In preparation for the oncoming radio impact day of One Word, there's been discussion of how to proceed with radio tracking. I'm prepared at this point to continue to track OW and WFY on the Tracker and Updates threads. In order to keep the time reasonable, I'll need to drop the tracking of the Playlist status of stations, the #1 stations and the Top 10 Markets. If someone wants to take part of this on, that would be great! Let's talk!

What I'm envisioning, is that I'll continue to check Mediabase and Yes.com and also hopefully kagey and others will also be checking these sources for new play. Folks who notice new play will post on the Tracker as has been happening and they will include which song was played. I'll then update the Tracker with both completely new stations and add the new song's coding to the stations already on the list. I'll also continue to keep the Updates thread going with a new section on 'One Word' adds as well as 'WFY adds'.

I created the Tracker thread to track radio play of many songs, not just WFY. That's why there is coding for each song a station has played as I tried to anticipate radio play into the future. Just as the Radio Contact Info thread was created for Elliott's various recordings and not just his first CD. The idea was to think as far ahead as possible to make a tool that would work for folks here for a good while to come. I think it's useful to have one place where folks can check which stations are playing Elliott in their area, and which songs those stations are playing. I believe that there will be many stations that will be playing more than 1 Elliott song at a time, and especially if he releases a single in the future that targets a format other than Top 40, like AC, for instance, there will probably be stations that feature one song over another.

So, if anyone here has opinions on this, now would be a great time to discuss the subject, while we're waiting for OW to be released.

movin ,
I'm still trying to wrap my head around keeping WFY and OW together in one tracking thread. My mind had them seperate. I like the idea okay, but really want it to be obvious for anyone looking at the top post in the radio tracker thread to easily see where OW has been added. It's easy looking at the thread now knowing all of those stations are or have played WFY with just a little MO & ASFY thrown in. I'm concerned that OW will get lost in the mix. Still working on the concept. Can OW be bolded in a different color than red to start so it can be easily identified? I really hope that folks will be looking at this thread daily once OW is released to see if their locals stations have played it so that we can have immediate response for the song. That's vitally important.

BUT, I'll continue to look for adds for WFY and track OW as well. Yes.com is going to get pretty hairy trying to keep the two songs seperate so any back-up by anyone else would be appreciated.

I'm glad that you've asked for help with the playlist status, #1 status & Top 10 market status. This is a very large task and I hope that one or more people will step up and take over this job.

I'll think more on this this weekend and post later.

Mike has also volunteered to monitor yes.com

I'll let him know about this thread.

Sk8888

kagey,

I think that's a great idea to have OW coded a different color. That way it will stand out more. This will only add a bit more time, but well worth it. I originally was bolding the song that was currently played as it was usually MO or WFY, but I think we're now dealing with more of an AND-AND scenario.

I hear your concern about info being lost in the Tracker thread since it is so loaded already. Continuing to list on the Updates thread addresses this, I think. That was the reason it was created in the first place as the Tracker was getting so loaded with information. That, and the reality that more people check the Updates and News folder than any other folder - and new station play is certainly 'News'.

When it comes down to it, we don't really know how many releases are planned for the rest of the year. My hunch is that there will be more besides OW. Chances are that there will be a holiday single released and I think chances are good for an AC release. It makes much more sense to me to record all this info in one place rather than having to search through several threads. My committment to this Tracker thread only extends, btw, through releases this year. After that, we'll need to discuss the hows and whos of future radio tracking.

I understand the need to avoid a proliferation of new threads. But is it not possible to have an updated list of new adds for One Word for the next couple of months? I was thinking of something like adding new stations adds to the top of the list as they come along, maybe even keeping a section of new adds for a week since that's the amount of time phone response matters most. Something like:

10/1:

New This Week: Richmond

10/9:

New This Week: Los Angeles, San Diego

Previous Weeks: Richmond

10/16: New This Week: Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnatti

Previous:

Los Angeles
San Diego
Richmond

Etc.

