Early 90s-era music rotation schedule

[TWCC_Travis E.]

Hopefully some of the TWC “oldtimers” are still around for this one. Some time back on the old twcclassics forum, there was a discussion about the hourly music rotation scheme used around the early 90s (92-93 especially; I don't know which other years this also applied to). On this scheme, music supposedly played in a predictable order over an hour (or in some cases, longer) period. On my old tapes from this period, I can confirm that this largely appeared to be the case.

What's puzzled me, though, and what had not been mentioned in that thread, was that judging from my tapes it seems as though there were some occasional discrepancies in the schedule. Sometimes the songs didn't always play in the exact usual order; e.g. a couple of songs would swap places or one flavor's songs would be a playlist step or two out of sync with the others.

Maybe I'd have to try to put together some notes to show what I'm talking about, but before I do, does anyone happen to know what I'm talking about? Anyone able to shed some light on this for me?

[twcclassics]

I remember this quite well. I believe it occurred from September 1990 to maybe 1994, after the April 1993 ended, but I could be wrong. Although I remember this, I've never paid attention to whether or not this schedule was always kept. Are you sure these "errors" weren't technical in nature (ie. the local forecast didn't load correctly)?

[TampaMillTWC88]

I actually remember during the 1998 2Q playlist, on Saturday mornings, Bryan Savage songs would predictably play at certain times.

[phw115wvwx]

There was definitely an intent to play the songs in a specific order during the early and mid 1990s, which eventually gave way to random play for the late 1990s through today.  I can remember certain songs always playing at a particular time for a LF.  I'm sure technical issues could have thrown this order off sometimes, and you know random outages such as one I recall when I watched a marathon of the Travel Cities Forecast for almost a half an hour certainly could contribute.

[TWCC_Travis E.]

Admittedly, this is going from audio cassettes, so I don't have exact date/time stamps. However, I do have a pretty good memory on some of these of roughly how I recorded them, and the only way I can see the song order I experienced having occurred would be if there were many long breaks in time between several LFs, which I doubt actually occurred. In other words, I can't find any other likely explanation.

There was in one case a J/LL LF that played a TCF song in the evening, so possibly that had something to do with it. But I saw some apparent discrepancies the following morning as well. In case anyone actually happens to have footage, this particular date would have been evening June 25, 1993 and morning June 26, 1993, from what my records tell me.

[twcclassics]

...I recall when I watched a marathon of the Travel Cities Forecast for almost a half an hour certainly could contribute.

LOL. I have a few of those on DVD. One, I believe went on for several days! Not 24/7, but almost every LF.

In case anyone actually happens to have footage, this particular date would have been evening June 25, 1993 and morning June 26, 1993, from what my records tell me.

I don't seem to have anything on the site for those dates, but I bet I have something on DVD. I'll check tonight.

[Star4000 Fan]

I remember that one song, Rippington's St. Tropez for instance, would only play twice an evening - 5:37 and 6:37pm ET.  The song would not play at any other time during the day.  This would be in 1992 or so.

[ndinminot]

I recall the pattern. I had the entire  rotation schedule for the April 93, Aug 92 July 93, April 92 and July 1991 playlists