[BC] Programming/Technical Irritants

[Rich Wood]

------ At 05:58 AM 2/13/2007, David Reaves wrote: -------

>Any reason we give them to make the decision to leave hurts us. Yes,
>I believe that the *conscious* reasons to stay or go will most often
>be programming-related, but that decisions are also made intuitively
>due to technical irritants.

Absolutely! Easy listening programmers did a lot of research on 
subconscious irritants, particularly with women. Schulke, in 
particular. From processing to familiarity of music were factored in 
when running the format.

>If the distortion should rise to the level of being really
>noticeable, they *might* talk about it. Otherwise, they may just
>mysteriously tune away, for reasons even THEY couldn't tell you.

Most often they'll just tune away. There's something uncomfortable. 
The early research focused on high end distortion. During my "Where 
in the World is Carmen IBUZ" retailer visits I often ask about how 
much time customers spend at a single sitting with CDs vs. iPods and 
other compressed audio. In all cases, the CD wins. They don't know 
why but they notice (when asked directly) that they stop for a break 
much more often with compressed audio. Those who include radio 
indicate they listen for shorter periods. None of them have been able 
to explain why. Compressed and highly processed audio appears to be 
fatiguing and, I'll bet, uninteresting because of a lack of dynamic 
range and artifacts. The audio is unmusical. Unmusical music isn't 
very exciting.

I'd love to see those original studies replicated today.

Rich