January 2025 Station Updates

This post is for anyone who wants to stay up to date on the technical and creative updates happening at the station. Last month we added quite a few new tracks into the rotation, and we are working on plans to make the stream easier to access for mobile users.

STATION UPDATES

Aaron Harris

1/4/20262 min read

Music Rotation

Pop Music

When we launched the station we focused on uploading Pop tracks first. In December we managed to upload over 300 Pop tracks. We listened to over 1500 songs that were labeled as pop in our internal database and selected only the tracks that fit the vibe of Next Move Radio. We're aiming for a mix of familiarity and novelty. For anyone who is wondering, yes we uploaded.

Hip Hop Music

Mid December we started the process of curating Hip Hop tracks. By the end of December we have added about 30 tracks into the rotation. We expect to add about 60 songs per week until we finish reviewing our entire database of tracks labeled as hip hop.

What's the rotation?

We are using a pretty simple formula for selecting songs for the playlist. We want to avoid playing repeat songs as much as possible. We also want to keep the vibe fresh without switching music styles too much. For now we are going with a five by five format. This means that we play five Pop songs followed by a station ID and then five hip hop songs. We have over 300 pop songs so there's more opportunity for variety. Hip hop is still being built out so there's quite a bit more repetition.

Who's picking the songs?

We use an auto dj feature which is pretty much an advance shuffle algorithm. We use meta data added to each song file to provide instructions to the auto dj about how to pick the next song.

Auto dj will be handling the playlist most of the time, but we do have special programs that will be based on a specific DJ's music selections. We're just not ready for these programs yet.

Mobile App

We don't have an official announcement, but we submitted the details to have our mobile app developed. We are expecting it to be available in about 6 to 8 weeks.

The mobile app will make it easier for listeners to stream the station using Android Auto and Apple carplay. For now, we recommend using the live365 app for mobile listening.

What's coming next month

We expect to add about 200 additional hip hop songs into the rotation.
Maybe an announcement about the launch of our mobile app.
Potential announcements about programming.