Top 40 Music - Chicken Vs Egg???

One of the sharpest programming consultants and also a top advisor at I Heart Media is Guy Zapolean.  He's a father of the Hot AC format and a veteran of many Top 40 success stories for probably 30 years or more.  Guy has seen the music landscape and studied it in depth from a premise that Top 40 is a blend of music styles that focus on the best of  Pop, Urban, and Rock music styles.  When the blend is in balance the format has the best opportunity to win.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing and summarizing Guy's work and you can read more in the articles he's recently published in All Access.  He has also published older reports on much the same premise in All Access.

Here are links to the articles

The first outlines the theory
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/26826/the-music-cycle-the-extremes-approaching-in-2018

The 2nd goes deeper into the data and yearly summary charts to show the effect of the theory on music popularity.
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/28915/the-music-cycle---the-extremes-are-here-as

The 3rd looks at the rebirth of the cycle.
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/20592/zapoleon-music-cycle-update-exiting-doldrums-and

The theory builds on a few key premises to success in the Top 40 format.

• Centrist Pop music is the 'glue' that holds the format together.  Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5 are example artists.  The key element for Top 40 is getting Moms and Daughters and the balance of Pop is what holds them together. 
• Hip Hop/Urban and Pop Rock/Alternative are the other 2 key elements for the format.   Hip Hop has been growing and growing over the last 2 decades and now we have a chart that has a lot of Drake, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone and more bubbling under.  There is also a Pop/Alternative side with Imagine Dragons, Lovelytheband, Panic at the Disco all having top 20 songs.  
• Hit music has 3 cycles in Guy's theory. 
• Birth - An explosion of pop music - The Beatles hit, MTV ushers in a wave of new artists, American Idol shines a big light on pop music, are all example events that spawned an explosion in pop music.  
• Extremes - The growth of Hip/Hop/Urban and Rock sides in popularity pushing the Pop elements to the background in the mix. 
• Doldrums - A phase where the balance is focused more on the extremes and the Pop music glue that holds the center of the format together is weaker and weaker.  

Guy's analysis on where we are now in the articles shows Top 40 is in the Doldrums.  The music mix has moved to Hip Hop/RB/Urban percentages above 50 in popularity charts and Pop has fallen to under 30.  In top 40 Airplay charts we still have Hip Hop/Urban around 25% and programmers have tried to keep Pop at 60%.  The format is forcing itself to stay in a Pop lane even though we see more energy in Hip Hop now. 

We've seen CHR stations slumping a bit in the ratings over the last year and this music cycle is a clear factor.  Guy's case is well laid out and the proof in his tracking of the CHR audience over decades is clear.  The data is clear that there is a slump in audience and the need for center pop songs/artists is pretty threatening.  

But, is it the Chicken or the Egg?  How much does radio AIRPLAY factor into making music popular?  

When you start looking at the charts and focus on the Pop songs and Pop artists you can see a clear favored status for Hip Hop music and Pop songs that might have been given enough spins to get them into the top 20 or top 15 fizzles out or take a long time to build.  

Look at 2 groups of songs here from the Top 40 charts this week.  

Juice Wrld, Post Malone - Sunflower, - The most dramatic here is Post Malone's Sunflower which in 3 weeks is already in the top 20.  Post Malone is on a huge roll and anything he's in seems to take off.  Juice Wrld took only 6 weeks to crack the top 15. 

Shawn Mendes - Lost in Japan,  Silk City/Dua Lipa, and Alessia Cara - Trust My Lonely.  Alessia is a huge talent with a lot of success to bank on.  But, after a full month only 60% of the CHR stations are playing the song and it sits in the 30s.  Shawn Mendes has seen more success with most adding him over a month ago and he is above 20 in airplay but the song is moving slowly through the 20s.  Dua Lipa could be a sign of a very strong new artist and part of a new birth cycle. She has had 2 hits in the last year and this is a good pop song,  but it's taken over 2 months to get this song above 20.  

We also see songs handing around the top slots forever.  Maroon 5 - Girls Like You is approaching 6 months of airplay and 420,000 spins, still showing top 5 airplay.   Post Malone - Better Now has a similar story 380,000 spins and top 5 with 7 months in the field.  Some of this is the importance of recurrents or very familiar songs in the PPM world.   New music and artists are a tougher sell to PPM programmers.  The PPM Media Monitor meters nearly always show a dip with new songs -- so caution is taken.  Why play the new Dua Lipa when you can spin Maroon 5 again for the 500,000th time.  

The question I'm posing is - do Top 40 programmers have enough influence over pop music to be able to do a better job of playing songs that fit the need for a strong pop center and keep the glue that holds the format together strong?   Or is it all determined by the audience?  Don't we still have enough leverage to have some control over the needle?  Do we always wait for the audience to tell us or do programmers seek out the songs that will balance the mix? 

While we can't win by playing stiff songs that don't cut it with the audience we can keep our balance and perhaps look not only at the charts but also at the value of the song in the mix a little more.  Could we also keep an eye on the whole audience, not just the Hip Hop fans?  We seemed to sit and just watch the flocks of moms and daughters and dates heading to Lady Gaga's Star is Born and ignore the big song from the movie.  Now we are playing catch up as the movie wraps up its theatre run with huge reviews and box office numbers.   

Now we see why Guy calls it the Doldrums.  

How Close Are You To Your Audience?

Are you close enough to really engage them? Or are you a distance voice reliant on the music you play that they can find in many places - with and without advertising? 

Is your audience a real part of your station, or just a set of ears on the other end of the speaker.  Do you really have a team of personalities that can engage an audience?  Or is it all 'phoned in?'

Do you really know what entertains the audience and engages them?  Or have you given up trying? 

All of these questions may seem obvious, but take a few hours and just listen to your stations.  For many, it may be time to find a way to authentically engage your audience again. 

We all can see a world of new engagement and entertainment on every level.  Radio is still reaching over 90% and has pretty healthy engagement, but the more we sit back and let our programmed automation take the lead we risk losing the connection that made radio so effective.  Just a few thoughts as 2018 gets rolling and see Spring ahead.