******************************
I think it would help to use more hyperlinks, so that the name of the city is clickable and links directly to the station's website. In this way we can have more easily searchable info without having to include the whole web address in the post.

Is this the kind of thing you were thinking of for OW, Kagey? I do agree that visually it would be nice to see it prominent and separate somewhere.

Wouldn't this be taken care of by the separate listing I've mentioned creating on the Updates thread? Might be called 'One Word Station Adds', or something to that effect. Right now I'm keeping the info up for 4 days for new adds, could easily extend it to a week.

The hyperlink idea is alot more time-consuming. Also there are many stations now in each city and I think it helps for people to see their call letters or frequency to identify their stations. If OW is going to be played by all the stations that have played WFY, we're talking almost 600 stations.

Also, to those who haven't yet seen the changes, I've started formatting changes to the Tracker thread, something I've been thinking about for awhile now, ever since we started getting multiple listings for each city. I've started alphabetically at the top and have gotten as far as Florida so far. Check it out and let me know your thoughts. Does it make it easier to find the info you're looking for? That's the idea behind it.

One idea for bringing in more people to help with the tracking is we could have 1 person each tracking Yes.com for WFY and OW, and 1 person each tracking Mediabase for WFY and OW, and adjust this as needed. That would require 4 people or we could possibly double up this work and narrow it to 2 or 3 people. It would require a near daily check as kagey and I have been doing so far.

Everyone could post their info on the Tracker and I would update the Top Posts of the Tracker and Update threads with this info. That way it wouldn't be too unwieldy a job for any one person.

What do y'all think?

I like the notion in general.

Whoever is monitoring the MediaBase charts could post a daily
analysis in the MediaBase "pinned" thread as a sort of training area to present analysis and data, and Movin' could do an overall recap of both the Yes.com and MediaBase info which is the practice right now. But I think it's very important that we are all looking for the same data and presenting it in a similar fashion so when/if there is a transition or hand-off of coverage, that we have a standard way of reporting the information that remains the same, no matter who is posting the data.

BTW, I think that my aging eyes are having a much easier time of reading the data in the Tracker thread now.

The fonts are bigger and there are spaces between the cities which makes it easier on the eyes and easier to digest the information. One thought: How about referring to CHR stations as Pop or Top 40 like Billboard and MediaBase? Then if there is a thread that encourages members to contact their local Top 40 station, they will be able to find it easily in the Tracker thread.

Here's a question I've always had, is noting the first date of an Elliott spin all we want to know? I think it took me awhile to realize that just because a station had played WFY one time, did not mean it was ending up in rotation. So, should we wait until One Word is in a radio station's rotation, and record that date, or record the first date of a recorded spin, AND when it is officially part of the rotation?

Sk8888

I don't like the idea of waiting until it is "officially" added to their playlist. If we don't call/email/text after the first few spins they will be less inclined to add them to their playlist. Audience response is vital in the first few days of a spin.

You need to have Mediabase and Yes separate, for a few reasons.
Mediabase reports stations that don't report to Yes
Yes does not always show every single spin
Yes' rankings are not the same as Mediabase's

I really think OW needs to be separate from WFY. If someone accidentally reads a WFY thread and sees that a station is playing it and they call and say: I heard One Word on the radio and I love it, thanks for playing it then the radio station will become very suspicious if they haven't even played it yet.

I agreed to help in anyway that I can. I have a ton of free time these days, and as you know I'm on a lot lately.

Also, I don't know if it has been mentioned but I am a web developer. Ok I was but I still have a lot of experience with ASP, .NET, SQL, PHP which this board is written in.

I don't know if this is even feasible but maybe if we have a SQL (I'm assuming you guys use MySQL on this board) database that keeps current station information that people can click on a link and search for a state/station/format (etc.) and be generated a report.

This would be in conjunction with the radio tracker thread, but would be a quick way to search without having to weed through that thread.

