Why Radio Stations Play or Do Not Play Your Favorite Song

Tomorrow is the thirty-fourth anniversary of Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life" hitting number one on the charts and staying there for ten weeks in a row. My sister loved the song. So in addition to hearing it over and over and over again on the radio, it got played more than that at home.

So that got me thinking about how most radio stations quit playing a song that's as big as that one was. "Achy Breaky Heart" comes to mind as another one that we played to death, followed by just not playing one day.

As the guy PLAYING the song, I get it. Songs burn out. You CAN play them too much. But I've heard "Amarillo By Morning" far more times than I heard Billy Ray's song. I heard Achy Breaky a couple of hundred times real close together.

Then one day, we just quit playing it at all.

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If you work in a bar that has one of those jukeboxes that can be controlled by smartphones, you also have my sympathy.  I'm sure that you also get a lot of the same songs played by your patrons. The songs that are the most vulgar, seem to be very popular. Along with rap music. Yay.

But, as far as what's getting played here, I have a feel for what listeners expect. and I don't think that you can play too much new stuff at once. As a very wise program director (my dad) once told me, "While they are playing a new song, We're playing a hit".

Any songs stand out to you that got overplayed?