Wikipedia says, "Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies." The term goes back to an 1812 redistricting map in Massachusetts set by Governor Elbridge Gerry. Political scientists talk about gerrymandering allowing candidates to choose voters, rather than voters being allowed to choose candidates.

When established stations use music montages to screen research samples, the thinking goes that they only want to consider the music opinions of people who like the music mix that the station plays. So, they use montages to exclude others within the station's cume. Like gerrymandering, these montage-screened samples use songs to pick listeners, rather than allowing listeners to pick songs.

In practice, such montages screen out a small-to-moderate percentage of station core and screen out lots of P2's and P3's. The music test data are generally pleasing to work with, showing higher average scores and easier common-threading across the list. While these are good things for programmers wearing too many hats, we're less certain they're good for listening levels.

• Screening out any of the station's existing P1's risks building a playlist less friendly to those specific P1 listeners, possibly ending up with them finding themselves listening more to another station.
• Ignoring the opinions of the wider group from the station's P2's and P3's reduces the impression of variety on the station and results in a narrower, same-sounding playlist … and fewer listening occasions over time.
• While it's prudent to exclude some cross-cuming P1's from music test samples (the stray Urban P1 who shows up as a P3 to a Country station, for example), we think it's wisest to allow a realistic sample of a station's P2's and P3's.

We DO support the use of montages when screening a test for a new station without an established cume or a station in the midst of repositioning – with two caveats:

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