ongoing AMP Radio is doing something stupid thread

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by East Coast Flame

Looking at the music Amp plays, I don't think artists like Calvin Harris or Katy Perry are going to be too fired up about Amp taking liberties with their artistic integrity. Remixes and mash-ups have been a part of pop music for quite a while now.

This is a joke right? Green text?

[polak]

Calvin Harris is sick.

[nfotiu]

Why not just play 2 songs at the same time? They could get their song count up to 48 an hour!

[SportsJunky]

You'll be missed Calvin.

[troutman]

This is like K-Tel records in the 1970s, where songs were edited to fit in more hits.

20 songs on one record:

http://hercsktelalbums.blogspot.ca/2...tars-1977.html

[jayswin]

I stopped listening to Jack FM for this very reason. This new stupid trend of the measure of a radio stations success being how many songs they play, not how many minutes of music they play.

So stupid, Jack 96.9 has cut down all my favourite songs and they always take out the best parts. Best example is November rain. It's a 9 minute song, but one of their staples, so they took out the first guitar solo and the epic ending of the song, making it about a 5 minute song. It's unbelievably stupid to even play that song if you're taking the best parts out.

There's a whole list of songs they have cut huge parts out of, so they can say 'We play more songs than anyone!". Who gives a ****? They're not complete song and you lost a listener. Losers.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Maybe. I listened to it every day it was on air. It didn't seem to get much of a fair shake, but I'm not sure of the details of the change. maybe they got bought out rather than "failing".

Fuel had some crossover with X and CJAY, but CJAY is so generic and X has fallen into the trap of playing their most popular songs waaaay too much.

I miss Fuel.

FUEL was my favourite station at the time as well, but its ratings were abysmal. As I recall, their market share at the end was below 1. AMP's ratings from this past February-May was 4.9. Country 105 leads with a 10.5 share.

https://www.bbm.ca/_documents/radio_...plineRadio.pdf

[GreatWhiteEbola]

nm

[Stud_McCool]

Gotta give AMP credit for trying something different and separating themselves from the other top-40 stations. EDM is repetitive, so it won't be very noticeable anyways.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Stud_McCool

Gotta give AMP credit for trying something different and separating themselves from the other top-40 stations. EDM is repetitive, so it won't be very noticeable anyways.

EDM is like 5% of their playlist.

[pgsieve]

After the Money Burning stunt (along with the Road House Nov 11 event) I decided to boycott AMP altogether. My presets switch between the Fan (in the morning) and CBC and the Peak throughout the day.

The CBC was my replacement for AMP, and the Peak fills the void if I'm looking for tunes. I can honestly say (as one of the young guys AMP is trying to appeal to) I've never enjoyed the radio more. The Peak seems to play a good mix of songs I've never heard of and relatively popular hits. As for the CBC- I always made fun of my father for always having it on- but now I see why he liked it so much.

I guess what I'm getting at... Thanks AMP Radio... In a very roundabout way- you've made me a far more educated and diverse radio listener since you lost me with your ignorant marketing strategies.

[Nehkara]

Originally Posted by pgsieve

After the Money Burning stunt (along with the Road House Nov 11 event) I decided to boycott AMP altogether. My presets switch between the Fan (in the morning) and CBC and the Peak throughout the day.

The CBC was my replacement for AMP, and the Peak fills the void if I'm looking for tunes. I can honestly say (as one of the young guys AMP is trying to appeal to) I've never enjoyed the radio more. The Peak seems to play a good mix of songs I've never heard of and relatively popular hits. As for the CBC- I always made fun of my father for always having it on- but now I see why he liked it so much.

I guess what I'm getting at... Thanks AMP Radio... In a very roundabout way- you've made me a far more educated and diverse radio listener since you lost me with your ignorant marketing strategies.

Yeah I used to listen to it a bit too but after the moronic 90.3 hour marriage and the money burning I stopped listening to the station entirely.

I switch back and forth between FAN960 and 660 news. When I want to listen to music I alternate between Vibe, Cjay, Air 106.1, and X92.9.

[Shawnski]

Originally Posted by flameswin

I stopped listening to Jack FM for this very reason. This new stupid trend of the measure of a radio stations success being how many songs they play, not how many minutes of music they play.

So stupid, Jack 96.9 has cut down all my favourite songs and they always take out the best parts. Best example is November rain. It's a 9 minute song, but one of their staples, so they took out the first guitar solo and the epic ending of the song, making it about a 5 minute song. It's unbelievably stupid to even play that song if you're taking the best parts out.

There's a whole list of songs they have cut huge parts out of, so they can say 'We play more songs than anyone!". Who gives a ****? They're not complete song and you lost a listener. Losers.

I understand your dismay in not playing the full song. Personally, I always play full versions whenever possible.

