: I am a music leader at my church. I listen to all the suggestions my choir members make about music selection, try to suit their tastes in music, etc., but in the end, I choose music that I feel will best enhance the worship services. I don't necessarily choose the music I personally like the most, because that music would often be beyond my adult choir's abilities to sing or in a style that is so foreign to them that they would revolt. I only pick music that I feel will inspire the congregation. Part of that is based on music the choir enjoys singing, because they'll sing better when they like it, but that's not the only part of the equation. I have some who'd really like for me to go back to the old books the choir used before I got there 14 years ago...some of which were good books. However, the choir now sings with a level of quality they didn't have when I first arrived, so why would we want to go back to very simple arrangements when we can do something more creative and fresh?

In some ways, a music leader is in a position similar to a radio DJ for church worship services, and that's a responsibility I take very seriously. The "customer" in this case, are the people in the congregation, so it's my job to give them quality in the music portion of the worship service.

--Making hay while the sun shines--
sgnforum@musicscribe.com - BLOG - SGHistory.com