How Many BBC Radio 1 Staff Does It Take To Choose A Song?

Frankly, I lost count while watching Radio 1’s Access All Areas video of the Playlist song selection process. Now you and I would play a CD and decide whether it was a good song or not and whether it was suited to radio airplay for a particular audience during a particular part of the day. Easy, peasy. It’s made even easier if one is just listening to a load of singles sent through by record companies and/or radio pluggers. For my radio shows I seldom play singles preferring to choose what I feel are the best album tracks. This of course takes much more time as tracks have to be first selected and then checked for serious swearing (unlike radio edit singles which are radio-ready).

This is the link to the BBC R1 video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/videos/accessallareas/video/091209_aaa_playlist

Notice that this relates to song selection for the Radio 1 A-Playlist whose songs can be played for up to 8 weeks before and after release, and played to death during daylight hours, 7 days per week.

This is the current A-Playlist:

Chase & Status Hypest Hype (feat. Tempa T)
Cheryl Cole Promise This
Devlin Runaway (feat. Yasmin)
Eminem No Love (feat. Lil Wayne)
Gyptian Hold You
JLS Love You More
Alexis Jordan Happiness
McFly Shine A Light (feat. Taio Cruz)
My Chemical Romance Na Na Na (Na Na Na…)
Nelly Just A Dream
Paramore Playing God
Katy Perry Firework
Pink Raise Your Glass
Mike Posner Cooler Than Me
Rihanna Only Girl (In The World)
Roll Deep Take Control (feat. Alesha Dixon)
The Saturdays Higher (feat. Flo Rida)
Take That The Flood
The xx VCR

This is the current B-Playlist:

Afrojack Takeover Control (feat. Eva Simons)
B.o.B Magic (feat. Rivers Cuomo)
Biffy Clyro Booooom, Blast & Ruin
The Black Eyed Peas The Time (Dirty Bit)
Jason Derulo The Sky’s The Limit
Example Two Lives
Far East Movement Like A G6 (feat. Cataracs + Dev)
Florence and The Machine Heavy In Your Arms
Gorillaz Doncamatic (feat. Daley)
INNA Deja Vu (feat. Bob Taylor)
Linkin Park Waiting For The End
Laura Marling I Speak Because I Can
Ne-Yo One In A Million
The Script Nothing
Tinchy Stryder Second Chance (feat. Taio Cruz)
Kanye West Runaway (feat. Pusha T)

This is the current C-Playlist:

Blood Red Shoes Light It Up
Danny Byrd We Can Have It All
Brandon Flowers Only The Young
Kings of Leon Pyro
Nicki Minaj Right Thru Me
Olly Murs Thinking Of Me
Plain White T’s Rhythm Of Love
Mark Ronson & The Business Intl Somebody To Love Me (feat. Boy George & Andrew Wyatt)
Nicole Scherzinger Poison
Willow Whip My Hair

There are 19 A list tracks, usually receiving just over 20 plays a week
There are 16 B list tracks, 10 to 15 plays
There are 8-10 C list tracks, 5 or 6 plays
There are 5 x 1Upfront tracks, which get a varying number of plays (a selection of records that allow R1 to showcase a wider range of music…???)
Playlisted songs are played for around 6 or 7 weeks, although if the track is popular it can be longer.