Calgary Radio: AMP Aims to Play Much, More Music

Calgary Top 40 CKMP 90.3 FM AMP Radio is now offering listeners twice as many songs.

Their new format, which was unveiled last week according to the Calgary Herald, is called QuickHitz and allows the station to broadcast professionally edited down versions of songs that have been provided by Vancouver-based SparkNet Communications.

Steve Jones, VP of programming for Newcap Radio, which operates close to 100 stations across the country including AMP, thinks it’s a sign of the times. Or rather a sign that radio is finally willing to get with the times.

“Radio is using archaic logic to decide its programming,” he says.

“When you think about why songs are the length they are it goes back to the ’50s and ’60s when radio stations demanded three-minute songs and artists provided them. In order to be on a 45 RPM record with any sound quality your song had to be around three, three-and-a-half minutes. If you wanted to be on the radio or you wanted to be in a jukebox, which is how people heard their music back then, you had to be on a 45 RPM record. So that was the way it was done."

The obvious argument is that they are the way they are because that’s how the artists and producers meant them to be. It is their vision and to half their vision, alter it in order to make it more bite-sized for consumers with diminished attention spans might, some may posit, be an insult to that creative process.

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Jones is quick to point out that SparkNet’s team of producers work hard to provide the best version of the song, one that doesn’t “compromise the integrity of (it),” but also admits that permission from the artist or label is not required and says they could certainly request one from the company should they require a shorter version of a song from a Calgary musician.

Besides, he says, half the song length means double the amount of songs AMP can play in an hour, which also equals more exposure for the musicians, for more musicians. And that, theoretically, translates to more album sales, more concert tickets, more merch sold, etc.

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