Last night I attended a focus group for a local radio station...

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and here's what happened.

I sat in a room with about 80 other people, all of them white and between the ages of 19 and 29, but predominantly in the lower half of that.

Over the course of two and a half hours, we listened to 7 second hooks from over 650 consecutive songs, one after the other, and turned a little dial on a handheld console to indicate whether we would turn the volume UP or DOWN for that song. As we turned the dial, the console would display a number from 1 to 100 indicating how much we were enjoying the music.

Some observations:

1. Modern rock/alternative radio SUCKS and can never be good. If I never hear the Eddie Vedder voice or the Billie Joe voice again I will be only too happy.

2. People are stupid...

3. But FUNNY. After a while I was so bored and nauseous, I just watched the young girl in front of me turn her dial to 100 for every Linkin Park song and then to 0 for every No Doubt/Gwen Stefani song.

4. I thought I was striking a blow for ME by turning the dial UP when I rarely heard anything approaching good (the only stuff I liked was Daft Punk, The Streets, The Ramones, and The Clash), but obviously I wasn't rating individual songs but ten minute segments which represented different approaches the station could take in their programming...which ALL sounded the same. There's really no fun in being asked to choose what is essentially the middle ground - Weezer or Jane's Addiction? Radiohead or Interpol? Alice In Chains or Offspring?

5. I still find it strange that Depeche Mode are played alongside grunge bands and funk metal on American alternative radio!

6. I know I alluded to it above, but there really are stations this white? my god.

7. I don't feel like I'm missing out by never listening to radio.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

how much did they pay you?

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Hahaha! SO not enough it's embarassing!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

the fact that someone actually thought a focus group would allow them to do business any better at all highlights the problem quite well.

― bb (bbrz), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Let's just say that if I had an SUV I MIGHT even be able to fill an empty tank with the money I got for this!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

Badly designed research saddens my soul :(

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

the fact that someone actually thought a focus group would allow them to do business any better at all highlights the problem quite well.

Apparently the station does these every six months to "keep in touch with their audience".

xp sorry Tom!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:34 (twenty years ago)

i'm entirely with you there tom.

― bb (bbrz), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

KITS never trusts it's program directors and does this repeatedly (I did one myself four or five years ago). they have a crisis every year when they realize they don't know what the fuck is going on, then try to hire a bunch of kids from college radio to fix it, then they either quit or fire them or something.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

Also, I think I was the only non-"South Bay person" there.

(I hope Leeee isn't reading!)

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

I just watched the young girl in front of me turn her dial to 100 for every Linkin Park song and then to 0 for every No Doubt/Gwen Stefani song.

Hero! Well, heroine.

I still find it strange that Depeche Mode are played alongside grunge bands and funk metal on American alternative radio!

Oh, I'm not. Depeche was THAT core to conceptions of 'alternative' as it evolved over time, and that bands like, indeed, Linkin Park worship at the altar explains their continuing presence.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

Ned, do you like Linkin Park?

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

Heck yes, at their best they're a great boybandization of nu-metal and the Depeche love is a core reason why.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

STOP IT

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

Core core core. Let me say core again.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

Ironic given Depeche's trajectory into awful metallization of a great boyband!

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

I CONDEMN YOU THUSLY MR. TOM. Actually I'll just wait for Dan to notice this thread and point out your error.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

We love Dan but he has BAD TASTE IN MUSIC

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

(except for Prince)

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

Prince is just the tip of the iceberg of Dan's rightness.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

If I was in this situation, I'd give the highest marks to the most godawful music, thereby heigtening the internal contradictions within their format and inching them a wee closer to the event horizon of irredeemable suckdom.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:33 (twenty years ago)

Or is there any methodical way for those who lord over focus groups to tell when people are giving 'wrong' answers to corrupt their data?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Ask Tom!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:40 (twenty years ago)

Yup: sample size trumps individual shenanigans.

You don't even need to ID the individual TEHMANfux0rz.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

Apparently the station does these every six months to "keep in touch with their audience"

This could actually work reasonably well if they test more or less the same set of songs each wave (swapping out maybe 25% for new or otherwise representative material) -- it'll give them a feel for when a trend has peaked or is starting to crest.

Clinicing individual tracks = wasteful dud likely to scientifically support idiot non-decisions. Or the program director's pet du jour.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

Yup: sample size trumps individual shenanigans.

But by that token, the sample size would trump an individual's sincerely-expressed opinions, too.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

So why bother saying anything at all? (Oh yeah, gas money.)

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

But by that token, the sample size would trump an individual's sincerely-expressed opinions, too.

Yes! The entire point is to reduce the significance of any individual opinion. Or as James Surowiecki would put it, all of us are smarter than any of us.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

Interesting PFM article today about test-marketing via illegal downloads.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

What do you think Audioscrobbler is for?

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

So is my band going to get signed because I've been listening album mixes all week?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

Dude, Wired were on that Big Chanpagne story Two years ago. Silly Pitchfork!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

I don't know how you do these, Adam. I think I would go insane.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

Haha, you wouldn't be able to stand it!

What can I say? I'm a man of the people.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:15 (twenty years ago)

so how did you get recruited for this? did you answer any questionaire beforehand? usually the way it works is that you have to already be a radio listener.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Adam can pretend to be a radio listener! He's a man of the persons!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I lied.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

The reason I did it is because I am addicted to conference center sugar cookies.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

I know I alluded to it above, but there really are stations this white? my god.

Most rock and/or "alternative" stations are. They're a cancer on the dial.

― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

Everything is a cancer on the dial (except for the hip-hop/rnb stations, the occassional good college station and the trance station.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

what trance station?

I only listen to KMEL.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

you can still get great wave interference paterns on AM

― bb (bbrz), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

The trance station I always come across when I get irritated by KMEL and 94.9 and there is nothing good on either college station.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

oh, I forgot KKSF!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

Maybe I am a radio listener.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

Smooth Jazz and Deep House have a lot more in common than you might think.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

that's right

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

Moodymann, Larry Heard, George Benson, Pat Metheny, all the same!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

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