There are two things that will make someone tune OUT fast:

1. Playing a song he or she doesn’t like.

This is why you should definitely want to do music research.  The charts don’t say it all, because they’re too general.  And what the label reps say is sometimes just a “quacking” noise.

My dear friend Randy Brown, an excellent programmer, put it best when he was accosted by a label rep for not playing a certain song.  When Randy told him he didn’t think it fit his station, the rep said, “It’s just one song.”  To which Randy replied, “Yes, but when it’s playing, it’s the ONLY song.”

2. Two people talking at the same time.

This is just annoying, and carries lots of negatives…

It can seem like you’re trying to “top” each other.  Or “shout down” each other.  Or just that you’re a couple of knuckleheads who don’t “get” that I CAN’T UNDERSTAND EITHER ONE OF YOU WHEN BOTH OF YOU ARE TALKING AT ONCE.  (Especially in the car.)

Talk stations should heed these warnings, too.  But in Talk, the “song” no one cares for is the Subject that your listener doesn’t care about.  If it doesn’t matter to me (as a listener), then I don’t care what you have to say about it.  Hello, Sirius/XM… or Pandora… or Spotify… or my iPhone’s playlists.