Saturday, August 24, 2013

Music City Math

Running Mediabase's "five day" chart on a Saturday is a weekly habit with me.

Seeing Monday-Friday spin rank without the distortions of weekend airplay can be a good indication of next week's label priorities. 



For example, it already appears that next week's #1 is going to be Carrie Underwood and then the likely chart-topper the following week will be Keith Urban.

With this week's #1, Brett Eldredge heading downward in spins after taking 44 weeks to top the spin charts, will Easton Corbin have the staying power to be all powered up the week of 9/2 for a #1 on 9/9?

You can be sure that his advocates are already battling for that place on the ranker.

As of this week, "All Over The Road" has been on the charts for 33 weeks (which seems like a youngster compared to the 56 weeks it took Lee Brice's 2010 debut "Love Like Crazy" to ultimately get only to #3.

Since radio power rotations are usually five to seven songs, the actual difference from radio's perspective between a #1 and a #7 is just a few spins per week on the average monitored station.

Don't tell that to a promotion person!

The best ones play the game weeks in advance, creating strategies and tactics designed to outrank competing artists, publishers and labels, all of whem have plenty of skin in the contest.

No one wants to end up at #2.

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