[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
bring it on!

sigh... as you wish.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
1) The idea of full-length play is essential to a prog station.

It is not essential. In fact, it is counter-productive to a listener-based station. If an album comes on that I hate, I'm gone. As far as the cutting up of songs that run together, the answer there is to make sure these songs are tracked together. For instance, songs like "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish" shouldn't be split up, but neither does it warrant playing all of Fragile.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
having people burn out on it is a bad thing.... Take a chance people!

Amen brother.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
4) The idea of having listeners select a block of music once a month or every two weeks has a lot of upside:

a) The listener party blocks were awesome. You had Wojtek and the classics, Mossy with the more quiet, etc. I especially thought Teerminator's was excellent. I didn't like it at first glance, but the songs were great. There's a lot of listener talent here.

Without getting into how radio programming really really works, block programming is a BAD idea.

• First of all, it'd take a whole crap-load of programming, and never forget that AM is run as a hobby, not a business. That one day of block was a birthday party, not a daily thing.
• We have over 400 members. Does everyone get an hour? Newbie's want their hour. Everyone wants the best time-slot so their songs are heard... Nightmare for R.Lee and PDJ.
• What if it turns out that "Bill" consistantly hates "Jerry's" hour. They just musically don't mesh. Rather than sitting through Jerry's request, he has to sit through his hour.
• You can count on this: There will be an all Yes hour, and all Genesis hour, and all KC hour, an all Canterbury hour, an all Kraut hour, an all prog-metal hour, etc. What you end up with is actually LESS variety, because SAM never DJs anymore.
• Finally, in order to make block programming work, one of two things have to happen. 1. EVERYONE gets access to the station's computer, so that they can queue up thier hour. or 2. a DJ, be it Roger, Jim, Sean, Tommy, Cozy, or myself, has to be at the computer all day queueing up each hour. Obviously #1 is not going to happen for security reasons. You can count out #2 because we have lives and don't get paid to do anything AM-wise.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
d) The requests are dominated by the hardcore Moonies. The variety is limited (see b above), and the "flavor of the month" is present. In order to cultivate new listeners you need variety. Not just different kinds of music, but different ARTISTS.

"Flavor of the month" is how radio works, whether broadcast or internet. If you want a truly mixed variety, the only way to get it is to eliminate requests altogether and have SAM simply play randomly through the whole library. Also, I say the way to cultivate new listeners is to allow them to help program the station, meaning giving them the same privilege the hard-core Moonies have - the privilege to request.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
Having shows like these would highlight the library - all the music would be culled from the Moon.

On the contrary, it would highlight less of the library. If you think people pick "safe" songs now, think about what they'll do when they have to program an hour? An occasional person might program an hour of stuff he's never heard, but 99% of listeners are going to load it with stuff they know and like, i.e. famous stuff. And again, SAM is shut out.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
I strongly disagree with putting a limit on how often a band plays or someone can request.

Well, there already are limits on both, and I think I speak for Jim and Dot when I say that that ain't changing. The same artist can't play twice in a 2 hour period, and you can't request again for one hour after your request. If the limit on how often a band could play were eliminated, We'd hear The Flower Kings and Yes twelve times a day instead of six. If there were no limit on how often someone could request, I promise you people would request twenty songs at a time. You wanna talk about lack of variety?!!

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
6) Another reason you hear these same long tunes is that if you are making a request, you don't want to "waste it" on a 4 minute tune. More bang for the buck. On Stardust We Are, there are a few short great songs. but hey if I can rq, why not stardust...it's 25 minutes...see what I mean? then we burned out on it. Transatlantic - "We All Need Some Light Now" might be the best song on the record - but there are other longer songs and they get played.

Now, this I agree with you on. I've thought about this before. The best "solution" I could think of is this: If you request a song Shorter than 10:00 you have the same one-hour delay you always have, but if you request a song Longer than 10:00, you have a two-hour delay until your next request. This could enourage requesting shorter songs. Request short songs more often, or long ones less often! It would take some tinkering by Dotty, but could be a good idea.

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
The program director should have a certain amount of time to have "free programming"... random play. I like that. It's different.

That's exactly what a request free day would be. Request Free Thursday!

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
All new additions should be played in their entierety once. Why not? This is long overdue.

Hmmm... now that's not a bad idea. However, there's the ubiquitous "New Moon" on the way, and we have to consider how much of the programming day it would take. If an update is 20 albums, and each one averages 45 minutes, that's.... 15 hours. 3 hours a day for a week. I dunno...

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
None of these suggestions I am making have nothing to do with limits.....I want to hear a variety!

You want to hear more variety eh? Here's how it can happen. Rather than go through hoops to do block programming, themes, playing whole albums, how about using the old K.I.S.S. method?

Move the time between artist plays from 2 hours to 3. Here's the math. At present, TFK, Yes, Transatlantic, KC, Rush, and Genesis can each play 12 times a day. That simple change to 3 hour gap would limit them to 8 times a day.

SIMPLE LOGIC: The less times an artist is allowed to play a day,
the more artists get played.