Play something a bit different for a change. That was the message being delivered by David Ferguson, chairman of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, at a Music Tank forum on commercial radio this week.
Ferguson said he had "serious concerns" about the tendency of radio groups to use one size fits all playlists across all their stations, explaining: "The range of music available on radio has been in continuous decline. As consolidation has taken place in the commercial market, you can almost quantify the decline in range that is available".
Speaking to the BBC after the event, Ferguson added: "The programming on many commercial stations is so clearly designed just to persuade people not to switch it off or change channels, rather than present them with something new and interesting." Also speaking at the event, Matt Deegan, group corporate development executive at radio group GWR, explained the musical position of companies like his - though he did use the market research line of argument which always sets alarm bells a-ringing here at CMU.
Deegan: "We do music research, speaking to 1,000 people a week about the kinds of music they like, and for popular music there is not much difference around the country. At the moment, what is coming out of research is that people are bored of new music. We, and a lot of our competitors, seem now to be playing a lot more classic tracks. As a rule, our stations do not play unsigned bands. Our stations target a 25 to 44-year-old female audience, and unsigned bands are not of interest to them."
But let's not forget that all research is fundamentally flawed, if only because the average person would dis today what they will be raving about in six months time. So - all you heads of music out there - do Mr Ferguson a favour and programme something a little bit different this week. How about the Loose Cannons' 'I Like It When Ya'? The new album's out on Monday, don't you know?