Last Monday (15), Philadelphia radio was responsible for dueling press releases. The first was from Jelli, the crowdsourced Website that some radio stations have been incorporating into their programming since last year, announcing that Classic Rock That Really Rocks outlet WYSP Philadelphia was expanding their Jelli show to a nightly program, while Adult Top 40 WPST Trenton/Philadelphia would be rebranding their nightly Jelli show as “Real Time Radio” and going to a local version from Jelli’s national CHR feed.

Less than three hours later, Clear Channel Rhythmic AC WISX (My 106.1) Philadelphia announced that it was segueing to a more mainstream Hot AC format as Mix 106.1. As part of the rebranding, WISX was incorporating Jelli’s competitor, Listener Driven Radio and positioning themselves as a station where “you pick the mix.” (Read our First Listen to the station here.)

The sudden rush of interactivity recalls the short-lived late-’80s boom/bust of the “Yes/No Radio” concept, although with the growth of interactive Web radio pureplays like Pandora, there’s more on the line for radio this time. For their part, broadcasters remain divided on the value of interactivity. “To ask 35-year-old women to sit around and [vote on] songs all day? Forget it,” wrote one PD in response to our recent Ross On Radio item on the topic. “At the end of the day, we are still the curators.”

In the Philadelphia market, however, there is plenty of willingness to engage with the listeners. How did it sound?

WPST

WPST has been using Jelli in late nights since spring. It was one of the first affiliates for Jelli’s pop feed; (the service had been rolled out last year on Alternative KITS [Live 105] San Francisco). At the time, we wrote that the programming seemed tightly enough controlled that there wasn’t going to be the same “wacky songs could play” component that Live 105 had deliberately cultivated (and that was a major part of the online-only version of Jelli).

That was still the case on WPST, particularly with the mix now more under local control. WPST remains an adult-leaning CHR at night, although artists like Owl City and Taylor Swift did seem to get some extra prominence. Jelli users vote records up and down in a queue. Nothing more unusual than Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” ever got close to the top of the stack (and only briefly in that case). Jelli’s computerized host “T-Bone” often credits the listener whose “rocket” (a vote with extra points) pushed a song to the top of the queue—several of those “rockets” came from the same person in the hour I heard. Listeners are also able to vote a song off the air—something they did to Maroon 5’s “Misery.”

Here’s WPST at 10:00 p.m.:

Owl City, “Fireflies”
Jay-Z, “Empire State Of Mind”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong To Me” (her “Today Was A Fairytale” had played a few songs earlier)
Maroon 5, “Misery” (voted off the air as it played)
Lady Gaga, “Lovegame”
Katy Perry, “Firework”
Timbaland, “The Way I Are”
Lady Gaga, “Alejandro”
Taio Cruz, “Break Your Heart”
Rihanna, “Disturbia”
Flo Rida, “Club Can’t Handle Me”

Mix 106.1

By comparison to the “listeners vote on every song” construct of Jelli, Mix 106.1 was using Listener Driven Radio to let listeners choose among three gold titles once an hour. Typically, the three songs appear in the LDR portion of the station Website about 15 minutes in advance (and a few minutes before the jock first solicits voting).

The first listener heat was between Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s “Shoop,” Madonna’s “Dress You Up,” and Wham’s “Careless Whisper.” Anybody familiar with AC/Hot AC research could guess which one of those songs was the “hit,” so it wasn’t surprising when “Careless Whisper” played. But the following hour, M/A/R/R/S’ “Pump Up The Volume” managed to beat Prince’s “Kiss” and the Romantics’ “What I Like About You.”

With long airshifts and an afternoon jock based in Detroit, there’s clearly voice-tracking being used on this station. So how can a station still incorporate interactivity? In Mix 106.1’s case, the three-song set-up was done by the jock going into a stopset. The payoff was done with a stager, “From your votes at MixPhiladelphia.com. You control The Mix.”

Outside of the 15-20 minute voting period, listeners who click on the voting link are told that there’s “no voting session currently running, please check back later.” They are given the opportunity to rate a long queue of songs, although there’s no obvious connection between those songs and what plays. There’s also less transparency than Jelli—once listeners vote themselves, they get a thank you for voting screen until the winning song plays.

WYSP

Classic/Active Rock hybrid WYSP was still hosted at 11 p.m. when I heard their version of the Jelli-driven “My-S-P” show, which had just gone nightly. The net effect was like hearing a really good “Battle of the Hits” weekend with the host milking the progress of songs up-and-down in the queue. (“Motley Crue’s been getting close to the top all night; here they are, finally.”)

As with WPST’s version of Jelli, the WYSP version gave the station an excuse not to worry about artist separation for a few hours – a nicety that many Top 40 and Urban PDs have been forced to surrender anyway. AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “Highway To Hell” played a few songs away from each other, for instance.

We’ll have some more thoughts on listener interaction and the way it’s used on-air in Tuesday’s Ross On Radio.