Oct 6, 2013 6 min read

Don’t touch that dial.

Casey Kasem will be counting down the Top 40 from Sept. 1974. It will take about 90 minutes. That will be followed by Ryan Seacrest’s countdown of the current Top 40 songs – and, by the way, that will take about the same amount of time.

Format differences notwithstanding, the seemingly impossible idea of playing about 25, four-minute songs in less than an hour is about to come to a radio near you.

Blame it on shorter attention spans, or more likely, a last-ditch effort by radio to lure you back from your iPods. Ready or not, you’ll soon be hearing the catchphrase, “Twice the music in half the time.”

About a year ago, we noted that the idea of paring down hit songs to their bare essentials was beginning to get serious consideration at radio conventions. After all, what better promotion tool could there be than to be able to say you’re playing more music than your competitors? Still, it’s hardly a new idea.

Radio has been using “much more music” as one of its selling points for decades. In the 1960s, for instance, KQV heavily promoted that it played more music than its rivals, even though the music advantage was most likely due to crosstown KDKA’s hourly newscasts and gabby disc jockeys.

But with top-of-the-hour news and disc jockeys mostly a memory at contemporary music stations, the only way to tap into a “more music” advantage now is to “adjust” the music itself. And so it has come to pass.

WYDS in Decatur, Ill., has become the first radio station to offer “Quick Hitz,” which strips down most current songs to 120 to 150 seconds. (Lyric-heavy songs such as “Same Love” get a bit more time to tell their tale). You’d think the station would simply sell the “more music” angle, but WYDS is actively promoting the truncated nature of its songs. And listeners either don’t mind or, startlingly, prefer it.

As WYDS streams online, so it’s easily sampled. To be honest, the editing isn’t what you notice first. Rather, it’s the station’s fast pace. You’re barely “into” one song before another one begins. Eventually, a few format differences surface. Many of the rap interludes from tunes such as “Holy Grail” have been erased. So are intros, instrumental bridges and chorus refrains.

While I’m certain vocalists, musicians and songwriters aren’t going to be pleased with the new format, I suspect it’s going to become commonplace very soon.

Advantages of Quick Hitz to radio are many. It’s likely to appeal to adult listeners because it zaps the rap. It’s likely to please constant listeners because ballads don’t drag on forever, and the many dance songs that tend to rely on beat over lyrics are mercifully shed of the fifth and sixth repeats of the chorus. And there’s that built-in “more music” branding to promote.

On the flip side, meticulous productions, such as slow builds to a crescendo, will disappear. So will the blending of genres or voices on songs, such as “Cruise” and “Moves Like Jagger.” Artists who consider their work as art (some justifiably so, some not) will just stop releasing singles. And discerning music fans may not like slice-and-dice versions of their favorite songs.

Quick Hitz might better be marketed were it to promise more selections, as opposed to more music. In an era when current songs were three minutes long, radio would play about 40 different songs at any given time (hence the term Top 40). But when singles began to expand to the four-minute range, radio cut to 30 tunes. If Quick Hitz would prompt radio to return to 40 songs, listeners – and artists – might be more inclined to buy into it. But that’s certainly not what WYDS appears to be doing: It’s simply playing the same songs in faster rotation.

Song samples from an expanded playlist certainly make some sense – it certainly should encourage purchase of albums and singles so fans can experience the song as it was meant to be heard.

Quick Hitz also would makes sense – a lot of sense – for oldies stations. After hearing them a million times, songs such as “Aquarius,” “One More Night” and “Hey Jude” can justifiably be trimmed, and those overlong intros to tunes such as “Smoke on the Water” and “Do It Again” can be edited as well. I’d gladly sacrifice some nonessential song segments if oldies radio would expand its playable library. With a 300-song playlist, I understand (I think) classic radio’s decision to play only the top five Beatle singles and eliminate most of the one-hit wonder artists. It’s also clear that programmers needed to expand into the ’80s to attract some younger listeners.

But Quick Hitz offers the opportunity to play 20 songs an hour instead of 15 – so one might suggest filling those five extra slots with songs that have disappeared from radio. I love “Hey Jude,” but I’d like to hear “Ticket to Ride” on occasion. “California Girls” is great, but so is “Sloop John B.” “Walk Like a Man” if you must, but could you “Tell it to the Rain” once in awhile. And while Strawberry Alarm Clock may have been a one-hit wonder with “Incense and Peppermints,” it’s a really good song. And that’s just a ’60s sampling. Diversity would work for the ’70s and ’80s as well.

More importantly, after decades of having an ear to the radio, I don’t need to hear an old song in its entirety anymore. I just want to hear more of them.

In the September ratings, country station WDSY widened its lead over WDVE. Somewhat further behind are KDKA-FM, WWSW and WKST, which rounded out the top five. The increasing popularity of KDKA-FM (the Fan) is due in no small part to the Pirates success. It will be interesting to see how it fares deep into what appears to be a struggling Steelers season.