Catch A Code

A&O&B has been ranking the most played songs at the end of every year and then ranking that list by how each one researched with listeners.

It is always instructive to understand the differences between what listeners rated highest compared to what radio played the most.

Here is another important use of those stats, as illustrated by the top testing song of each year since the turn of the century:

2013:  Blake Shelton - Boys ‘Round Here
2012:  Luke Bryan - I Don’t Want This Night to End
2011:  Blake Shelton - God Gave Me You
2010:  Miranda Lambert - The House That Built Me
2009:  Billy Currington - People Are Crazy
2008:  Kenny Chesney - Don’t Blink
2007:  Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
2006:  Rodney Atkins - If You’re Going Through Hell
2005:  Toby Keith - As Good As I Once Was
2004:  Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying
2003:  Dixie Chicks - Travelin’ Soldier
2002:  Alan Jackson - Drive
2001:  Diamond Rio - One More Day
2000:  Faith Hill - Breathe

It's a reminder of how one only thing consistent about country fan music tastes is change.

Superstars today are a completely different list than just a few years ago.  What seemed so new and edgy a few years ago now sounds very mainstream. 

Hopefully, each year - at the very least, if not more often - you revisit the song types, sound coding, era codes, special artists and A-B-C artist codes in your music system.

If it has been awhile, here's a fast reminder that you may have all of your music categories completely up to date, but if your coding isn't, you're playing today's hits with yesterdays policies and priorities, making your sound target older than you believe it is!

MLK Day Must Have Been A Slow News Day For Radio's Trades

• Radio Ink's top story:  musicFIRST Slams NAB, Radio on Playlist Repetition
• Radio World: MusicFirst: Radio Song Repetition 'Shocking'
• RAIN:  Bill O’Reilly recommends Pandora
• Legendary programmer Bill Hennes wants us to factor in music sales data:  Programmers Take The Easy Way Out

NAB's Dennis Wharton, fortunately, was quick to add some facts to the fury:  “If the charge is that local radio plays popular music that listeners enjoy, we plead guilty."

In about three weeks each and every A&O&B client will know precisely how many of their listeners use Pandora and all other media choices at their fingertips and how satisfied their average listener is with their favorite radio station, thanks to Roadmap 2014.  If you're an A&O&B client, don't miss this free opportunity to get facts and stats to guide you in the coming year!

Weekly callout, online testing, other innovative music tests and mScore tracking are among the many tools that take the guesswork out of programming decision-making you should be using if you have concerns about your potential audience's music preferences.

You can literally ask a large number of your listeners whether they are tired of hearing a song on the radio, whether they'd like to hear it more, less or about the same.   Track this over many weeks, follow their guidance and watch repetition complaints go down and time spent with your radio station increase.

This isn't a new idea.  Radio has proven its effectiveness for more than 30 years.

Music sales numbers mean a lot to you if you're an artist, a publisher or a record company, but I hope my radio competition uses them determine their music rotations.  I'll test them with my target audience and beat them every time!
  
Finally, the only reason I'd be concerned about what Bill O'Reilly makes use of to get his music when he wants it would be if you know that he had previously cumed your radio station.

How Much Influence Should You Tube Play In Music Decisions?

Jay Bedford, Program Director|Music Director|Morning Host at 1035 The Eagle/Sydney shared this fascinating factoid:

"So here are our five Power Currents for this week ... 5 of them ... and the corresponding number of views on YouTube ... plus one more song!

3.9 million views ... Blake Shelton ... Mine Would Be You
3.5 million views ... Chris Young ... Aw Naw
2.9 million views ... Tim McGraw ... Southern Girl
2.4 million views ... Robby Johnson ... South of Me1.2 million views ... Miranda Lambert ... All Kinds Of Kinds
1.1 million views ... Zac Brown Band ... Sweet Annie"

He asks:  "Should these figures have an influence? Those are amazing stats for an unknown guy from Quebec that is not play listed on any major radio stations. (Song is not Canadian content even though the artist is Canadian.)"

My reaction, after being intrigued, impressed and watching the video, is that streaming and downloads are a lot like sales figures.

I want to know more before deciding it's right for my radio station.  It would be interesting to see the location of the hits and views/listens to see how many are from your local area compared to the others.

Callout and online testing are still my major criteria for this reason, even over mScore tracking.

You know they are your heavy users, and even their age and gender cell, so you can target what we choose to play, but goodness knows this is certainly a great sign, among the many emerging stats that radio needs to stay aware of as listeners find new ways to discover new favorites.

