When coaching and consulting programmers, I meet the most resistance when I encourage them to adjust their process for adding and moving new music. Which I get, I have to fight the urge to be a creature of habit myself. When our job depends on doing something well, sticking to a process that we’re comfortable with makes us all feel a little safer. But, that process was developed before we had massive amounts of readily available data and were therefore forced to trust our gut instincts on whether we should add or move a song. That’s no longer the case. The big mistake many programmers continue to make in 2024 is putting too much emphasis on their gut instinct about whether a song ‘fits’ their station sonically and too little emphasis on data that’s irrefutable.
Country is a radio genre that’s really struggling with the gut versus data dilemma. So, it’s a particularly interesting case study right now. Country music is being absolutely dominated by just a few massive stars. Morgan Wallen is the undisputed number one, despite his many attempts to derail his career with off-stage antics. Luke Combs is still in the number two slot where he’s been for the past few years. But, country is also being infiltrated by legit pop stars like Beyonce and Post Malone. Beyonce met massive ‘doesn’t fit the sound of our station’ resistance in the face of overwhelming data evidence saying her song ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ was connecting with the masses and deserved being added. Plus, it sounds no ‘less-country’ than many other songs that have made their way on country radio as it’s evolved over the past couple of years. Post Malone has met considerably less resistance, partly because he was smart enough to come out of the gate with songs featuring duets with established country artists to add to his country cred. Either way, I will always argue that when a massive star wants to fish in your pond, you should let them. Then there are edgier stars that country tried to ignore at first, like Jelly Roll (who started as a country rapper) and Zach Bryan (who is a much bigger star than country radio is willing to acknowledge.) Plus, newcomers like Shaboozey and Dasha are blowing up quicker than country radio is accustomed to. All of these things force country programmers to be a little more fluid and willing to adjust their model to fit how the country scene is changing as we speak. They have to be willing to add songs that are obviously connecting faster, play the top 5 to 7 songs much tighter than they typically do (even if a few are from the same artist) and lay off the weaker songs entirely. That often includes songs by established artists whose careers are fading faster than anyone wants to admit.
Other formats have seen massive shifts in listener behavior over the past few years as well that make programming from the gut problematic. Pop (Hot AC/TOP40) is more global then ever and needs to shift to be more accepting of a wider variety of styles and sounds to accommodate a wider variety of listener tastes. That’s because young people don’t hear formats or genres, they just hear songs they do or don’t like and they’re HEAVILY influenced by what they see and hear on social media. Hip Hop (Urban) continues to lead the way on artists releasing multiple tunes at once to see what sticks and radio is often too slow to react to data on those songs that makes it pretty obvious which ones are connecting and which ones aren’t. Rock has strengthened a little of late, but still only has a couple of legit stars, especially on the heavier side. To their credit most rock stations have gotten this message and adjusted by bringing in more recurrent and gold titles. But, they could still take a few more chances on artists and styles that push their sound in slightly different directions, like MGK and some of the rock coming from other countries like BabyMetal.
Although we should all adopt a more data driven approach, it’s important that we’re looking at the right kind of data. At Radio Station Consultant, we track how roughly 350 songs are doing across radio formats on the on-demand services (especially Spotify and YouTube) every week. We put a lot more emphasis on this data and a lot less on what other stations are adding. Doing this allows a station to be weeks ahead of other stations (that still mostly look at airplay charts) and to identify the handful of songs radio is playing that they shouldn’t and the other handful they’re missing but should be playing. However, there are still ways to utilize that well-honed gut instinct programmers have developed, it just needs to be redirected. Programmers can use that gut for identifying the ‘sound’ of a song to correctly code everything and separate styles. But, should NOT use it to argue with what the data shows our audience is already listening to.
What do you think? How much should gut instinct play a role in programming a radio station in today’s music climate? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
Pic designed by Tatiana_Mara for Envato Elements.