Let me know what you think, if you think I'm totally offbase let me know as well. I also don't want to go over Mike or Brandon, I'm just trying to help.

Wow, I love the energy and enthusiasm here. Also the strategy and planning. I wiil just say that however it's all come down to now, it's been working brilliantly and I give all of you volunteers credit for that. To invest your skills and know how in helping Elliott has been a big benefit to those of us who just want to promote Elliott but don't know how. I've been one to follow the leads here, and that's been my part. I will continue doing so, but I appreciate all of you who take the reigns and give us something to work with. Thanks.

I'm very interested in Mike's idea about the database. It sounds like it would be an easier way to sort through all the info we've generated.

How much work would it require to put together a searchable database like that? And do we have enough people that would actually use it to warrant the amount of time it would take to put it together?

On that note: does anyone else feel it would be useful to put up a poll for the fanbase here to figure out what resources they've been using, what threads they find useful for radio info, if we should keep info in one place or split for OW/WFY, if they would use a database, etc.? If we write up a good poll, it could give us a better sense of what would be most useful for everyone here.

On that note: does anyone else feel it would be useful to put up a poll for the fanbase here to figure out what resources they've been using, what threads they find useful for radio info, if we should keep info in one place or split for OW/WFY, if they would use a database, etc.? If we write up a good poll, it could give us a better sense of what would be most useful for everyone here.

that's a great idea.

You can keep requesting like every 30 minutes right?
I'm scared about irritating/annoying the dj xD

I'd advise calling no more than once per DJ shift per day.

what happens if WFY never plays? then its pointless!
it took me 2 calls and after the 2nd call, WFY played!

At most stations, requests have little effect on what's actually played immediately after you call. It's more about tallying up a total number of calls/requests for WFY (and next, One Word) for an entire week so that the program director will increase the number of times Elliott gets played the following week.

It's also important to call right after he gets played to tell them you like the song. They take extra notice of those calls.

Does that make sense?

hmmm, so after the song plays...

You say, "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PLAYING WFY!!!"

something like that?

I'll have to read this thread a little more thoroughly... and I will tomorrow, lol... just wanted to say I'm willing to help if needed

Well, there are variations:

(1) "Hi, what is the song you just played/is playing right now? I really like it."

(2) "I just heard that song Wait for You and I REALLY like it. Please play it more/play it again soon!"

(3) "Thanks for playing WFY! I love this station!"

etc.

Be yourself, but get the point across that you are a listener to the station AND heard WFY AND would like to hear it more.

You can do that in addition to just requesting it at other times.

I did that and the dj got so pissed at me.... great.

Another point on Radio Tracking and Requesting that I think is very important to address. Many radio stations often play a couple of songs by their top artists in their top tier of play. Which is why some older songs stay at the top of the charts for a long time, especially on the AC format.

Some current examples:
Daughtry: Home, It's Over, Over You
John Mayer: Waiting on the World to Change, Dreaming with a Broken Heart
Nickelback: Rockstar, If Everyone Cared
Gwen Stefani: The Sweet Escape, 4 in the Morning
and of course Justin Timberlake

I think it's really important to remember when One Word is released, to continue to request WFY as well, especially on AC, HAC, RAC stations.

For one thing, second releases, even by really successful artists with top songs, are not at all guaranteed to climb as much as the previous hit song. Plain White T's songs aren't going anywhere. Daughtry's Over You is doing ok, but not burning up like Home. Same goes for Avril Lavigne and Sean Kingston's current singles.

Also, the AC time frame is completely different than the Top 40 one. There, WFY is just starting and will continue to slowly climb even as OW comes in. So we will need to request both WFY AND OW on many stations.

That's why I believe it would be a mistake to have separate threads tracking each song since we need to keep on requesting both songs. I think it sends the wrong message to have OW tracked separately as that makes it much more likely that people will stop requesting WFY. People are much less likely to visit two threads consistently.

