Keith Hill, also known as the Un-consultant, who sparked some controversy years ago about the topic of female artists being played on the radio, does not agree at all with the recent study released by Dr. Jada Watson. As we reported Monday, Watson wrote a report regarding the lack of female artists being played on Country radio. Here’s what Hill had to say about her story.
Hill says, despite the Watson report, there is no discrimination on Country radio. “It is simply the result of the free market. Especially when it comes to the arena of spins. When songs test poorly we spin them less or not at all. When songs test well we spin them more. I’m here to report clearly and vividly that we often don’t even look at the artists and titles. We look at the percentage of Favorites, Likes, and Total Positive Responses to make the decisions of what to play, more and less. Dr. Watson should know that — she’s been in college classes from 2003 until 2015 studying to be the Doctor and Musicologist she is today. I see from her university’s website she teaches Music Research. I presume that includes auditorium and call-out studies and the many techniques of music hook research.”
Hill then challenges the Dr. “As a researcher I challenge her to explain why it’s the decision-makers inside the radio stations fault? It’s not. Those professional broadcasters are men and women who make decisions based on scientific mathematical data. We are robots implementing the wishes of the listeners. The only bias we have is to attract as large an audience as possible and keep them listening for longer than they used to.”
The Watson report was written in consultation with WOMAN Nashville. It’s called “Gender Representation on Country Radio: A Study of Published Reports from 2000-2018.”
Read the entire Hill response HERE.
Fotos, die uns von den Teilnehmern gemailt bzw.
The funny part of this “study” and the one earlier this year is they criticize companies like iHeart ignoring the fact that iHeart’s On The Verge supports female artists, iHeart’s Bobby Bones has launched a new show promoting women, and iHeart stations air ten hours of programming from CMT Radio, whose Leslie Fram was quoted in the report. It just demonstrates how poorly researched it was.
That’s what happens when you get people outside the format and outside the country trying to tell us what to do. Of course, in Canada, they have a government-imposed system that requires radio stations to play a percentage of Canadian artists. They made the rules such that even Shania Twain’s records didn’t count as Canadian content, because she didn’t record them in Canada.
The Big A … you are so correct. The Watson study is just Mediabase reports followed by opinions and “feelings” about the way she feels it “should be.” A complete scam of a “study.”
I have now written a Parody of Dr. Jada Watson’s “STUDY” to help folks understand the technique she is using. http://keithhill-theunconsultant.com