Somehow I became program director again, but this time in a paid capacity with actual real employees. We had started hiring real jocks to take the place of the volunteers and we turned it into a real radio station. It really depends on the radio station. Some program directors very much rely on their music directors to discover the music and define music. Usually a program director will have the final say as to what records are going to go on the air.
Some program directors are more musically astute than others.
Another difference may be that the music director is totally involved in music and the program director is really no more into music than your average listener and so has the music director play them a bunch of songs. Maybe the PD is more of a layman musically. The program director is really responsible for a lot more than the music. They are responsible for the overall sound of the radio station which involves production, marketing, jocks, what the jocks sound like, and what they say. Yeah, at a lot of stations though, the music director doesn't always have a lot of say.