The whole point of Radio Tracking is to make it easier for folks here to Request - and those requests need to be made for both songs (once OW is released). I'm just concerned that in people's excitement about the OW release, that folks will drop WFY requests. It's pretty clear that song has waaayyy more life - probably can get into the Top 5 on AC if we keep supporting it there, but that could take months. I want to make sure we don't forget that in our enthusiasm for the next release.

Just a couple of thoughts:

When I mentioned about tracking first spins and/or when an Elliott song makes the radio station playlist, I guess I would have to admit that I'm leaning for both.

Speaking just for me, when I would peruse the tracker list before and saw that WFY had gotten a spin, it often gave me a false sense of accomplishment. There were a lot of stations that "sampled" WFY early on, and then didn't actually jump on the playlist bandwagon for four months.

Mike, you've been sandbagging on us buddy.

Sk8888

Mike,

Your web and programming skills would be very useful.

Movin' has the definitive list of radio stations by state, radio format, etc.

We would just need to talk about how to go about this.

Let me know what kind of technical detail you need to start thinking more along these lines.

Thanks!

Sk8888l

Movin,

Your point is well taken.

But truth be told, I think that as far as I can tell, the momentum on pushing for WFY requests has already subsided.

A separate tracking thread on OW would be fresh and be the kickstart flag to begin requesting OW and WFY simultaneously. I don't think a separate OW Tracker would hurt WFY at all....quite the opposite in fact.

Also, let's remember that requesting this time around will involve a LOT LESS education on who Elliott is and convincing Program/Music Directors that his song is worth a spin.

We can now fully focus on requesting OW and WFY when the OW impact day arrives because we won't be spending the first two minutes answering the "Elliott who? question.

It might be just me, but if we use the existing Tracker thread for OW, it becomes more of a reference/compendium thread, rather than a thread promoting a specific activity....in this case requesting.

I will be okay with whatever happens, just putting in my comments for consideration.
Sk8888

I do see the Tracker primarily as a reference tool for folks to find out what's happening radio-wise in their regions, which after all iis where the majority of requesting takes place. It lets them know which stations are playing what songs and provides the contact info to request by.

The promotional activity takes place more through the Updates thread and through all the individual threads that people create like the Rhythmic thread, the Bay Area Chatter, the Texas promotion thread, and all the other excited 'I Heard OW on my radio station' type threads.

That's why I see the Tracker as the place to keep a record of which songs each station plays. It was designed for this in mind, envisioning many future songs to come. Certainly not all releases, just the first couple to help E get his career going.

Okay....works for me.

Perhaps more to the point is forecasting or organizing efforts to proactively get spins or improve chart placement. For example.

Right now Elliott is at #17 on the RAC Mediabase chart, and yet he's only 40 spins away from JT's song on the same chart at #10. If both the Tracker and Radio Updates is to recognize activity that has already happened, where or what is the vehicle for directing willing members to contact RAC stations to pick up those 40 spins?

The MediaBase chart tells me what radio stations are already playing WFY. The Radio Tracker documents spin dates, and updates is also historical, rather than proactive.

Do I need to go to the Radio Contact List thread to find an RAC radio station in my area, or does someone just start a thread in Updates & News saying we need 40 spins in RAC to get Elliott in the Top 10 and here are the stations playing him, and here are FIVE more RAC stations to target?

Sk8888

For those who want to approach helping Elliott's career via the pro-active/strategy mode, so far, that's meant having an idea, seeing a need, and creating a thread to get people on board with it. I have a feeling this might still be the way to go. Especially, if this board organization isn't going to change in the near future. I do think this set-up makes it very difficult to organize folks. Especially now, when it seems like some Radio promo threads are in the Updates and News folder and others are in the Promo folder. Makes it that much harder to get people trained to going to the Promo folder, which seems to be only visited by a small subset of E-Trainers.

