Radio's Role In The Push Up The Chart

Q:  I was just reading your blog about charting in the 30's and I'm a little confused as to if you're for or against it?  Do we stick with a song in hopes it picks up?  I feel like I end up hanging onto a song too long just because it's floating in 30's.  There are songs where I jumped on it early and waited and waited and it never took off.  Now, it's in the 20's but I'm not getting any requests or feedback that would suggest I put it back in.  What to do?

A:  I would be slow to add anything but things you until you absolutely believe will make it to the power rotation and then try to stay with them as long as you can - until the promotion team walks away from them OR your local research on them looks weak.  Drop them as soon as you see one of those indications.

It's a waste to add things and familiarize your audience with them only to drop them, so of course be as selective as possible.

Did you see M O'M's great blog on this yesterday (Country Artist Discovery Matrix: Who’s “New” Varies by Demo)?  The younger and more female your target, the faster and newer you can be.

If you want 40+ and especially men, then wasting time on tunes that you don't know if they will make it or not which stay stuck in the high 20s and 30s is going to hurt you. 

Missing the boat on one or two every great once in awhile means you're probably doing it exactly right, but if you find yourself dropping four or five songs every month and then adding more new ones that you also end up dropping in another month, you're probably moving too fast for the tastes of the majority of your audience, hurting both cume and TSL.