Step-By-Step Guide To Setting Up Perfect Music Categories For Your Station

You know the importance of using math for rotating your music. And you certainly understand the value of playing the right songs for your audience. Right? Right. But there's more to creating a music identity. That's why setting up perfect music categories will go a long way to creating balance and variety for your station brand.

What's the big deal? Don't we just set up power and secondary currents, new music, power and secondary recurrents, and three levels of gold (power, secondary and tertiary) and let 'er rip?

That's what most stations do, but if that's your approach, you're not maximizing the power of your music software to help manage the sound of your station.

Perfect Music Categories

Creating perfect music categories varies from station to station. There's no template to plug in that will capture the vision you have for your brand. Your solution will be different from other stations, even in your own format. However, there are some principles you can follow in setting up your perfect music categories.

Here's our step-by-step guide for finding your perfect music categories:

Start With Your Brand Identity

Before setting up any music system, you must know what you want to accomplish. What is the unique position in your market that your brand is seeking to fill? What is the essence of your station?

A music cluster analysis or perceptual research project can help identify song genres that will be the basis of your brand. If you don't have the luxury of audience-based data from research, use your instincts to lock in on the center of your library.

Usually, there are two or three genres that form the core of a clear music brand. Each of those genres should be compatible with one another. Soft Pop and Active Rock aren't good companions. The more closely the genres align, the stronger your core.

There may also be a couple of secondary genres that add texture and spice to your station. For example, a Hot AC station may have the following palette:

Primary (Core) Genres: Pure Pop, Pop/Rock, Pop/Dance
Secondary Genres: Pop/Alternative, Pop/AC

You could, of course, simply sound code the library and toss everything into categories set up by song era. But that leads to uneven song rotation, inconsistent quarter-hours and taxing the music software to work too hard. And it won't give you the sound you hope for.

There's a better way! Once you have identified the specific genres that will lead to success, set up your categories by genre.

Perfect Music Categories By Genre

This is where it gets fun. Or confusing. Or geeky. Okay, maybe all of those things.

To establish a clear music identity and make it possible for the audience to "get" your station, separate all music into specifically themed categories.

Now, you probably won't do this with your tightest categories (currents and maybe power recurrent categories). However, I've done this and it sounds great on the air, but it creates more problems than it's worth. It's usually best to limit the geeky categorization to recurrent and gold categories.

Only songs that are very similar go into the same category. In our example station, we'd set up a cateogry for each of the five genres (three primary, two secondary) that define the station's brand.

That sounds pretty easy, right? It is, for the most part.

But that's only the beginning. We're going to add another layer of complexity. After all, you can't throw songs from all of the eras in the same category. You may have great genre and texture control, but era distribution would be a mess.

So once the songs are sorted by genre, add more categories, sorting the genres by era.

Perfect Music Categories By Era

It's pretty easy to separate the songs into age-defined categories. Many stations just create era separation by decade. There's a category for recurrent (usually the last 2-3 years), another for the 90s, one for 00-09, etc. This is easy, but not that effective. Just because a decade runs for 10 years doesn't mean it's the best way to organize your library.

Instead, establish era boundaries based on audience experience or the way songs naturally group based on past music cycles.

Our example station may define their eras as:

Recurrent: Last two years

1. Gold : 2-5 years old
2. Gold: 6-10 years old
3. Gold: 10-14 years old

The exact categories will vary by station, but take some time to consider your audience's experience (demographics and their history) and the consistency of titles (how similar they are to one another) in those eras.

Now you'll have several categories. Remember, there's a category of songs for each genre in each era. In our example, we'd have 17 categories so far (and even more to come):

-3 categories in Recurrent Pure Pop, Recurrent Pop/Rock, Recurrent Pop/Dance (we wouldn't include categories for secondary genres in recurrent categories).
-5 categories in each of the three Gold categories: Pure Pop, Pop/Rock, Pop/Dance, Pop/Alternative, Pop/AC.

But we're still not finished. Yes, there are more categories coming.

Perfect Music Categories Using Song Strength

Every song you play should be a hit, but not all hits are created equal. Some are stronger than others. So you need to sort each category into powers and secondaries, and maybe even tertiary levels for some categories.

