Want the inside scoop on how its playlist is compiled and just how Perry fares so well?
Full story via ‘The Guardian’ below…
Excerpts from Nadia Khomani’s ‘Radio 1’s playlist secrets uncovered: the battle of the ‘brands” reads:
At the head of the playlist meeting table sits George Ergatoudis. He’s funny, he’s smart, and – as Radio 1’s head of music – he’s the most powerful man in the music industry. Ergatoudis decides whether your band gets daytime airplay on the biggest radio station in the country (Radio 1 reaches 12 million listeners a week, including 42% of all 15- to 24-year-olds, and its Facebook community numbers 15 million). Ergatoudis, therefore, decides whether you’re going to make it commercially or be exiled to the darkest corners of the musical underground. On his right sits Nigel Harding, Radio 1’s music policy executive (three years ago, he was ranked the fourth most influential player in the industry by theGuardian, below Adele’s music team, Universal label executives and Simon Cowell).
The playlist committee’s job is to choose around 40 records each week for repeated daytime play (A-list records get 25 plays a week, B-list 15, and C-list eight to 10). After deciding whether to keep current playlisted tracks, the discussion moves on to new additions. A snatch of each song blares through speakers before Ergatoudis lists the artist’s YouTube views, Soundcloud hits, Shazam ratings, Twitter followers and Facebook likes.
“It’s a real privilege to be in this room and also it’s a great responsibility,” Harding says. “People can’t just turn up and proffer an opinion having just heard something for the first time.” Indeed, committee responsibilities extend beyond this room: there are constant meetings with label reps and promotions teams (the pluggers) every week to hear the hard sell on upcoming artists. “Everyone has to foster those relationships; go to gigs and really be immersed in new music and the specialist output,” says Harding. “We probably see anything up to 30 separate plugging teams a week.”
When I ask about artists the station has been late to, such as Drake, “it’s because their songs are not suitable for daytime radio play”. And what about the artists they haven’t broken? What about the songs they don’t play? In the late 2000s the BBC Trust criticised the station for having too old an audience and said it must focus on getting the average age down to under 30. The Trust promised to monitor Radio 1’s listening figures among the 15- to 29-year-old demographic over the coming years. But despite introducing younger presenters, the average age of a Radio 1 listener is still 32.
When I mention this, Ergatoudis shuffles in his seat. “Average is a ridiculously blunt measure,” he says. “Today’s 30- to 50-year-olds have lived through just about every genre of music that’s ever existed, from the most hardcore metal to hip-hop to dance and house.”
He tells me that if you look at the list of the 1,000 favourite artists for 60-year-olds and the 1,000 favourite artists for 13-year-old, there is a 40% overlap, and if you take 30- to 39-year-olds and 13- to 19-year-olds, over 50% of their favourite artists are the same. “So their worldviews are nowhere near as separate as people think they are.” The only thing Radio 1 can focus on, then, is its output. “Every decision we make is based on the questions ‘Is this relevant for a young audience?’, ‘Will this track be appreciated by 15- to 29-year-olds?'”