1. Current New
2. Current Secondary Up
3. Current Power
4. Current Secondary Down

My PD wants a chart show embedded in our weeknight show. This would be be full of current hits, which would likely be scheduled in the hour before and the hour after the chart.

How would you avoid the inevitable time separation (of our beloved listeners voting a song to number 10 on the chart, which we happened to have played about 10 minutes ago in the previous hour)?

Thanks again for what you do!

Dan

I read the whole article 12 CHR MUSIC FORMAT CLOCKS YOU CAN ADJUST & APPLY TODAY, and I have some concerns that go around in my head.

1 How many songs are included for each category? (Current Power, Current Secondary Up, Current Secondary Down, Current New, Current Stay, Recurrent Power, Recurrent Secondary).

2 According to your table Top 40 CHR, the categories are distributed through 6 clocks that are rotated every 6 hours, being 4 blocks per day, I wonder, why do you include 5 Current Power per hour?

3 In my station, we do not have a morning show; only two hours news from Monday to Friday, from 7 to 9 in the morning; what should I do with the clocks in those hours?

4 On weekends, the music will always be the same?

That would be all for now; I am also putting together a new radio and I would like you to give me a hand.

The music that will be played, is 80s, 90s and 2000s, Rock and Pop.

A question:

How do you solve the problem when you have, for example, Katy Perry’s Swish Swish in Current Power, and Chained To The Rhythm in Secondary Down?

As I understand, from time to time there will be conflicts between songs regarding Artist Separation. There are many ways to avoid it; just interesting how you see it in case of CHR station and clocks you recommend! Thanks!

Hi, Nikko!

I just noticed that I have yet to answer your question!

A good way is always to follow your format flow, scheduling the next song category in line of your steady category sequence – unless that would affect the rotation pattern of your power songs.

Based on the format clock (underneath the header CREATE AN UNEVEN ROTATION PATTERN), the category to be scheduled before the top-of-hour stopset – if the final song (Recurrent Secondary) would not be sufficient to fill up the entire hour – would officially be a Current Power. However, that would interfere with the desired rotation pattern for these power currents.

In this case, a better option could be using a similar feeling category with a less critical exposure. Stay Current could be an option, if you are sure that you’ll actually play this song (because it might be too valuable to waste).

The alternative could be a Current Secondary Down or a Current Secondary Up. Those categories contain more songs than your power & stay current categories, and are therefore less sensitive in terms of their rotation pattern / repetition velocity.

I hope this answer is helpful for you… better late than never, right? :-)

Best wishes for the new year, here’s to even more success in 2018!

Thomas

One question for you. If you need 16 songs per hour, which category would you add as a 16th song? Another Current Stay, for example?

Thank you

I have to admit something! Even though what I wrote in the original article basically works:

–

FILL YOUR CATEGORIES STRATEGICALLY

This format clock is designed to hold 6 or more songs in Power Current. 6 Songs for 5 slots would allow each song to travel through every other category slot before landing on the same spot within the hourly structure again, but they would cause an exact repetition of this song placement day after day, as 6 hours fit 4 times into 24 hours. The same principle applies to 8 songs for 5 slots, because 8 hours can also be multiplied to 24 hours. Therefore, 7 songs are the best option, because then it takes 7 hours before all Power Currents fall into the same slots. That creates an uneven rotation pattern, cycling through several different dayparts & days before repeating.

–

… I forgot to add that this pattern could cause the same rotation pattern to repeat week after week. The reason is that there are (obviously) 7 days in a week, and 7 songs combined with 5 slots for those songs an hour will cause a song that played at say 9:05 on Monday to again play at 9:05 the next Monday!

That is, if on that second Monday, you’ve scheduled the exact same format clock in your clock grid as you did on the first Monday, and if on that second Monday, you’re having the exact same songs in your Power Current category as you did on the first Monday.

Chances are you do vary your clock grid and/or do refresh your power categories (and/or let your music scheduling software automatically ‘kick’ one Power Current on Sunday-to-Monday night at midnight), thus shuffling to your most-exposed songs even more, in which case you’re home free :-).

In addition, you want to use smart format clock rotations that do not repeat every week (or not even every few weeks) by using an uneven number of format clocks that cannot be multiplied to 24 (hours in a day) and that are not a multiplication of 7 (days a week). A rotation of 5 format clocks can work well.

Cheers,

Thomas

Hi Tom,

Thank you for your additional questions, and we’ve just published a post that might give you a good perspective on EXACTLY these topics!

It’s an interesting case about a station that positions itself in between two (Hot AC and CHR) competitors with an Adult Top 40 format:

Music Scheduling Q&A #1 – How To Build Your Song Categories?

Enjoy reading!

Thomas