The Last 8 Years In Rock Listening Trends

Last week we took a look at the last 8 years of 12+ listening trends from Arbitron's 2010 Radio Today summary which runs through 2009.  Early next year we'll see the report that includes 2010 and the story for Rock formats will likely be trending down.

Over the 90s rock formats splintered into 5 groups - more than any other broad format group (AC, Country, Oldies, N/T, CHR, and Urban).  When we look at each individual group the graph takes some interesting turns:

The total shares for all of rock were fairly strong in 2003 and 2004 at just over a 13 share.  2005 to 2007 you can see a 10% dip down to the mid 11 share range and a recovery to the 2009 12.5 share in 2009.  Looking at the individual styles of rock:

Classic Rock - The leader with a pretty steady run ranging from a low of 4.5 in 2007 to the current high of 5.0.

Active Rock has also seen a pretty steady run with some pretty low shares hovering just below a 2 share in 2003 and 2004 and mounting a steady gain with peak years in 2008 and 2009.  

Alternative has been the losing format starting out with a 3 share and sinking to the 2 share range for the last 3 years.

AOR is still listed here but many of these stations play mostly Classic Rock and many have classified themselves as CR for sales purposes

AAA has a limited penetration in many markets hanging at the .9 share range till 2007 when it began to climb to it's current 1.2 share.  

In many ways this graph is looking more at history than current reality.

Classic Rock has enjoyed many gains from the bigger markets adopting PPM as well as an aging overall terrestrial audience during this period.  CR is a solid performer in the PPM system with familiar music, good at work penetration and many stations have a long standing brand.

Active Rock rose up in the last 3 years mostly on the back of a solid group of middle ground newer rock artists.  Nickleback, 3 Days Grace, Theory of a Deadman, Shinedown, and others built a sound that was aggressive, but still had the hooks to break over to CHR (in many casts), become big concert draws, and we even saw pop worlds like American Idol begin to look a bit more at performers with Rock backgrounds.

For the most part Active Rock held it's line and did not work with the more pop world rock from American Idol and as the newness of the middle ground bands began to wain it has moved more into a world that is clearly harder and more aggressive.   Godsmack, Disturbed, and other harder edge bands now lead the way in the format  This is music that will only show up on Active Rock and maybe some Alternative stations.  Over 2009 and 2010 this harder edge has taken over.  

In Alternative the spotlight on the Active Rock bands drew much of their attention or if they held back it cost them 18-40 male shares.  But, as the 2010 and 2011 shares emerge look for Alternative to start to really shine.  Alternative has started to sort out the indie rock world and we've seen a lot of artists emerge to gain the national spotlight.   Neon Trees, Phoenix, White Stripes, Kings of Leon, Black Keys, Mumford and Sons and more are starting out exclusively on Alternative and now crossing over to CHR and the national attention that will bring in more Alternative fans.  

Clearly we hit a fork in the road for Active Rock and Alternative in 2009 and 2010.  Active retreated into a much harder rock arena while Alternative seemed to go the other way.   If you look at the charts for both formats there was a lot more crossover from 2007 to 2008 than there is today.

The challenge in some markets where there really isn't an Alternative station on the dial is rather obvious.  There are also cases where the Active Rock or more current leaning AOR station could embrace some of the Alternative music?  If you are an uncontested Active Rock or AOR that does play currents -- do you bend and take on the bigger Alt titles?  It's a very tough call.  The harder rockers are very vocal and will broadcast their attitude clearly if you step out too far.  Will these formats and programmers end up being trapped by their core audience into a route that keeps them away from the spotlight music in rock?

While we may not see these trends in the graphs from the rock format listening trends they are there in all the other music popularity measures we have (sales, downloads, concerts, street buzz and crossover).  This will be a big challenge for 2011.  We already see a lot more new music activity in the Alternative camps than we see in Active Rock.  And there are lots of Alternative titles that many Active Rock programmers have hardly heard of rising in the charts.

There is also changes that will come about as the Millennials (currently 15-30 years old) evolve and become the biggest generation of potential radio listeners in the next couple of years.  You can read more about that in the Millennial series we did a few weeks back - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5.  Big questions to ponder in Rock as we head into 2011.

Rock's Music Drought

Happy New Year and New Decade

After 2 weeks of celebrating we're all back building great radio and of course that means the first music meeting or review of your currents for the year.

What's there?

Not much a bunch of 3 and 4th songs from releases as old as 18 months, a few new bands we added back in October that really haven't taken off yet and when you look at what's out to add -- it's even drier.  

We usually max out over the Summer and Fall as the music industry typically gets most stuff out before the holidays then takes off.  Hopefully we recover in Jan/Feb and by March we're off to a good year?

If you go back the last time we had a good year was 2008 and maybe 2007 for new releases.  Right now we are running on fumes for the Currents and there is not much out there to consider.   For most of the stations I work with we are revamping the clocks and adjusting rotations to deal with a new reality that new music will be scarce.  

The other factor we have to consider here is that Record Companies have been going through near death (or death) experiences and no doubt they are not signing as many new acts and also not able to work the old system to promote them.

So how are we going to capture new music and bands in the future (which seems to be now)?   Should we be scanning My Space? Digging bands out of the clubs and bars? That's pretty risky move and we all know the odds of hitting anything that sticks is probably worse than the lottery - especially when you are working this plan all by yourself for the most part.  

Obviously we need a whole new approach.   Any realistic ideas?    

