You turn on the radio one evening. You hear a song you like.
And then you hear it again.
And again.
And again.
That was a radio station’s idea of a publicity stunt. In fact the radio program directors had a trick they called stunting. When a station was about to make a change like a format change some stations would suddenly abandon normal programming and broadcast something a bit off the rails.
Sometimes they played the same song on a 24 hour loop.
Why? Confusion mainly.
If your normal classic rock stations always played the same song every time you tuned in you’d probably think what the hell is going on?
You’d probably keep tuning in to hear if anything changed. You’d tell your friends.
Well that’s exactly what happened in 1992 in Cleveland. WENZ played It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) for 24 hours prior to a format change.
The choice was deliberate and the repetition sent the message.
There are other similar variations of this concept. Albums looping – strange combinations of songs – songs repeated for days.
And this was wonderful. No social media posts and no ads and no video and no countdown websites.
Just a repeating radio signal.
Again and again. Curiosity was the payoff and the word got out!
