Here’s a music radio true-ism. Men make about 70% of hit songs primarily because boys make about 85% of all the records recorded and released. Now, since most music radio station libraries are generally about 30% Female songs, we should give them a little special attention and control. I don’t want to have a quarter-hour segment with three Female songs back-to-back; I’d want those three spaced out to better balance the hour.
We want to avoid setting any formatting rules that are in serious conflict with the Library content. During scheduling, a few stops for one edit or another, but if M1 is stopping with the very same violaiton(s) day in day out, Some content or rule settings need attention. For example, if a station’s library is 40% Slow songs and the guy is scheduling 14 songs an hour, if he then sets a Clock rule to allow only four Slows an hour, his scheduling pipes are going to get clogged immediately with a basket full of Slow songs and no place to put them all.
For the best Male-to-Female balance, first figure the percentage of Females in your ‘active’ categories, those are the one being scheduled daily. Search the total songs in play and write that number down. Then do the same search for Female only.
In our example, this Pop/Oldies station has a library that is only 20% Female. While there is nothing inherently wrong with playing two or three ladies in a row, but as the female voice is a limited quality in this mix, I’d want to spread them out and have them more evenly disbursed across the hours.
If the Female content is 33-40%, I’ll usually allow two Females back-to-back (the Clock “Run” Rule). I set a Clock maximum of six Females, so when scheduling 14 songs an hour it ensures the hours will never have more than 40 to 45% Female content.
