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About thirty years ago, in the bowels of a radio station in Edmonton Alberta, Clint Nichol and Tom Davies were developing one of the first ‘computer assisted’ music programming tools in North America. I had just become music director and it was my reason for staying at the station for one more year, just to be involved. It became the type of tool that would change music programming for better AND worse. A monster was being created that ultimately took control. 

It was to be a great convenience and programming ‘assistant’. It increased efficiencies and control of the stations overall sound, but it ultimately took away the responsibility of a program director to teach jocks the philosophies of programming music with all the required and desired outcomes. 

Initially, the print out of music for each show still required the skill of on-air talent to do what a computer couldn’t do; no matter how many control parameters were written in the program. You still had the freedom to pick what record should follow the next while staying within the guidelines of sound programming principles; knowing how to take the listener on a ride with ups and downs, tempo changes and moods. 

Now PDs could sit back and trust the computer to not play two female artists back to back, to make sure songs from each category were played with unfailing rotation and be able to predict what was going to happen next. Do you think listeners didn’t, at least subliminally, pick up that ability as well? No more surprises… good or bad. 

That is why I enjoy listening to college radio. It’s not always ‘good radio’, but they have the freedom to explore and experiment and as a result often stumble into brilliance. 

Too much has been left to the computers efficient and predictable outcome. Knowing how to program music is not only something a PD should know how to do; it is something a PD should know how to teach. 

Give me a jock that knows how to keep the momentum going and uses the feed back he gets from working the phones to judge audience mood and activities. Let me hear some passion and enthusiasm on the air; a jock really ‘getting into’ the music the way you expected the audience to do. You know who has that skill? True ‘club’ DJs. The real pros used to be on the radio.  

Having been a DJ at local clubs during the ‘disco years’ was a great learning experience. These lessons were also available to attentive jocks doing ‘sock hops’ at local high schools… What gets them on their feet? What sets them up for a ballad without clearing the floor? What do you do when all the girls are lined up against one wall and the guys lined up against the other? 

Club DJ’s picked up the torch and learned to mix moods and tempos, with the help of a little ‘spoken word’ that set the audience up for an impending tempo change. It’s difficult to learn things like pacing and how to use them on the air without ever being face to face with an audience. A computer can’t do it. And so, it has mostly become a lost art as far as radio goes. 

As new talent comes up through the ranks they have less responsibility and expectations placed on them as far as having this kind of skill set. Instead it’s left to what could be coded into a soulless computer program. 

In commercial radio, the power of computers is often not used as a tool in the hands of a craftsman, but used to remove the chance of variation from a cold calculated outcome. Over-reliance on computer programs has on-air talent being stripped of opportunities for creativity and spontaneity… and, most importantly, an opportunity to learn.

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