Following the Heartification of Global Radio brands, which has succeeded in turning local radio stations around the country in to a London show with local drivetime presenters stuck on for good measure, my local commercial FM radio station now promises “More Music Variety”.
In a recent appearance on Zane Lowe’s show Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills said that he used to work for a station that promised to play more music variety – when it was plainly obvious that they didn’t.
This is so true. All Heart seem to play at the moment is Take That, Bruno Mars, Cee Low Green. Under their former Mercury guise they had a period where they would play the Tom Robinson Band’s 2-4-6-8-Motorway on an almost daily basis, despite the fact it was released in 1977!
There’s a joke in our family that you can’t listen to 5 songs or more on Heart without having Robbie Williams or Take That played. A typical Heart link seems to consist of “Wow that was an amazing/beautiful song, isn’t it a lovely day today, coming up we’ve got songs by Adele, Mike Posner and Take That”.
Looking at the airplay chart things seem to run true. Heart Hertfordshire (what a name) has 3 songs by Adele in the top 10 most played songs last week. 8 songs have been played over 30 times in the week. Radio 1 on the other hand did not play any song over 30 times and only 9 more than 20 times.