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Name That Tune

 


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Music radio stations only hear from their listeners on two occasions:  when they want to request a song and when they have a question about the identity of a song (okay, they also call when there’s a contest).  The identification part has become much simpler thanks to the Internet.  Most radio Web sites publish a playlist of the most popular tracks of the week (refer to Bay Area Radio for our comprehensive radio guide).  For those interested in the actual number of spins a song has received weekly at a particular radio station, they can check out the station’s monitored airplay at Radio & Records (radioandrecords.com).

What happens if you’re still not sure after reviewing a current playlist?  And what about recurrents for which radio stations do not normally provide a playlist?  You can verify any song by searching the Internet for audio samples and lyrics.  Radio’s solution is to display information about a song in real time as you listen to it.  Until such time when everyone has a radio receiver with this type of display capability, the Internet has come to the rescue.

Some radio Web sites continuously update a list of songs played during the last hour.  That’s a good start, but what they need to do is archive such a list for at least the previous 12 hours.  If you have a question while you’re driving, you may not be able to check the Internet immediately.  That’s why this log needs to be maintained for more than one hour.  YES Networks (yes.com) has done just that for radio stations that are already electronically monitored:  It compiles and updates a station’s real-time playlist for the past 24 hours (there’s a 15-minute delay between the time a song airs and when its ID appears).

As technology continues to improve and become widely available, radio station switchboards may never have to answer another question about a song.

One-Stop Browsing for Your Convenience

We have compiled below a set of YES tool bars for all the local radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area that are currently monitored by YES Networks.

 

Radio Airplay
Freq.
(KHz/
MHz)
Call Letters/
Airplay Monitor by YES Networks

San Francisco Bay Area
1170 KLOK

1510 KPIG

88.5 KQED

88.9 K205BN

89.1 KBBF

89.1 KCEA

89.7 KFJC

89.9 KNDL

90.1 KZSU

90.3 K212AA

90.5 KSJS

91.1 KCSM

91.1 KRCB

91.5 KKUP

92.3 KSJO

92.7 KNGY

92.9 KFGY

93.3 KRZZ

93.7 KJZY

94.1 KPFA

94.5 KBAY

94.9 KYLD

95.3 KRTY

95.7 KBWF

95.9 KRSH

96.5 KOIT

96.7 KNOB

97.3 KLLC

97.7 KVRV

98.1 KISQ

98.5 KUFX

98.7 KSXY

98.9 KSOL

99.7 KMVQ

100.1 KZST

100.3 KBRG

100.9 KXTS

100.9 K265CY

101.3 KIOI

101.7 KXFX

102.1 KDFC

102.9 KBLX

103.3 KSCU

103.7 KKSF

104.1 KJOR

104.5 KFOG

104.9 KCNL

104.9 KMHX

105.3 KITS

105.7 KVVF

106.1 KMEL

106.5 KEZR

106.9 KFRC

107.1 KSRT

107.7 KSAN

 

Key
Top 40
(mainstream, teen, rhythmic, dance, adult)
R&B
(R&B/hip-hop, adult R&B)
Country

Rock
(mainstream, modern, triple-A, Americana)
Adult contemporary/rhythmic AC

Latin
(top 40, rhythm, AC, regional Mexican, tropical, oldies, news/talk)
Christian
(AC, top 40, rock, inspirational, gospel, news/talk)
Jazz
(contemporary, traditional)
Classical

Oldies
(top 40, rock, AC, R&B, country, disco)
Variety

News/talk

Noncommercial stations
(public/educational/religious: all formats)

 

If you see a blank YES tool bar under the name of a radio station, it means there’s a problem with the YES Networks server.  We need an airplay monitoring service that’s a bit more Internet-savvy.  Nielsen BDS and Mediabase, are you listening?

Note that some songs may be incorrectly identified.  For instance, they may be attributed to the DJs who put together compilation albums instead of the actual artists.  This is a clerical error—not a problem with the audio-matching technology.

Beware that if a song is not in the database, however, it will simply be ignored.  It’s understandable that no airplay-tracking service could possibly recognize every song on the radio all the time.  Any automated system would be stumped by a mix show; it’s a good thing radio stations have begun to publish their mix show playlists.  Instead of leaving an imperceptible gap in the time line, YES Networks should clearly tag any failed identification—it’s worse to gloss over missing data.

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