Sunday, January 30, 2011

#1's And Recurrents

As Kenny Chesney's monster single remains camped at the top of the charts for another week. Keith Urban and the Capitol Records/Nashville promo team will have to settle for a #2 peak.

One label exec last week pointed out that the Urban will probably end the week with somewhere around 35,000,000 audience and that would be enough for #1 on about 95% of the charts during the year, but not when you're parked behind 'a Sherman Tank of a song like "Somewhere With You".'

Luke Bryan appears to be lined up next for a two-week run at #1 and should he get it, it would be Luke's third consecutive chart topper.

Meanwhile, I just happened to be a part of a conversation between WAXX/Eau Claire MD/morning cohost Alex Edwards and CJJR/Vancouver Assistant PD and A&O associate Mark Patric on how meaningless that all is to radio, since all of those songs are already certain to live for many, many weeks more in recurrent categories.

Edwards pointed out that as his station celebrates another #1 in ARB as the Fall 2010 ratings came out - the #1 we all care about - he is considering moving Lady Antebellum, Eric Church and perhaps also Luke Bryan, in spite of the impending label run for number one, to recurrent given his local research on them.

All are extremely strong songs for the station, but he wonders aloud but what he needs be looking at in order to decide which to move at least temporarily from Power & Regular Recurrent?
  • Final Call out?
  • Total Pos?
  • Spins?
  • Weeks?
Patric and I agreed that simply looking at "weeks on" in a competitive situation can be a simplistic solution, since you might move out a stronger tune and leave a weaker one in.

Here's what we all agreed were three things that usually serve to be the best compromise in what has to be quite often a very subjective judgment call.
  1. Highest spins in the category...or total library spins.
  2. Lowest testing score in category (Patric says he gives each song moving to recurrent a seven week total favorite average score from it's last seven tests before it moves to recurrent)
  3. Duplicate artists. If power recurrent or regular recurrent has more than two songs from one artist I'll USUALLY always move out that duplicate artist. When you have one artist with more than one song in recurrent it affects scheduling.
That's how I do it. And, even better, Alex and Mark agree.

What do you do? Would you ever move a recurrent back up to power current?

Hit "comment" below and join the discussion!

2 comments:

Buzz Jackson said...

The reverse scenario is even more common for me: A song that has run it's course on the chart but is still testing well enough to stay in power for a few more weeks, despite the label's priority of the NEXT single for this artist.

Label people will say I'm crazy, but I STILL think the chart moves too fast.

Neil Haislop said...

KENNY CHESNEY'S "SOMEWHERE WITH YOU," is where it was last week, at #1 again as...

KEITH URBAN'S "Put You In a Song" holds fast at #2 again...and..

CHRIS YOUNG's "Voices" hears a voice saying "Number 3 again" this week...with...

LUKE BRYAN'S "Someone Else Calling You Baby" marking time at #4 as..

TIM McGRAW'S "Felt Good On My Lips" completes a Top 5 bunch all frozen in place since last week.