For this step, instead of adding yet another category, control song strength by using Levels.

Sort each category by placing your Power songs in Level 1, and Secondary songs in Level 2. If you have a Tertiary Level for any category, assign them to Level 3 and use them as "fill" or "drop" songs.

Now you've doubled your total categories to 34! Two key things here:

Don't be overwhelmed. It's confusing now, but it'll be worth it when you get it all set up and fine-tuned.

Don't worry.If there aren't many songs in some of the categories, you can adjust to make it work in the clocks.

Once you go through this process, notice how each category is hyper-focused and clearly defined.

Build Format Clocks

Now that you have the categories defined, let's get them on the air.This is where it gets really tricky.

The more song categories you have, the more format clocks you need. That's logical, right? These clocks can drive you mad, but it's much easier when you have a main format clock to work from. So start there.

Decide how you want the station to sound by first placing currents where you want them. You can do this with a graphical clockor just by making a list of songs on a yellow pad.

Here's an example of slotting in currents, using a standard 14-song clock:

Song Position and Category Level

3. A-Power Current
6. B-Secondary Current
9. A-Power Current
12. B-Secondary Current
14. (drop position)

Step 2: Add Power Categories

Next, identify where you want Power category songs to be placed (Level 1 in the recurrent and gold categories you've built). Most likely, you'll want power songs surrounding all secondary categories. In this case, on both sides of B-Secondary Current.

And, you can schedule a Level 2 (Secondary) song between Power (Level 1) songs, especially if there are two power songs in a row.

Song Position and Category Level

1. Level 1
2. Level 2
3. A-Power Current (Level 1)
4. Level 2
5. Level 1-Power
6. B-Sec Current (Level 2)
7. Level 1-Power
8. Level 1
9. A-Power Current (Level 1)
10. Level 2
11. Level 1-Power
12. B-Sec Current (Level 2)
13. Level 1-Power
14. (drop position)

From there, add recurrent and gold categories where you want them.

Song Position and Category Level

1. 2-5 Yrs. old Gold Level 1
2. Recurrent Level 2
3. A-Power Current (Level 1)
4. 6-10 Yrs. old Gold Level 2
5. Recurrent Level 1
6. B-Sec Current (Level 2)
7. 2-5 Yrs. old Gold Level 1
8. 10-plus Yrs Gold Level 1
9. A-Power Current (Level 1)
10. Recurrent Level 2
11. 6-10 Yrs. Old Gold Level 1
12. B-Sec Current (Level 2)
13. Recurrent Level 1
14. (drop position) Tertiary Gold

Now you have a master clock. All that's left is adding the music flow you want to achieve.

Perfect Music Categories: The Flow

The next step is to add categories by genre. Copy your master clock and manipulate the song positions for balance and song flow.

Here's what you should be watching for:

• Make sure each music genre is represented in each quarter hour.
• Avoid "train-wreck" segues from one genre extreme to another. For example, when you schedule a secondary genre (such as Alternative Pop or Soft AC), make sure it is surrounded by a compatible genre (Pop Rock or Pure Pop).

Warning: You'll end up with dozens of clocks. That's okay! It'll help with the hour-to-hour variety, as songs move from one position in the hour to another.

Check And Adjust

Once everything is in place, there's one more thing to check. Analyze the database to insure that each category is turning over the way you want. If not (and I guarantee that some will not), there are two ways to fine-tune it:

1. Adjust the songs in each category to fit the structure you've created. Some songs may be a close-enough fit to a different genre. Others may be from a particular year, but fit a different era distribution definition. And you may find that there aren't enough "power" songs, so you can reach into the secondaries to find some of the stronger titles to balance the categories.
2. Adjust the clocks and/or clock assignments to fit your categories. This is the purest choice, but will take time, experimentation and patience!

Conclusion

This process is painstaking and will require dedication to the art and science of music scheduling. Be sure you do this with a backup version of your music database, because it will take more than a couple of hours to get it right. More like a couple of weeks!

But when you nail it, this sounds great on the air. And, you'll have far fewer unscheduled positions with more variety in your music mix.