In Canada, Average Is Getting Better

It's the time of year for making lists and checking them twice.

Among the year end rankings that A&O&B's music statistician Michael O'Malley creates is a Cancon ranker of Canadian content music based on how it performed in listener research.

In 2013, 140 current hits were rated by Canadian country radio fans.

• Nine of the top 50 were Cancon (18%), down from 16 in 2012, 12 in 2011 and 11 in 2010
• 30 of the top 100 were Cancon (30%), flat from 31 in 2012, down from 37 in 2011 and 36 in 2010
• 24 of the BOTTOM 50 in the 2013 tests were Cancon, down from 30 in 2012, 32 in 2011, 34 in 2010

Congrats and thank you to the the (largely independent) artists and producers of Canadian content songs for doing a better job of bringing up your averages by creating fewer tunes that never rose from the bottom of the research rankers.

There was a time in Canada when there was a cottage industry designed to make Canadian content music that radio was "required by law" to play.

Pleasing listeners while also satisfying regulators is better for all of us!

Fewer songs testing down at the bottom (and, maybe even, the top too) improves the overall averages and that is a step in the right direction.

New Gold Has More Than Just A Familiar Sound

A&O&B's Fall 2013 gold research composites are being tabbed and categorized now and probably the first thing most client stations will note as they placed the new gold recommendation on the air is the return of some “older” titles. 

Top of the ranker, by "net positive" among A&O&B USA client stations

Top of the ranker, by "net positive" among A&O&B Canadian client stations

In fact, two factors combine to make this development less startling then it first appears. 

The very small proportion of the library that now comes from the 1990's is songs that test very well 25-34.  

These young people may not even know that these tunes aren’t new country songs! 

They see them as a return to more traditional sounds, which is universally appreciated by the core. 

And, due to careful categorization of them, this well under 10% of your updated gold music library actually gets played less 5% of the time.

It's all about "variety," and research continues to reinforce that is highly-prized by most of the target, while their primary demand is to hear their favorites more than anything else.

They Always Say They Want Less Repetition

During the CRS 2013 session "PPM: 5 Strategies for Recall Markets" (an idea and data-packed session well worth buying the CD for if you missed it) both Jeff Garrison and Scott Huskey agreed it's almost impossible to overplay the biggest hits.

This isn't the first time I've written about this, but it's worth revisiting since "too much repetition" remains a consistent complaint from country radio listeners.

Using Pinnacle Media's "Online Tracker" here's how a typical station's ultra core heavy users responded this week as they were asked after hearing a song hook whether they wanted to hear every current the station was playing "more" or "less," when ranked by the highest "play less" scores in the test:

If you hear "too much repetition" from the folks who listen to your station an hour a day or more, I think that what they are really saying is that the don't like some of the songs you play.

High passion + low dislike = songs they want to hear more!

Peak Local Performance

What happens when a radio station commits $315,000 in development cash awards for local music?

Click here to see and hear the answer to that question.

The Top 20 are performing in the PEAK Performance Concert Series this Fall. The final three artists will be announced on Monday, November 1 followed by the final showcase and the crowning of the ultimate PEAK performer on November 18 at the Commodore Ballroom.

The 1st place artist will receive $100,500, 2nd is $75,000, 3rd is $50,000, 4th is $10,000, 5th is $5,000 and all 20 finalists will receive $3,500 each in initial artists development funding.

In addition to this, all of this year’s 20 finalists will receive a showcase spot at The Kelowna 2010 BreakOut West Festival presented by the Western Canadian Music Alliance October 21 – 24.

Last year the PEAK Performance Project awarded We Are The City with a grand prize of $150,000. The Left and Bend Sinister received second and third place, respectively.

The $5.29 million PEAK Performance Project is designed to educate, promote, develop and hopefully launch the careers of some of British Columbia’s top emerging artists. It also hopes to foster the province’s music industry and create a sense of community amongst music professionals. In addition to the rigorous six month artist development program and the $315,000 in artist development funding, The Pattison Group of Companies will also contribute an annual media credit of $1,000,000 in support of the PEAK Performance Project by marketing, promoting and advertising the PEAK Performance Project and the participating artists making it the largest individual radio station project in Canada.

The PEAK Performance Project is an initiative of 100.5 The PEAK and Music BC.

What could happen if your station committed a meaningful sum to help grow your local music community?

Hats off to Jim Pattison Broadcast Group/Vancouver for having the courage to go BIG.