There are a tremendous amount of decisions to make in music scheduling. And one of the most discussed and debated is whether or not to recycle gold titles.
If you are new to the concept of recycling music, the concept is pretty simple. You replay the songs scheduled during the day (in some categories) in the overnight hours. Why?
The theory is that overnight programming is not as important between 12am and 6am because you aren’t rated during that time and your audience is at its lowest count of the day. And, the chance of a listener tuning in during the day (from 10a-5p, for example) and also listening overnight is small. So while you’re repeating songs, few if any of your listeners are hearing the repetition.
So you would recycle gold categories to preserve the song plays in those categories to present a bigger, better pool of songs when the listening audience is higher.
Scheduling gold with recycling can also help with category turnover in a small library. Listeners are creatures of habit, tuning in at about the same time each day. Recycling exposes more titles during the same periods day-to-day. This gives the impression of a larger library and more variety.
All of that sounds great, right? Let’s recycle the songs we play during the day and play them again overnight. You can separate song plays during other times of the day. And the high profile shows get better song choices.
