STOP PRESS** JAMES PRESENT ABSOLUTE RADIO 90s **
Iconic 90s band James join Lucio for 2 hours this Saturday (26th June) to pick a selection of their favourite tracks from the decade and talk in depth about what the 90s meant to James. Join Tim Booth and the boys from 2pm.
A few short weeks ago we had the good fortune of securing a space on the D1 multiplex for Absolute 80s (A80s) – effectively turning A80s into a national station and allowing it a far greater platform on which to build on its amazing early success. After some debate it was unanimously determined that a new station – Absolute Radio 90s (AR90s) – should take up the vacant slot on the London DAB. In a matter of weeks a new station would be created, tested and launched to join the Absolute Network.
Test transmissions for AR90s began just a fortnight ago – this was ‘work in progress’ effectively for us as programmers and you as listeners to evaluate how it was shaping up. The template for A80s had broadly been to reflect pop and rock of the 80s. It was a template that seemed to work a treat. It quickly became clear to both programmers and listeners that this simple template would not suffice for AR90s. Pop and rock from the 90s did not gel in the same way as pop and rock from the 80s; neither did it truly reflect the decade. Why? Well, whereas the gap between pop and rock in the 80s was not that great – pop in the 80s was still written and performed by singer songwriters in the same way that rock was – by the 90s there were a myriad of difficult music genres competing successfully with the traditionally dominant pop and rock – namely dance and indie. To get a music mix that would work for AR90s would prove more difficult than we first thought, You spotted it and started making your suggestions and The Music Team found a collaborative Spotify list very useful.
However the Spotify list also showed us we would never be able to satisfy the diverse music taste on display and at the same time come up with a formula that would work. So we had to focus on who were the target market and we decided this was 25 – 40 year olds with a male skew. A 25 year old in 2010 would have only been five in 1990, arguably too young to be soaking up music influences, but by the mid and late 90s they would be into their formative music years. Whilst at the other end of the scale a 40 year old would have been 20 in 1990 and 30 by the end of the decade so still an active music consumer . So chucked out of the new AR90s mix is ‘dad rock’ (Eric Clapton/Phil Collins), ‘coffee table’ music (Simply Red/George Michael) and ‘cheesy dance’ (Culturebeat/Dr Alban). Into the mix comes a broader indie rock base (Shed Seven/Placebo), dance music blokes would dance to (Shamen/ KLF) and even some credible, cutting-edge urban pop (Arrested Development/A Tribe Called Quest). There is still a need for a pop element, so that the station does not have too narrow an appeal. Though, like our other services, manufactured pop is not featured.
The resultant AR90s is an edgier station than its first incarnation but hopefully with a broad enough appeal to attract a mainstream 25 – 40 year old audience.
As with all our digital stations there will always be a degree of crossover with Absolute Radio. But whereas the initial version of AR90s shared 50% of its tracks with songs often played on Absolute Radio the latest analysis for this week (kindly provided by Duncan and David) shows that we have brought this down to 24% crossover between tracks played on AR and AR90s – effectively up to 3 out of 4 songs on AR90s should be unique to that station. Bear in mind that in terms of song exposure 90s makes up less than 20% of the output of Absolute Radio (around 1 in 5 songs) which is why a station which has 100% 90s is in itself a point of difference with Absolute Radio.
In terms of crossover between our other stations A80s shares 24% of its tracks with AR, and ACR shares 29% of its tracks with AR (however we have excluded networked programmes as these programmes have 100% crossover and would falsely skew the results)
We will continue adding songs over the coming weeks. If you only heard the test transmissions (before 21st June) we’re very interested to hear what you think now, either by commenting below or at facebook.com/absoluteradio90s.
The full schedule is as follows:
WEEKDAYS MONDAY – THURSDAY
- 6-10am…The Christian O Connell Breakfast Show (networked Absolute Radio show)
- 10am-1pm… Lucio on Absolute Radio 90s
- 1-4pm… Mark Crossley on Absolute Radio 90s
- 4-8pm… Vicki Blight on Absolute Radio 90s
- 8-11pm…Ben Jones on Absolute Radio 90s (networked Absolute Radio show)
FRIDAY
- 6-10am…The Christian O Connell Breakfast Show (networked Absolute Radio show)
- 10am-1pm… Lucio on Absolute Radio 90s
- 1-4pm… Mark Crossley on Absolute Radio 90s
- 4-8pm… Vicki Blight on Absolute Radio 90s
- 10am-1pm… Polly James on Absolute Radio 90s
SUNDAY MORNING
The Music Team
