For a few hours on August 21st, 2017 was 1983 all over again, much to the horror of Soft AC radio veterans everywhere. That day’s total eclipse of the sun sent millions of Americans searching for the perfect song to accompany the astrological wonder—and they found it in Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 #1 hit Total Eclipse … Continue reading Context is King
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In our last post, we spotlighted four things you can only learn from callout. However, there are things even the most sophisticated and statistically reliable new music research can’t tell you. 1) Callout can’t predict which songs will become huge hits in the future For most radio programmers, there’s something deeply satisfying about discovering a … Continue reading Three Things Callout Can’t Tell You
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In past months, we’ve explored the benefits and shortcomings of various measures radio programmers use to gauge the popularity of new music, including Shazam®, sales and streaming data. It’s only fair to apply the same scrutiny to custom new music research, the tool we provide the radio industry. (Colloquially, most folks still call it “callout,” … Continue reading Four Things Only Callout Can Tell You
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When the 2017 Infinite Dial study revealed that AM/FM radio is no longer the #1 source for keeping up to date on new music among Americans 12 and older, alarm bells sounded for radio professionals. Even more alarming, radio now trails YouTube, Spotify and Pandora among the sources that 12- to 24-year-olds use to keep … Continue reading Resolving Radio’s Music Discovery Crisis
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Our recent blog series explained why radio should still look at sales data alongside streaming data to help pick the right new music. We noted that buying music isn’t the same as listening to music, a difference we examined in detail in 2015 when Integr8 was a part of Coleman Insights. Here’s a recap of … Continue reading Why Music Listening Is Different From Music Sales
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We’ve recently been examining whether you should rely more heavily on streaming usage or sales data when picking new music for your station. Our first post suggested that both sales and streaming data remain relevant to radio, at least for now. Our second post showed how streaming users are typically younger than music purchasers. In … Continue reading Do Your Format’s Fans Stream or Buy Their Music?
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In our last post, we concluded that even though on-demand streaming services such as Spotify are rapidly replacing paid digital downloads at online stores such as iTunes, song sales data is still a relevant metric for radio programmers to examine when considering new music for airplay. While there’s merit in examining both streaming and sales … Continue reading Are Sales or Streaming Data More Relevant to Your Station’s Music?
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Last November, The Chainsmokers’ “Closer,” topped Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart for the 12th week in a row. While “Closer” got a lot of press for how long it stayed #1, less noted was how few people actually bought it. A scant 84,000 paid to download “Closer” through iTunes and similar digital media providers during … Continue reading Should Radio Still Care About Song Sales?
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The five factors that predict how quickly your listeners get to know new music. Have you ever played a song for weeks, only to learn that many of your listeners still don’t know it? Meanwhile, other songs became familiar seemingly overnight. Back in a simpler time, programmers often heard that a song should be familiar … Continue reading Why Song Familiarity is Like a Leaky Bucket
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This is part two of our discussion on how examining exposures instead of spins will help you hear music rotations the way your listeners hear them. Our previous post introduced the concept of thinking about how often your listener hears a song on your station (exposures) instead of how often you play it (spin counts). … Continue reading What Your Sales Team Can Teach You about Song Rotations
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