What songs should I be playing?

So, if you’re thinking of putting on some background music in your premises, or even launching your own radio station, what tunes should you be playing??

Well, there’s 3 main ways to go here;

1. If you’re not that bothered about playing what your listeners or customers will like, then chuck on any old rubbish. If you play your own personal favourites or whatever tracks/CDs happen to be laying around, it goes without saying you’ll probably not get the best results. Bear in mind also that putting on spotify and iTunes playlists, or using a Sonos player (or similar) for performance where the public can hear it is illegal! 

2. Like most of the big radio groups, you could spend a HUGE amount of money engaging a market research company to find out what songs it is that your target market like. The research company will expect a list of possibles from you, but they’ll gather together a “focus group” made up of people just like those you are hoping to entertain, (probably on the phone or via zoom in these covid times) and then play snippets of songs to them. The participants will then rate the songs as if they were hearing them on the radio; from definitely make me stay/turn the volume up, through indifferent, down to grab the radio and immediately retune to another station!  From this information, gathered from as many people as you can afford to survey, you can start to form a “league table” of songs that you should air, (….and songs you definitely shouldn’t play!)

3. How about using the research that the big groups have ALREADY done, but without the big price tag?! Although the big groups are unlikely to share their valuable data with you if you give them a call, the results of their expensive research are all there in plain sight! …because they’re playing the songs that have tested well on their stations for all to hear, in roughly the same proportions as their popularities will have told them to! So, if you study lists of what’s being played on established stations that are doing well, and do a bit of statistical analysis on it, then this is a GREAT place to start with ideas for what you should probably be doing – and that’s where WE can help!!!

Introducing Rosi UK Radio MONITORING:

Rosi Monitoring can provide “songs played” data on most of the well established station names and groups in the UK, and we’ll share some of that interesting information with you here!!

If you’d like us to give you the full “chapter and verse” on what they’ve all been playing, or you’d like your own “Heart” or “BBC Radio 2” top 500/5000 most played songs lists, then we can provide them!!  Our charges start at just £12 (exc VAT) for one station, so that’s a FULL LISTING of every song or classical piece a station has played, with dates and times, plus a stats package with the full “most played” chart for the month listing EVERY song they’ve played and how many times, ranked from MOST played to LEAST…  so if they’ve played 3000 different songs, that’ll be a 1 to 3000 chart! 

  Subscriptions (minimum term 1 year, exc VAT)

£12 / month for a monthly 1 station subscription
£60 / month for a monthly 5 *different* station subscription, building up a 60 station snapshot across the year ** Our most popular enthusiast package ** 
£120 / month for a monthly 12 stations subscription
£240 / month for a monthly 30 station subscription ** Our most popular corporate package! **
£420 / month for a monthly 60+ station subscription  ** includes bonus FREE Christmas Station breakdowns! **

  One off’s

£25 (exc VAT) per station per month, but discounts can apply for larger orders depending how much work is involved getting the data you want, so there are certainly bulk discounts to be had for multiple stations and the same data for each… Get in touch with us at the bottom of the page for more information!!

What they’ve played, charts and analysis

Analysis of 53 days from 28-01-2021 to 22-03-2021
NUMBER OF PLAYS IDENTIFIED 15629
Number of DIFFERENT Songs Played: 643
Variety factor for this station is : 4.1%
50% OF PLAYS made up of 87 Songs (13.5% of the total)
Number of songs with less than 5 plays or less each: 303 (47.1%)
Lowest Number of NEW SONGS on any day: 0 after 33 DAYS

1 [333 plays] + The Weeknd – Blinding Lights
2 [323 plays] + Miley Cyrus – Midnight Sky
3 [323 plays] + Jason Derulo – Take You Dancing
4 [320 plays] + Little Mix – Break Up Song
5 [310 plays] + Keith Urban & Pink – One Too Many
…. all the way down to,….
642 [1 play] + Ed Sheeran Feat. Justin Bieber – I Don’t Care
643 [1 play] + Maroon 5 Feat. Christina Aguilera – Moves Like Jagger

UK Radio Groups

Whilst there were many independently owned radio stations in the UK 30 years ago, OFCOM has gradually allowed them all to be swallowed up by just a few companies now. Here is not the place to discuss whether this was a good thing, (ahem!) but this where we’ve ended up….

Global, Bauer Media and the Wireless Group own most commercial stations in the UK.

There’s also a few others which mostly broadcast offerings from the above big boys under license, like Quidem and Communicorp (..which may itself be now being bought up by Bauer) and Nation.

Slightly more interesting was Jack Media, doing its own thing in Oxfordshire, but also since bought by Bauer, and there’s also some other organisation operating a slightly different model to the rest, called the BBC.

We’ve grouped most of their “Brands” into target markets and/or group stations, CLICK BELOW to get more info on what they’re up to! 

1. Current Pop Music   ( Radio 1 / Capital / Hits Network / Heat / Kiss / Jack 2 )

2. Pop Music Older  ( Radio 2 / Heart / Greatest Hits / Union Jack / Gold / Magic / Smooth )

3. Easy Listening Secondaries ( Mellow Magic, Smooth Chill, Jack 3 & Chill, Magic Soul, Magic at the Musicals )

4. Classical  (Radio 3, Classic FM, Scala )

5. Decades  ( Heart 70s/80s/90s, Absolute 60s/70s/80s/90s/00s/10s )

6. Dance  ( Radio 1 Dance, Capital Dance, Heart Dance, Union Jack Dance, Virgin Groove )

7. RnB / Street  ( Radio 1 Extra, Capital Extra, Kiss Fresh, Kisstory, Capital Extra Reloaded )

8. Current Rock  ( Absolute Radio, Virgin Radio, Radio X, Kerrang, XS Manchester )

9. Classic Rock  ( Planet Rock, Absolute Classic Rock, Virgin Anthems, Union Jack Rock )

10. Country  ( Smooth Country, Country Hits Radio, Downtown Country )

11. Broader Range / Others!  ( BBC 6 Music, Jack FM, Sam, Cheesy FM, Jazz FM & BBC Asian N ) 

We’re monitoring all the most important UK radio stations 24-7, so get in touch with us for all your UK radio Monitoring and analysis needs –
The easiest way to get in touch is to fill in this form and we’ll reply within 24 hours!

If you want an idea of how we can work with your business, don’t forget to tell us what you’re aiming to achieve –
For Radio Monitoring, which genres or which particular stations do you want data on?
We can provide full lists of songs played and how many times per week or per month etc, they aired.

Don’t forget we can also provide hand picked music libraries for any genre you want for a radio or background music station using our software –
We offer both PC Based or streaming delivery solutions – a radio style service, just music, or with promotional messages too?