UptownMaker

More data...and a pretty graph! Okay, not pretty. The three lines represent weekly tallies for total number of songs played, total unique artist names, and total unique tracks. Fun things this shows up: 1. Beginning in late 2007, the total number of songs per week trends up. I suspect that this represents a reduction in the amount of named programming in favor of either listing the tracks played during such programs or generally choosing to play songs instead of programs. 2. Dips in number of tracks at pledge drive time. Every six months or so (late May/early June and late October) there's a clear downward dip in the total number played, to the tune of about 15-20% or so. Hardly surprising, and they have to pay the bills. I still can't help but wondering if there's some kind of Laffer curve in pledge drives, where talking more decreases revenue because it alienates listeners, but talking less decreases revenue because you create less guilt. 3. The weekly diversity o...

Arguably, one of the better things about Minnesota is Minnesota Public Radio. MPR is a giant on the national public radio scene (producing shows like "The Splendid Table", "A Prairie Home Companion", and "Marketplace", although "Marketplace" is recorded out in CA). One of their interesting recent endeavors has been a pop music format station, "The Current". It's at 89.3 in the metro Twin Cities region, and it is (for better or worse)(and let's not argue the point) pretty much the only radio station I listen to. I've noticed over the last couple of years (I've been listening since January of 2006; they came online in January of 2005) that the diversity of music seems to be declining somewhat. Not in the sense that they play more mainstream stuff, but in the sense that they are playing fewer songs more often. So, I decided I'd do a little data wrangling. See, one of the outstanding features of the Current is their ...