From Mark Wynter to Tony Christie (pictured), it’s always a lovely surprise when we hear from those who actually made the music we play. 

We know Sir Tim Rice tunes in to Boom, alongside the great Mike Batt too. Although immediately associated with the Wombles, you can’t ignore his work with Katie Melua and writing Bright Eyes! Good to have you with us, Mike (He’s working on a really interesting project for Ukraine at the moment).  We played  I’ve Got You On My Mind by Dorian Gray the other day and heard from Tony Ellingham whose ‘stage name’ Dorian was.

It’s always so flattering that those whose lives are built on music let us know they're choosing our station for their listening pleasure..

As we say, ‘every song’s a surprise’ – in that you never know what’s coming next, an approach rather different from other radio stations. Those stations become popular by playing the biggest hits over and over again – and that’s a proven approach which attracts huge audiences on stations around the world. 

As we receive quite a few enquiries about our approach, we thought we'd share a little detail.

Boom seeks to appeal to anyone over 60 – about a third of the population - and we recognise that our lifetime personal collections are probably eclectic to say the least. So, we mix things up at Boom - exactly as we always have. From the ‘50s to the present day, majoring on the '60s and '70s, playing many thousands of different tracks, rather than just the most familiar tracks from an artist’s repertoire.

That doesn't mean that every track we play will be a rarity! We know from our Beach Boys chart that the impeccable God Only Knows is loved by more Boom listeners than any other Beach Boys track - so why would we not play it? But we also play loads of other Beach Boys tracks too.

We have always included the big hits on Boom - we simply play them a lot less frequently than other stations, mixed in with the many surprises.

And when songs are repeated, you'll hear them first pop-up again in a different programme and in a different hours – heard by many different listeners. We have to take into account how often songs are likely to be heard by the typical listener, given the majority listen only for an hour or less a day.

We receive some emails from listeners saying "can you please stop playing X" or "you need to play more from Y"; and from the self-appointed 'Ministers of musical truth' who appear  puzzlingly confident they know exactly what everyone else should be listening to! 

Let’s illustrate the challenge...

Imagine you're asked to make a list of an hour of the songs you really love. Then do it again for another hour’s music.  Then try doing a list for each hour of the day – for a month. Then knock on your next-door neighbour’s house and ask them for their lists – and try to blend them with yours.  Then do the same for a million other neighbours, some of whom may not like any of your cherished tracks.

You see the difficulty. We can never be perfect mix for each listener - we have to just do the best we can for our audience at large. You'll want more from your favourite artist or style, of course, but if we did that, it'd be less of someone else's! 

Our broad view is educated by all the findings from thousands of listeners from the various research projects - and from actual minute-by-minute audience performance of particular content. That takes into account the views of those aged 60 to those aged 85; men and women; listeners who are steeped in their music - and the many who just like a great singalong to cheer them up. 

We've been blown away by some of the findings. 95% of listeners feel that the blend of eras is right (not 'too young' or 'too old'). Only 5% say we play too many songs 'I'm tired of hearing'; well over 80% tell us they hear lots of surprises'; and yet only 2% feel we play 'too many songs I don't know'.

Our audience is growing - and we have the most loyal audience (measured in terms of how many hours you spend with us each week) of any national radio station ever since records began! We’re really, really  pleased with that.

Thanks for your support, Thanks for listening – and we hope the above helps explain a little of our thinking. Do fill in our audience surveys too - it helps us enormously.