Music
A Calgary radio station is cutting songs in half so they don't bore listeners
by Mark Teo
August 7, 2014
Here’s a question worth asking: The heck is up with Calgary radio stations? First, AMP Radio planned to burn $15,000 for reasons we still don’t understand. Now, the very same station is planning on one-upping their stupidity by editing their songs down to their bare essentials—they’re cutting three- or four-minute songs in half.
Why? Because, says the radio station, they don’t want to bore their listeners. Because music is boring, right?
Of course, that’s not how the station explains things. “A Calgary radio station has redefined how conventional stations play music as it adapts to our ever so short attention spans,” AMP explains on their website.
The station is using Quickhitz—a radio format that boasts up to 24 songs per hour, based around “hit-based” songs—to cater to the ADD set. “Quickhitz was unveiled in Calgary on 90.3 AMP and it offers listeners twice as many songs per hour than the conventional station,” their site continues. “Shortened versions of popular songs are edited down from three or four minutes to just half that time. It also boasts less three minutes of commercials and ensures the listener does not get bored.”
Quickhitz, reports the Financial Post, has already been launched in the U.S. and the U.K.
Insulting as this may be to songwriters, who sequence and whittle songs down with intentionality, Quickhitz actually fits into a larger-scale trend—it treats music like we treat digital media. For example, the once unassailable 30-second commercial is now largely being reduced to 15 seconds, a trend mirrored by Quickhitz. According to some reports, the average attention span has reduced by a third; in 2000, average attention span lasted 12 seconds, and now, it’s eight. One in three internet readers abandon slow sites in less than five seconds.
So yes, attention spans are getting shorter. Still, the way we consume music—which most view as art and entertainment, not just raw information—may differ than how we take in other forms of media. Nonetheless, a spokesperson for Quickhitz defended AMP Radio’s adoption of their new format, which doubles the amount of songs played per hour.
“A lot of people can’t detect the music has been edited,” said Sparknet Communication’s Hillary Hommy, whose company developed Quickhitz, told the Financial Post.
We won’t believe it until we hear it.
