There are many ingredients that go into a truly successful radio station — personalities, imaging, community presence and crisp audio quality — just to name a few.
But a program director knows a deftly positioned song that fades into another — or a gold cut you haven’t heard in years, scheduled right at 4:45 p.m. on a Friday — keeps listeners coming back.
Some might call it magic.
Or maybe not, says Robin Prior. He spent 40 years at RCS Sound Software, providing training and support for the Selector and GSelector music scheduling software, including across Africa.
Before Selector, programmers used strategies like index cards to balance rotations.
It was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Economos in 1979 after leaving his role as head of NBC’s computer services. In 2006, RCS introduced GSelector, hailed as a reinvention of its music scheduling platform. The system’s “goal-driven, demand-based scheduling” received a U.S. patent the previous year.
Now retired, Prior has written a book titled “Maths, Art, and Magic? Radio Station Scheduling and Programming,” detailing the practices and philosophies he shared with more than 1,000 stations worldwide.
“It’s not only about the specific music you play; it’s a lot more complex. It is the sequence in which you play them, and when they are placed,” Prior writes.
His book outlines core philosophies he shared while training programmers to use Selector, GSelector and their underlying databases.
Maths, Art or Magic?
Prior’s experience includes teaching the RCS suite to Africa’s state broadcasters like the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. That drove his motivation to share his knowledge.
What goes into that perfect segue? Any song will “happily segue into other music,” he explains. But a balance between categories, which he often refers to in the book, is key. Prior says that “every song category, live speech, station imaging, spot block and promos should be carefully analyzed and placed.”
[Related: “RCS Launches ‘Zetta for Engineers’ Training Course”]
Prior goes into more detail. Some of the book’s sections, like those on goals, rules and priorities, are most relevant to current RCS users. He shares 16 detailed steps for constructing clocks, with screenshots pulled directly from GSelector.
“A clock is not to be just ‘thrown together’ without carefully considering exactly what should be happening at that moment,” he writes.
But other insights — especially on research and programming philosophy — apply to any station using automation software. He includes, for example, perceptual research data from a station in Namibia gathered via RCS’ Test All Media study.
It all starts with clean reception, Prior says.
“If you are in the radio and programming business, you should know a lot about your signal,” he writes.
He draws from the creation of more than a thousand Selector databases over four decades. While every station is different, Prior says high-billing stations tend to follow the same basic principles. He said rotations must represent “the best of the best.”
Nothing your radio station does, he wrote, should be left to chance. Weekly music meetings, for instance, remain essential.
Research helps guide when to rest or move a song. A loud, whiny listener or two is “statistically insignificant.” But if a thousand complain? Then he feels it’s time to revisit that category.
Still, Prior says that while callout and auditorium sessions are invaluable, he also trusts gut feel — as illustrated by a 1978 anecdote from former Clear Channel CEO Randy Michaels at a country radio seminar where research was the topic.
A morning host from Kentucky on the panel chimed in, as Michaels recalled. The host said his station couldn’t afford a subscription to Billboard to monitor the charts.
The host, according to Michaels, then explained: “When the music comes in, we sit down and listen to it — the engineer, salespeople and the presenters. The good ones we put on the air, the crappy ones we throw in the garbage!”
That’s one of several lessons Prior shares from Michaels, whom he credits as a major influence.
What’s the secret sauce?
Prior dives into how GSelector schedules categories using a stack data structure — though he notes that his tips only scratch the surface of what GSelector can do.
“As I did, you will find that the more you use GSelector, the more you’ll turn to help to locate a capability you’re convinced must be there somewhere,” he says. And when in doubt, he encourages users to consult the manual.
He hopes that the lessons learned in his writing will empower programmers in today’s hyper-competitive audio landscape.
At the end of the day, however, Prior believes in keeping things simple.
“A good idea is a good idea,” he writes. “Reinventing what works for virtually any country, culture, or language is not necessarily a unique or successful programming strategy.”
(Visit Prior’s website for information on how to buy “Maths, Art or Magic?”)
