"Brenda Ann" wrote in message
news

"David Eduardo" wrote in message
...

The idea that there are musicologist-type DJs rummaging through thousands
of records is a myth, and in the few cases such exists or has existed,
most have failed.

Back in the day, KAPA in Raymond, WA used to have a library of literally
thousands of records, all in very nicely laid out libraries, from which
their announcers could retrieve pretty much anything they wanted to play.
The station did indeed finally fail.. but it was only AFTER it was bought
up by a corporate entity and pretty much driven into the ground.

Excellent. There are 14 thousand stations in the US, and you base your
conclusion on one of them.

The station, without knowing it, failed because it was a Class IV on 1340 in
a very sparsely populated county... where even today, a C2 FM only puts a
decent signal over 60,000 persons. And that county, unlike in the 50's, is
now invaded by many usable FMs from other nearby locations... yet it had a
monopoly when it went on in 1950.

Today, that AM is silent, like so many like it... KYOR in Blythe comes to
mind... because FMs had so much more coverage and there was no need for an
AM.

The fact that the station did not have a format did not help.

Corporate radio has ruined radio. Even in the heyday of network radio,
individual affiliate stations had their own programming, usually in the
daytime. Networks ruled the evenings with the great comedy and news
programs.

I'd suggest you revisit publications like Radex, as you can see that the
webs provided programming for much of the day, including the daytime drama
shows that evolved into soap operas. Many issues of Radex, with complete
programming schedules, are at www.americanradio.com.

Network stations carried loads of daytime content, too.

A great many netcasting stations have thousands of tracks that they pick
and choose from. Almost none have a limited playlist (DMCA actually
PREVENTS it in cases where the stations are bothering to follow the law).

The DCMA has very few restrictions that would affect even the most limited
playlist in use today. There is a restriction on repeats, and in how many
songs by an artist that can be played together or in proximity...
specifically:

"In any three-hour period:
not more than three songs from the same recording
not more than two songs in a row from the same recording
not more than four songs from the same artist
not more than three songs in a row from the same artist
not more than four songs from the same anthology/box set
not more than three songs in a row from the same anthology/box set. "

The tightest Top 40 in the US which repeats some songs every 90 minutes
would break those rules... stations generally don't repeat an artist more
often than every 45 minutes, and they seldom would play that deep in a
particular recording or set.

So, a station with a 40 song library would be able to comply with the rules,
and they do. But since most CHRs have over 100 songs today, there is no
issue.

The problem with stations with thousands of songs is that nobody listens to
them.