Dave Boland wrote:

Ah, McRadio. That is why I have a mp3 player -- can't stand radio
today. Thanks to the programmers and Clear Channel. Oh well.

CC just plays what the people want. For many years they operated a
website called the Format Lab, which had a bunch of test formats. Judging by
the length of time a user listened, where they were located, and any other
demographic info they could get, they took listenership into consideration
when deploying new formats on their stations.

Contrary to popular belief, you can't just do a seat of your pants format.
First, too much money is involved; second, it's too easy to alienate an
audience by playing the wrong thing. Thus, the stations that actually have
ratings to all they can to test songs and DJs before putting them into their
programming mix.