Paragon Media’s Sean Demery checks in for this week’s Programming To Win, explaining his “QuickHitz” CHR concept. Demery has found a way to fit in 24 songs per hour, while also making room for commercials, stemming from one of his creative ideas during his time at Live 105/San Francisco.
Sean Demery
By Sean Demery
Program Director, QuickHitz
It’s exciting when a light bulb goes off in your head. New ideas make you feel powerful. It’s also a great feeling to do something that leaves a mark.
In 2005 I was the program director of Live105 in San Francisco, through the years, and from time to time, this station has been a breakthrough Alternative station. During my tenure we did some fun things to simply get attention: I spent a month giving away one free fish. I changed our primary language to a Spanish speaking (of sorts) Alternative station for a week just for giggles; I changed the name of the station from Live105 to Evil105 for the month of October; and on Gay Pride weekend we became KGAY. We did count-ups where you start at number one and have people guess what the number 100 song will be for prizes. I ran 2-minute promos for a lost wallet. I once spent a week of afternoon shows making clucking noises like a chicken… no call letters, no actual words except the words from listeners trying desperately to communicate with. . . well, with a chicken. These items mostly qualify as attention getters, in the diary days that got you the attention you needed to get diary entries. No matter if they actually listened, as long as they thought they did.
One of the other things I did while I was at Live105 was to create a Friday show where we played 31 songs an hour. That’s 31 songs an hour with a full load of commercials! We called it the ADD hours. The ADD hours were a mix of current Live105 hits and new music. Hell at 31 songs an hour (90 second songs) you could play 12 or so brand new tracks, and still play 18 Live105 smashes an hour. It made for interesting hum-along hours and created a buzz with listeners and enthusiastic clients. I heard from more than a few who thought it was the coolest thing to come around in a while.
Now, a few years later, Mike Henry of Paragon Media Strategies, and I are taking this ADD concept and applying all those possibilities to CHR. Imagine a fast paced, quick moving CHR where none of the songs are much more than 2 minutes long, where if you get bored easily (like much of the populous does these days), you would be listening to a new song by the time you realized you were bored.; where you could hum with more music than ever in your 20-minute drive to and from work; where if you have a mind numbing job (like who doesn’t) you could have a listening experience that gives you loads of new hum-along songs every few minutes; where clutter is kept to a minimum, and even with 4 three-minute spot sets per hour, listeners still get 6-7 songs in a row before the next short (really short) commercial break; where if you’re an advertiser your commercials may actually be heard instead of being commercial number 6 in an 8 element break!
Anyway, Mike Henry got excited at the idea, shared it with the guys at Sparknet communications… you know Sparknet… the smartys who gave us Jack-FM. Sparknet, specifically Pat Bohn and Garry Wall, and they got excited as well. We all got excited, batted around ideas, partnership agreements and a new name for the project. . . with that QuickHitz was born. QuickHitz, that’s hits with a Z.
We (QuickHitz LLC) think this is such a good idea that we secured the patent for it!
QuickHitz is a CHR offering that allows someone who wants to insert themselves in this coveted, crowded market to do so with a product that is powerful, defensible and totally and audibly unique. QuickHitz is really a simple concept and yet a complete paradigm changer. It’s probably a concept that has flickered across your mind in one way another. QuickHitz plays more music than any other station… ever. QuickHitz plays 24 songs an hour.
QuickHitz plays less commercials in a row. QuickHitz plays four 3-minute spot sets per hour so you are never more than three minutes away from music. In a 12 song world this would be tedious with commercials popping up every 3 songs… in a QuickHitz world listeners hear 6 or 7 songs between commercials and then need only wait three minutes to get back to the hits.
QuickHitz plays more new music than anyone else. QuickHitz can do that and still be exceedingly successful, because in a 24 song per hour world you can play 8 or 9 new tracks an hour and still be playing 15 smashes from the powers, recurrents and library. And if listeners are not completely enamored with what’s on… the next song is about 2 minutes away!
QuickHitz is designed to emulate how people use their media. You listen to your favorite tracks just long enough to hum along, hear your favorite hook and move on to your next temporary aural fixation. QuickHitz does this seamlessly by editing songs to about 2 minutes or so in length, focusing on keeping as much of the integrity of the song intact. The result is a very familiar song because QuickHitz songs focus on more of the most hummed along parts of the song. Listeners simply get more experiences in a shorter amount of time.
QuickHitz is patent protected. If you’re doing QuickHitz in your market and own this powerful position you are the only one who can do it! Other stations with their smoke and murky mirrors world of claims will not hold up after listeners try QuickHitz. Other stations with claims to play the most music, claims of the least amount of interruptions, and claims of the most new music because their claims sound ridiculous after listening to QuickHitz.
After listening to QuickHitz some users claim that regular radio sounds tedious because it takes too long to get to the next music thrill.QuickHitz has taken the time to craft, mold and broadcast this exciting new concept in an on-air open petri dish for the last several months. Listen to it at QuickHitz.com for 15 minutes and then ask yourself how did that experience feel? If your experience is anything like the host of participants who’ve heard it thus far, you’ll find that you get an exhilarating music injection that moves too fast to ever be boring.
In a world where mind share is challenging, QuickHitz does something you didn’t even know you needed until you experience it. I’m guessing Henry Ford felt that way with the “everyman automobile and Steve Jobs felt that way with the iPad.
QuickHitz always plays 24 songs an hour, thats Twice the music in half the time, and never plays more than 3 minutes of commercials. That means you’re never more than 3 minutes away from QuickHitz music.
Those are claims that resonate and most importantly are noticeably deliverable. Listeners can feel and hear the differentiation. That makes QuickHitz unique among all other offerings and yet, because QuickHitz is based on one of the most popular mass appeal formats, it feels safe… safe like the world’s most ridden roller coaster. Weeeeeeeee!
We at QuickHitz LLC are very proud and excited about this offering. We feel that QuickHitz will change the radio landscape. Frankly, we all think the hedges need trimming.
Who wants to help be a game changer and still be a responsible broadcaster?
QuickHitz is an innovative, patented CHR radio format developed, programmed, marketed and licensed through the partnership of Paragon Media Strategies LLC and SparkNet Communications LP.
