{"id":6060,"date":"2024-03-07T13:23:44","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T02:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bprworld.com\/?p=6060"},"modified":"2025-12-05T14:32:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T03:32:17","slug":"size-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/news\/size-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Size Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Kidd, BPR<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You probably already know this but new songs are getting shorter. 20% of the nominated songs in this year\u2019s Grammy Awards came in at under three minutes.<\/p>\n

Since 1990, the average length of a song on the Billboard 100 has decreased from over four minutes to around three\u2026. and this is regardless of genre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chart courtesy of the Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Joe Bennett, Professor of Musicology at Berklee College of Music in the US \u201cSong lengths have always fluctuated with technological and cultural changes. You\u2019ve got artists and technologies working in tandem and then artists responding to other artists. \u2026 That\u2019s how the culture and the songwriting craft evolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the amount of music that would fit on one side of a vinyl 45 rpm single, combined with the format of traditional radio programming, established the\u00a0now-familiar<\/a>\u00a0three-to-five-minute length. A 45-rpm single could hold only about five minutes of music. Exceeding this often meant lower sound quality.<\/p>\n

In the 80s, tapes and CDs didn\u2019t have the time limitations of vinyl\u00a0<\/strong>and allowed artists more flexibility in songwriting. The average song length peaked at 4 minutes 21 seconds in 1992.<\/p>\n

In 2024, streaming platforms are setting the standard. On platforms such as Spotify, artists earn royalties only if a listener stays engaged for\u00a0at least 30 seconds<\/a>, making songs with instantly engaging hooks dominant\u00a0<\/strong>as it ensures that the listener doesn\u2019t just skip on to the next song. Shorter songs encourage more replays and \u2026you guessed it\u2026. more replays mean more revenue.<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift has followed the trend. The average song length on her 2010 album \u201cSpeak Now\u201d was just under 5 minutes; on her 2022 album \u201cMidnights\u2019 it was just over 3 minutes.<\/p>\n

This has broader implications for radio than just being able to play more songs per hour. It means that your station\u2019s content must be COMPELLING at all times. But what does compelling actually mean? Let\u2019s start with the dictionary definition. Something is \u201ccompelling\u201d when it \u201cmakes you pay attention because it is so interesting and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compelling content is not just entertaining\u2026. compelling content makes you think\u2026it makes you feel\u2026. it makes you tell your friends\u2026it makes you keep listening in case you miss any more compelling content. Compelling content captures and maintains the attention of the audience.<\/p>\n

Each song should have a great research score to make it on air, every piece of talk content should be engaging, every contest should have an entertainment value attached to it, negatives\/turn offs must be minimised or eliminated\u2026and if you don\u2019t know what those negatives are in 2024, do some research.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Kidd, BPR You probably already know this but new songs are getting shorter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","category-featured"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/pexels-dominika-roseclay-1021876-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1690","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6060"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7131,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions\/7131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}