No-Repeat Workdays first became something of a Thing in many American radio markets back in the late ’70s. The pitch was: “Listen all day at work, from 9 to 5 and you’ll not hear the same song twice.” Some stations took it a step ahead and said “If you DO hear a song repeated between 9 and 5, be the first to call us to win $$$.” The station would do a repeat-play a few times a month and to get some Winner Promos out of it. I remember one station offering $100 prize daily but “Thousand Dollar Thursdays” and (of course) the poor DJ accidentally did the repeat on a Thursday when he wasn’t supposed to (no scheduling software at that station!! I think he kept his job a while longer.)
The tactic has been mostly used on A/C and Country stations and the success of No-Repeat Workdays depends much on the competitive situation in the market. It eventually fell out of favor, in great part I think because work-shifts changed for so many jobs that 9-to-5 isn’t near so typical as it used to be. We don’t hear of many using it as a positioning strategy these days. Still, it can be a worthy thing to do in some unique situations.
If you want to try it, be careful. If you are playing Currents with a 3-to-5 hour turnover, the Currents categories will need to be formatted to avoid that. If we are formatting for no repeats from 9 to 5, we can’t have any category with less than an 8-hour turnover formatting for use in those hours.
Here’s how to set it up in four easy steps:
