Radio exec admits most hits "simulated"

[Graham_Start]

(here's another one from yours truly)

Alex Suit, a spokesman for the ClearlyInControlOfEveryChannel group, announced today that most recent hits aren't based on sales or requests, and aren't hits at all in the tradtional sense.

"We don't have singles anymore, so we can't determine chart position on that. We would've gone with requests, but people weren't requesting the songs that our advertisers wanted us to play. So, what we've done is put only the songs that bring in the most revenue in heavy rotation. Even though nobody actually wants to hear them, they get played consistently, as if they were hits. Eventually, people will think that they must be hits, and therefore be good songs, simply because they hear them everywhere. We call these songs the 'simulated hits' or 'the s-hits' for short."

When asked why the industry had chosen to make this public knowledge, Suit was jubilant. "Today, we signed the deal to purchase the last independent radio station on the continent. We're in complete control now, from coast to coast. So we wanted people to know that we're the ones in charge here. There's talk about determining hits based on internet downloads, and we will have none of that. The public will take whatever s-hit we give them. This is good for our revenue, and what's good for our revenue is what's best for everyone."

"It also helps record companies maximize their investment," Suit explained. "There's no such thing as a one-hit wonder anymore. An act may have only one hit, but if we make some s-hits, they're seen as having longevity." Suit mentions UK pop act Right Said Fred as a good example. "In Britain, they were regarded as a novetly act, with that silly 'I'm Too Sexy' song. The folks who still found the song funny after 500 plays bought the single, while the album languished on the shelves. After a few weeks, the public had already written them off, and moved on. They only sold singles, and there's not a lot of revenue in that. Here, we eliminated the single to maximize margins. But we found that music fans just wouldn't buy an album if there was only one hit song on it. This is where the s-hit hits the fan. We take a couple of more songs off the album, and play them constantly. In this case, we took a forgettable tune called 'Don't Talk, Just Kiss' and made it into a seriously big s-hit. That and some other s-hit from that album. So, folks would see the album, recognize three songs from it, and buy it thinking that it was a good value because it had three hit songs. But really, it had just one popular song, and the rest was all s-hits."

Suit was eager to explain the history of s-hits. "Back in the 50s, payola could get the s-hits happening. In the 60s, Motown created a lot of s-hits too, because they weren't part of the RIAA, and simply lied about how many records they were selling. But people caught on to that. In the 70s, you had guys like Neil Bogart, who was real smooth. He took advantage of stats that were based on how many records were shipped, and not sold. So he'd ship a million copies of a new release, knowing full well that three-quarters would get returned. He got it certified gold, even though hardly anyone had bought it, proving it to be an s-hit. So he the s-hits allright, although it did cause some problems. A particularly bad record would linger unsold in the cutout bins. People would find the record shops full of bad s-hits, and get turned off."

But the majority of music sales were still driven by sales back then. "We tried other ways to give people the s-hits. You know how some albums came out with stickers that said 'contains the hit single...' right when they we're first released? Of course, the songs had been out long enough to qualify as real hits. Those were s-hits. But it still didn't go over as well as we'd have liked. We couldn't control our s-hits, and that could be very embarrassing."

Suit cites Prince's Batman soundtrack as a the turning point, and the dawn of the s-hit era. "It was a terrible song, if you could even call that. I mean, it really was dreadful. Nobody could stand it. It sounded like he made it up as he went along. But they'd spent so much money promoting the movie and the soundtrack that they had to make it a success to meet their financial targets. Anyway, we just kept playing it over and over and over again. Result? A massive s-hit. We weren't able to top it until Hootie And The Blowfish."

Suit acknowledges that sometimes the s-hits can be uncomfortable, even painful. "We recently discovered what we call the Mexican factor. As you know, the Hispanic population is booming, and they want music that acknowledges them. So we first put a bit of Selena here and there, you know, that sort of thing. But what we found is that even adding even a taste of Mexican to the mix can result in an endless stream of s-hits. That really caught us off guard, and has kept us moving ever since! Sure, the results are often ghastly. But you just have to get used to it, since you're going to hear them everywhere."

"We've now reached the point where radio is 100% s-hits", Suit continued. "But we're working to bring down the barriers between formats, so record companies can sell the same s-hit to more people. Here, you can see how we've got the labels to take the same song, and mix it in different styles to suit our formats. This pile over here is for the urban stations, who can handle the tough s-hits. This pile here is for easy rock, for the folks who want their s-hits to be smooth and easy. This new Shania Twain s-hit has been done up as both gangsta rap, and easy rock" he says, tossing a copy onto both stacks. "Same s-hit, different pile."

A. Suit became quite animated when asked about digital rights management and copy-protected CDs. "Copy protection is essential. With P2P networks, folks could conceivably listen to whatever s-hit they wanted. This is very dangerous to the financial security of the industry. We're very careful about what s-hits we give to people. Things will get very messy if we have uncontrollable s-hits."

But what about people who simply don't want to hear s-hit songs?

"Radio is not about, nor has it ever been about, playing music that people want to hear. It's about advertising revenue, plain and simple. We're going to give people the s-hits for a long, long time. As long as the ad dollars keep coming in, we'll be stirring up the s-hits. And you should see the contract that we just landed to promote Immodium!"

[Nano]

This one is just beautiful :D Graham, you should try to make one of these published in a music mag. Being a journo myself, I tell you it's well written enough to fit the bill. And certainly it's fun s-hit! :)