Could also establish a Strategy Thread with a lead person (such as yourself) who keeps the Top Post updated with the current agreed-upon focus. Or could be oriented more specifically like the OW-Top 40 Radio Strategy Thread. Similar in style to alienhamster's Rhythmic thread.

Monkey,

This is an important discussion, but I don't want it to get in the way of the main topic in this thread, which is what we're going to do with radio tracking.

Can we PM a bit on this? I will send you one in a moment, so make sure to check your mailbox. I'd like to know exactly what you said and what the DJ said. They shouldn't be getting mad at you unless you're calling a whole lot or coming off as an Elliott fan more than a station listener.

We have no idea if our early support and requests had an impact on them picking him up. I have my theories on this though.

The small market stations don't seem to have as much breathing down their backs and following the charts as closely. The bigger markets seem to only add once a song is guaranteed top 20. There are exceptions if you are a known artist, but this seems to be the case for new artists to their station.

With that said and as you have mentioned OW will have a lot easier time convincing a PD to add it to their station. I expect big markets to pick it up about the same time as the smaller ones.

I expect Richmond which is already leading the way and Phoenix and Salt Lake City to be the first few to add and take it to the top of their playlists, but I don't forsee Z100, Hot 99.5 or even Dallas having a hard time adding him this time.

A top 5 pop hit buys you a lot of clout for future songs to be released. The fact that WFY has went as high as it did is going to make every song he releases have at least a chance.

Lots to think about here.

I am in agreement with alien about finding out what Etrainers want and need to make the rollout of OW the most successfull in regards to what info they need, where they look for that info, etc.
Right now we have really great threads created for WFY but I'm concerned that folks won't look for OW into in these. Do Etrainers look in the radio tracker thread for adds? Do they look at movins top post for daily updates about adds, playlist status, major market status, etc.? Personally, I seldom remember to look at the top post - sorry movin, I mainly rely on the daily update in the News thread. Do others do this too?

I really don't want redundancy here but I'm still leaning towards having a seperate OW track so that Etrainers can have a place for a quick look as to where OW is being played and where to focus their attention. Not to say that WFY should be ignored but I agree with SK8888 that many have already moved on from requesting it and the general population has taken over that task.

It takes a lot of work to track a song and I appreciate everyone that has participated in the past and has volunteered for the future. I just want to make sure that what's being done suits the needs of everyone that's doing the calling.

It seems that the people that want to work on this project are weighing in on how best to do it- that's great, but I'd really like to hear from everyone else that will be using this info. How do they want to see it?

I wish we had more folks weighing in here, too. Maybe the best way to go is to put a poll in News and Updates with a link to this thread encouraging people to post longer commentary.

As for the poll, could we brainstorm a bit about what information we'd like to gather?

So far, it looks like the primary question is: where do you go on the Etrain to find out information about radio stations?

But we also have this question: is it better to have OW separate from WFY or altogether in one place?

The poll question(s) will need to be written in such a way to get usable data, so I want to make sure we know what information we're trying to get.

ETA: We also have this question about how much do you use the radio info threads. I'd like to figure out a way to survey user-friendliness and how much people actually access the info.

Since May, I've been recording the number of views to all 3 radio info threads to get a read on how often people check the info. Recently, the number of hits to the Tracker and Updates thread averages about 50-100 when no other discussion goes on there.

I think there is a very small group of people who are interested in contacting a station as soon as play starts. Most people, I think, just want to find out if a station is starting play in their area. These folks come onto the Tracker and Updates every once and awhile to check. There are also folks who want to see what new stations are coming on line as a type of validation of Elliott's success.

I'm not that surprised of the limited response to the discussion of how tracking happens. The times I ask for feedback on these type of topics, it usually comes from this small group of people. That's why I've oriented the threads to folks who don't come on every day and are occasional viewers. This is also one of the reasons for the existence of the Updates thread so there was a quick, one-stop, pinned place that the occasional E-Trainer could visit without having to search through a bunch of threads to find out about Radio Station news.

