Later today, 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, a documentary film featuring backstage glimpses and performances from that famous concert benefit that took place at Madison 
Square Garden will open.
From Paul McCartney to Bruce Springsteen to Kanye West, the concert featured some of the biggest names in music, raising more than $50 million in just one night.
Notably, Roger Waters (formerly of Pink Floyd) got a rare invitation to play at this benefit, something that had not happened in recent years. As most people in radio know, Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album set a success record. For 736 weeks – 14 years – the album stayed in the Billboard Top 200.
So even though Waters is not a fixture at these megawatt benefit concerts, he knows a thing or two about producing major hits that please millions of fans.
His comment on his approach to playing “12-12-12” says a lot about his talent as a musician – and a programmer. It reads an awful lot like some of the most successful radio stations have used to win in PPM. So maybe we can learn from an old master.
Here’s some free consulting from Roger Waters about winning in a metered world:
“The concert is going to go on for longer than most infants live in the third world, so you’ve got to keep it short and just do greatest hits. Certainly, the first 100 rows is a bunch of rich people who probably don’t care about music anyway. All you can do is keep it short and concise, and try to be as entertaining as possible.”
There you have it:
- Play the hits
- Keep it brief
- Don’t overestimate the attention span of the audience
- Entertain
My advice? Listen to Roger Waters.
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“Don’t overestimate the attention span of the audience”
Certainly not an issue with more local Michigan commercial radio in and around my home of Ann Arbor/Detroit. Lol. One main reason I’ve been an XM and later Srius/XM subscriber for going on eleven years. Water might be right for a fund raising mega-concert but that might not be so brilliant for the long term with over the air radio.
Alan, thanks for the comment. I certainly didn’t mean to demean audience intelligence, but Arbitron (now Nielsen) data shows that the average listening “occasion” in radio is around 10 minutes. Maybe that’s a statement about broadcast radio (public radio is in there, too), and maybe it’s no better with satellite radio (we don’t know).
I can also tell you that data I’ve seen about Sirius XM indicates their most popular channels are the Top 40-flavored ones – playing the hits.
But your point is well taken. Thanks for taking the time.
I didn’t take that as an insult of audience intelligence. It’s just a fact of life–for whatever reason, other options, attention spans or just not being interested enough in the product to spend more than ten minutes, a listener isn’t drawn in for more than a few minutes. I listen for ten to twenty minutes in my car, but at home I can easily have a station like The Loft playing for two or three hours at a crack and not be bored for a second. I’ve been talking about local radio and shortcomings for years and assuming at this late date it’s not going to realign in a way to keep me amused. Lol.
Dear fellow readers,
Not only do I believe Mr Waters’ is correct in his assessment, but his method and meaning also applies to other forms of artistic impression where commercial interests have crushed artistic ones.
Sculpture, Painting, Opera, Orchestral music of all forms, even the Culinary arts, all succumb to his frankly spoken wisdom.
Alas, we live in challenging times.
That we do. Thanks for broadening the conversation, Dave.