But I also fear long songs, from an entertainment perspective. In a world of 140 character news info, how long can you expect someone to stay tuned in if they don't like a song?

It's easier to lose an audience than it is to gain one.

There are a ton of songs that have entrances or dénouements that are detrimental to playing the entirety of the song. Couple examples:

2 Pac - California Love. Great tune but the last minute is, well... stretched.
Prince - Let's Go Crazy has 35 seconds (or a min depending on your perspective) of intro that can kill a crowd.

As noted prior, song lengths tended to fit in the media available, i.e. 45 singles. KTel had an influence on song length as well.

Obviously there are classics from the likes of Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis that are quite short, but there are also other modern day songs that also can fit that length:

Blur - Song 2
Georgia Satelites - Hippy Hippy Shake

Wait, what? After typing these, I realized they are classics too.... now.

Bottom line is that song lengths adapts to the media that is prevalent. Current dwindling listenership seems to be forcing a return to shorter songs.

Time will tell.

[Northendzone]

Yet another reason to ditch terrestrial radio......

[FlamesFanStrandedInEDM]

AMP Radio: Where you can listen to 50 Minutes of non-stop iTunes Clips, Commercial Free.

If you just listened to iTunes Clips....Its all commercial free!

[BBQorMILDEW]

How can anyone even listen to the crap music they play every day?

Their music director is lazy and should've been fired months ago. Amp, virgin and 101.5 are what's wrong with radio.

[110%]

People citing artistic integrity as a reason against this is a joke considering the top 40 music industry.

[Russic]

It's certainly not something I care for, but I give them points for trying. Let's be realistic here, they're running a radio station in 2014. In terms of piloting a sinking ship, I'd probably rather run a newspaper. At any point I can have nearly any song I want playing through my car stereo within about 20 seconds thanks to my phone. Consuming media on our portable devices is going to evolve to be better and better, while radio is pretty much stuck. What the hell can they really do?

[Regulator75]

From Jann Arden.

It's been quite the few days. I feel relieved in so many ways to have at least kicked the ball to get it rolling in the right direction. When you stand up for something you truly believe in, you have to be prepared to do it no matter what the out come will be.

When I found out what a local Calgary radio station was doing with it's song playlists, I was so beyond dismayed and ANGRY that I knew I had to be vocal about it. AMP radio was taking songs, WITHOUT the artists permission, the label's permission, the producer's permission, SOCAN'S permission, or ACTRA's permission and butchering them into 90 to 120 second chunks, because, as they have been reporting, "It's what our listeners wanted"......What listeners is my question?

For many years, all of us artists have had what the industry calls, 'radio edits' done to our songs. We have accepted it because we have wanted to work hand in hand with radio to make it a win win for everybody-but we have always been involved with those edits so they can for the most part maintain their integrity and artistic license.

As story tellers, we want our 'story' to be somewhat in tact! Often times, with our knowledge- long intros are cut down by several seconds, or an ending is faded much sooner than it would have been- there were minor changes made in order to fit the commercial radio format. That usually meant keeping the song around 3 min and 30 seconds....but what AMP has been doing is so beyond that it's sickening. In essence they are assuming that their listeners are stupid and that they don't care about something that is 'disposable' even on the best of days. And that something is an artist's creations. Huge amounts of heart and soul and a LOT of money goes into making this music for all of US!!

This whole move is about AMP scrambling to somehow increase their 'listenership', which has been bleeding profusely. This station has gone so far as to BURN thousands of dollars instead of helping people who really need ... Yup, they thought it would be excellent publicity to simply incinerate a pile of cash to gather up a few pathetic ratings. The breast augmentation contest was a real winner too...What a wonderful thing for a young woman to aspire to having done, and hey, to win it in a contest!!!

Because of me being so outspoken about this issue, Steve Jones, the VP of the New Cap radio chain, sent out a letter to all of his stations telling them to immediately and permanently remove me from all their playlists. This is not a surprise to me, and it's exactly why so many young artists can not afford to speak up when their music is massacred. They fear reprisal in the form of being banned, which is just what they did to me. I don't care about what they do to me to tell you the truth. I have had my day at radio, I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a success made possible by YOU, the people who have always supported my work and I am so grateful. This is about the young artists that have to face this kind of bull#### if they speak up. Go against us AMP clearly says- and we'll STOP playing you on a hundred of our stations. Steve Jones is a petulant immature child, trying to punish me, simply because he knows he is wrong and he wants to shut me up. I won't ever shut up. FYI. Thank God they don't play my music. What a sham. If they start hacking up music...what's next? That's something I am not willing to sit back to find out.

[jayswin]

Awesome. I love Jann Arden, she has that Canadian humility to her and it's always funny at her shows, like a lot of Canadian artists, there's a self deprecating comedian in there somewhere.

But she's always been outspoken as well, and this makes that crappy station out to be a bunch of chumps. Great work.