For this reason, I think it would take a poll many weeks, possibly a month, to give valuable information about how most people here get info. But the bottom line, I think, is that most people here don't give this subject much thought and don't have any strong feelings about how we proceed.

Movin i couldn't agree more. Most people don't check that thread everyday. That is why we need to keep pointing out major adds on the updates and news section.

If the name of the station isn't in the thread title most don't check it out just because.

I enjoy reading your posts movin and a lot of other regulars do as well but I don't know the right way to get the most amount of info to largest amount of people.

102 people have viewed this thread since this morning. Only three responses and they're from people already weighing in and ready to get to work.

Looks like we proceed however we see best. Noone wants to give any feedback or suggestions.

If I'm sounding dissappointed, it's because I am.

I usually check the daily update for radio play. I could handle OW and WFY being in the same thread, using a different font color for each song makes sense to me.

I think there is a wide range of how people use this site. That's why I think it's best to share info in a variety of ways. The way the WFY radio reporting has gone, is that in addition to the Tracker and Updates thread, people create a new focused thread when there's an important new add to a large city or an important radio station. I think this works. There's one pinned location that viewers know they can come to without spending alot of time searching through threads. That works for some people. And, for those who prefer going to new threads, they can get their info that way. And when I notice people forget about the Updates and Tracker threads, I throw in a post on a thread reminding people.

So having a range of modes of communication works here. It takes care of the different kinds of people that visit here and how they end up navigating this site. For myself, I can commit to keeping the pinned radio info sites going. Seems like others are interested in rallying and strategizing and mobilizing, and that's where new focused threads come in. I see having a resource of radio info available as a foundation for others to use in ways that occur to them. Some duplication of info is inevitable and probably important when attempting to share info in a board structure like this one.

I think that putting a poll or something in Updates and News is a good idea because many Etrainers do not check the Promo Forum, therefore do not even know that this thread exists.

I must admit I'm a little bogged down by all the suggestions to form a really good one of my own--it's just me and my brain being slow right now! My only suggestion right now is to keep including new information in Updates and News, for the reason mentioned above. I think more people check the Radio Airplay Updates thread than come on this forum. Perhaps there can be some "advertisement" in the News and Updates thread encouraging more people to come here?

I'm fine with however you decide to track in the future, but I tend to have a good chunk of time to check these things, and I know others have limited time on the Etrain, and may get discouraged with too many threads. I think that's already been said, though; I'm just adding my opinion.

Hope some of this makes sense.

Hi Kagey,

I wouldn't be too upset about the response. There's a sense that a core group of members are managing the data, (by whatever means,) compiling it and then presenting it for easy reading in the Radio Update thread in Updates & News.

That is where they look for chart information, playlist status, new radio formats playing Elliott and direction on where a few requests and phone calls might be of assistance.

Unfortunately, that means a lot of the pinned threads in the FYI Promo Forum for Radio Contacts, Tips for Contacting Radio, Texting Info for Radio, etc., which is designed specifically for the general membership are not being utilized as much as we'd like.

I've been thinking about changing the name of the Forum to something like Radio Contacts, Spins, Requests, Tracking & Charting. It's a little long, but very clear and specific.

Please weigh in on this. It is easy to tweak.

Sk8888

I also want to say that we shouldn't mess with something that is working. WFY did amazing using the strategy we used, there is no sense in changing that for OW if you have a working and very successful strategy.

I am not sure of the same thread vs new one debate. I would like to see a new thread personally. We are concerned about people dropping support for WFY if this happens but most people aren't able to focus on two songs at the same time. OW should have our undivided attention IMO. I have said before that radio stations don't need anywhere near the amount of requests for WFY to keep playing it now. It is a proven hit and they will play it just because of that. All songs turn to recurrent play and they still do well.

Elliott needs to drop under 20 on pop in order to move to recurrent and that could take months.

I am just one voice and I know others feel differently, but that is my two cents.