Fall TV Shows - Change and Fantasy

Remember 5 years ago on TV when reality shows lead by Survivor and Idol were all the rage? The fad that started on MTV and TV from other countries was taking over. Every network was in search of reality shows while we saw comedies nearly disappear from the line up of the 5 broadcast networks.

As the new season debuts it looks like our programming friends in TV land are sensing a trend away from reality. There are only 3 new shows that qualify as reality out of 27 new shows set to debut this fall. You can see the full line up here.

One of the trends emerging is what I call supernatural drama. Heroes and perhaps Lost started the trend and now we have the Bionic Woman, Supernatural, and Journeyman that seem to be the opposite of reality. The plots, like Heroes, are built on people with super/extra powers - the opposite of a reality thread. There are even comedy shows in this vein like Chuck and Aliens in America.

One of rules when you track trends for popular entertainment from movies, TV or music is that once a fad or trend starts to become huge a balancing will follow with the next trend often coming from the opposite pole. Looks like the TV programmers with there test audiences, research and guts are betting on the decline of the reality era and into a fantasy land of drama and comedy.

If you look back at the early 80s we had a similar trend. From the sitcoms of the 70s like Happy Days or 3s Company to a shift lead by space movies like Star Wars and ET. We even ended up with cars that talked.

Remember the old sayings.

-Change is good
-When your through changing - you're through.
-Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.John F. Kennedy:
-Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

Keep that in mind as you listen to new music, craft your imaging, plan your promotions and coach your talent. What worked today or yesterday is likely to be inadequate in the future.

Arbitron National Numbers - Rock is UP!!!

For the first time in around 18 months we are seeing Rock's shares improving in the national format breakouts from Arbitron. These are the numbers from the continuous markets (up to roughly #100) and the shares have improved from the all time lows of 7.3 (Fall 06) and 7.2 (Winter 07) to a 7.9 in the Spring 07 analysis. Active Rock was flat at a 1.9, AOR was up to a 1.9 (from a 1.6) and Classic Rock went 3.9 to 4.1 (Winter 07 to Spring 07.

For some reason Alternative has it's own format group with AAA and it was down 3.6 to 3.4 Winter to Spring. Actually we should lobby to have alternative join in on the rock subgroup here. Hispanic has a summary of all hispanic formats even though there are 11 varations. And HC has 5 different formats.

Hopefully we can expect to see these shares improve as more markets come on-line for PPM. Realize that only Philly was into PPM for these shares and we will have Houston to add in Summer and Fall. Next Winter and Spring will also showcase opportunities from New York and other markets rolling into PPM numbers and we should see rock shares improving. What would really push up the shares would be a decent return from the 18-44 Male population - it keep declining more and more with every month. Soon there will be NO ONE.

When you look at the growth of the new Clear Channel Rock station in Philly WRFF which has risen to nearly a million cume in just 3 months. With PPM we clearly see the results of a format flip RIGHT AWAY. Now Philly will likely be over 3 million combined cume for the rocks stations as WYSP converts from talk to Rock.

From 2 Rock stations to 4 in 1 summer in Philly.
Will this trend continue in PPM markets? Bet on it.

Rap Music - Is it Dead?

Recently while attending the Canadian Music Week meetings I wandered into a session called - Is Hip Hop Dead? An interesting panel headed by Guy Routee from the 90s' group Aftershock who now manages artists and others from the world of Hip-Hop. Of course they were keying on the statement from artist Nas who recently declared Hip Hop dead. Sales fell over 20% in 2006 for the first time in 20 years and no Rap artists pulled off a top 10 album in 2006.

The panel concluded that Hip Hop is really the 'culture' here and Rap was a music trend within the culture. Of course the culture isn't dead, but Rap as a music form is not the force it was just a few years ago. As Rap moved from the authentic street movements in N.Y. and L.A. to the glitter and excess of success it lost its roots. Once McDonalds decided to re-make its image a few years ago with rap infused TV campaigns the writing was on the wall. Suddenly it was all about the 'bling.' Now the original appeal was watered down and the Hip factor was fading fast.

Music styles are clearly cyclical. In Rock we can go back to the 70s and watch the supergroups emerge in the early part of the decade with Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, the Stones and many others. The rebellion factor with longer hair, longer songs, and the rock lifestyle grew into the corporate rock days of Foreigner, Boston, Bad Company and others. In the mid-80s we began to see the decline - ever watched some of the Whitesnake videos? Suddenly it was all about hot cars, lots of babes, and being stars - not artists. Look further back to the Motown days which started out with an authentic sound from the streets of Detroit, but by the 70s it had become a glitzy show that had largely moved to L.A.

What's next? Indie rock will likely be the new 'authentic' music form from the streets of MySpace with a sound that's pretty much a 180 from the Rap style. Pop songs with bit of a folk side from small independent bands that are more geared to building themselves instead of being built by a big label machine. While some might label it as an extension of the Alternative sound of the 90s Indie bands are emerging quickly in the 16-21 age group. There's even a movement within the Afro American community for Indie bands with the Blipsters.

How will radio respond? Hopefully we will - MySpace is already way ahead of us in leading the charge here. Internet radio is also ahead of us. It's also a tough landscape with lots of bands, very little formal infrastructure (like the record labels). We may need to put down the charts, stash the research for a while, and find a way to connect with the streets again - only in this case the street may likely be on the Internet in the social networking world.

We also face little interest in non 25-54 formats and right now this movement is a lot more 18-34.