Smooth Sailing Radio is a temporary, experimental station brought to you by Radio PVS.
Other Yacht Rock stations will tell you "the catalogue is too limited" or "we have to play songs that people know!" as an excuse for filling their playlist with Eagles and the Pina Colada song. We don't think that's true.
We want to prove that it's possible to have a Yacht Rock station that will appeal to the masses with well recognised artists and songs, enough deep cuts for the fans, and remain true to the spirit of the genre and the music. With the bonus of introducing great smooth music to people. Trying to balance repetition, familiarity and discovery.
"Songs you love and songs you WILL love"
We analysed two weeks worth of playlisting from a popular commercial DAB radio station to gather some info. How many unique songs in their playlist, how often songs were repeated, how often did they play the most repeated songs, and when did they play them. We then modelled our station around those results.
Progaming is based on a 12 hour title separation and 3 hour artist separation, meaning you shouldn't hear the same song within 12 hours, or artist within 3 hours. There are only around 520 songs in the library, so while Radio PVS has around 7,600 songs, Smooth Sailing Radio is aiming for a much higher rotation rate, more in line with commercial radio offerings.
Songs in the library are categorised into A1, A2, B, C and D, with A1 songs being scheduled most often and D the least.
35% of the library is allocated to A categories, and 65% to B - D. So, while fewer songs will rotate more often (familiarity), there will be more variety in the lesser heard songs (discovery).
Song categories were chosen using a combination of chart position, Yachtski score, popularity of song and of the artist, as well as our own subjective opinions and tastes (tunes that we love). A category songs are more well known, where D songs are less so. While not all songs are certified, they are chosen based on keeping in the spirit of Yacht Rock.
Dayparts are broken into breakfast, morning, afternoon, evening, and overnight. The breakfast, morning and evening shifts have the most A category songs scheduled, evenings is a bit more for the deep cuts and overnight is majority lower categories. This is based on the earlier analysis, but hopefully we'll have more of an idea of how best to schedule with some more feedback.
We plan to spend the weeks ahead monitoring the playlist, checking the repetition and range, and constantly tweaking things to try and get the balance right. We're also considering some variety in the grid as well ... maybe some newer-era tunes in the evening, a block of "yacht rock after dark", things like that.
If you happen to listen in and have any ideas, comments or questions, just shoot us a note with the little message bubble thing down there in the bottom right.
Keep the Fire.
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