Maybe someone from iHeart will email me.. is Tenille Townes – Somebody’s Daughter not “One The Verge” Anymore?????
Marissa Moss are you paying attention? Dr. Watson?
Keith Hill
unconsult@aol.com 252-453-8888
Author Archives: Keith Hill
Uh Oh, Say It Ain’t So Tenille!
The iHeart Country Music Festival is over. I’m not sure when the “on the verge” for Tenille Townes is over.
Looks like it might be sunsetting.
You mean those plays weren’t organic?
Keith Hill
252-453-8888
Let the Free Market Work for All of Us!
Charts Can Be Deceiving!
Charts Can Be Deceiving
Welcome back to class folks. This is the place for FREE WORLDWIDE CLASSES in Understanding Country Music Radio, Charts , and The Play of Females on Country Radio.
So far I have maintained that country radio plays songs more when they test well and less or not at all when they test poorly. For the most part that is true. However, there are times radio stations play songs that they are told to play!
What?????
Let me explain. Everyone knows what payola is. First, it’s illegal for a radio programmer to take something of value in exchange for airplay. So to be clear, what I am going to write about is not payola. Plus, ever since Elliott Spitzer caught some programmers about to get big screen televisions for playing records, that practice has stopped. In fact, the record labels have lawyers who make sure the labels activities are in compliance. Every email you ever get from a record label will have that “legal-eze” below the person’s email signature. Something like, “Note: Nothing of value was given or will be given to a radio station or radio station employee in exchange for airplay.”
I happened to agree with Scott Borchetta, “Music Has Value.” There are good and honest hard working folks who promote music to radio. Promoting music to radio is a legitimate enterprise.
Welcome to 2019. There are some new things at work.
I’m going to assume that all of you have completed, “Music On Radio 101, 201, 301” because foundationally, a lot of this grows out of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That’s a law that essentially addressed the telephone industry. However, it did have a line or two about ownership of radio stations that changed the radio industry a bunch.
Fast forward to today. The Mediabase charts that Dr. Jada Watson and all of us look at have some important metrics that you need to know. The Country Mediabase panel is comprised of 156 radio stations. 52 of them are owned by iHeartMedia Inc. That’s about one third of that panel. So if those iHeart programmers all like a record, it can do pretty well.
Sometimes these PD/MD/Brand Managers play songs they don’t want to.
What???????
Well they do want to play them because they want to keep their jobs. So, truthfully your honor, they did want to play them.
It’s easy to appreciate that iHeartMedia corporate does things that are helpful to the individual stations. Certainly, a big festival in Austin on May 4thwould be a great event to have to promote, broadcast from, and send listeners to. Plus it’s in the very middle of the Nielsen rating period. So, if you’re the brand manager of an iHeartMedia station, you love this kind of corporate support.
Those programmers certainly have no problem playing Tim McGraw, Florida-Georgia Line, Dan + Shay, and Luke Combs records to support the show. In fact, playing more of those artists will help you in the ratings for sure!
Someone at iHeartMedia corporate had to work with the labels to get all of this done. It’s not hard to believe that a label or two would say… ,“we will give you a new act of ours for your show.” The label knows in turn they will get plays of this new artist as part of the promotion on iHeartmedia stations. Imagine for a moment Columbia Records saying to iHeart, “we have a terrific new female from Canada who is huge up there already and we want to break her in the states. We will send her to play your festival in Austin at no cost to iHeart, and in turn we hope that you will support her with on-air plays and mentions.”
The iHeart executive says, “great.” “Yes, I can’t make any measurable or specific promises, but we like to use our brands (stations) to promote our festival. So, we will encourage our stations to play her record. In fact, we have an internal term for that. We call those acts “on the verge.” So, you can be confident of our selfish efforts to promote the festival.
The deal is done. The record label offers the act without the specific promise of anything in return. They just want the exposure of the act. They also hope and believe that stations will play the new act’s record to promote the festival.
iHeart gets a terrific new female to add to the festival. That’s the definition of a WIN-WIN!
Now imagine you’re programming a meaningful iHeart station that carries some pretty good weight on the Mediabase panel. You get a friendly email from iHeart corporate programming that states you need to play Tenille Townes – Somebody’s Daughter 40 spins every week for the next couple of weeks. The email says, “it’s our On The Verge act and Tenille will be at the Festival May 4th! Thanks in advance for all your hard work in building equity into this very important iHeart Country Music Festival. See You There!”
If you check records in Mediabase, those 52 iHeart stations comprise about 20% to 30% of the plays and audience impressions on most songs (songs by Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood etc.).
Because of their benevolence, Columbia Records in turn gets a nice reward.
Those 52 iHeartmedia stations all play Tenille Townes. And not just play the song, but spin it at levels similar to those of power testing top 10 charting songs.
The result is that those 52 iHeart stations today comprise 74% of the spins and 80% of the audience reach and impressions for Somebody’s Daughter by Tenille Townes.
(That means the other 104 stations are contributing 20%-25% of the plays on the Townes record. They don’t have a festival to promote! However iHeartmedia does!)
So, when regular folks look at the charts and see Tenille Townes at 30, they think, “wow this must be a good record with that station count.” A cursory look at a few stations (WNOE, WYNK, KSD, WQIK, WDXB, WBUL, WDRM, WSSL, WCOS, KTEX, KXKT, WBBS, WBCT), and they are giving the song an eye popping 25 to 40 spins a week!
The truth is there is tremendous bias to play Tenille Townes.
I wonder if more than 10% of those iHeart stations would play it were it not for the “on the verge” email from corporate? I suspect that without the “on the verge” initiative, the spin counts would not be that robust.
Hey, let’s check that record after the Festival is over. They might continue to play it in support of an “after-glow” and “celebrate the Festival after the promotion.” The real test will be what happens two, three and four weeks from now. If the Townes record continues to climb, then Columbia will have done a righteous job. They will have primed the pump of success. After that initial advantage of exposure, the song might organically take off. IF that happens, we will have a new face with more equity. Check back in upcoming weeks, because I will check for you!
Because Dr. Jada Watson based a big “study” on Mediabase charts, she needs to understand that some of those chart positions are less than organic and natural.
Written by Adjunct Professor Keith Hill with a BA in real world experience. (Beware of folks with a Doctorate in Musicology who have never worked in radio and never added even one record!)
iHeartmedia is the parent of iHeartradio, and went through Bankruptcy Protection.
Class is in Session – Lesson “Carrie Underwood”
Class is in session! You do a job long enough you learn a few things. So we know 2, 6 and 11 are bad numbers for record promoters.
When country radio today gets a new record from Carrie Underwood we are BIASED in favor of playing it. WHY? Because she is a superstar with equity. Her face is on the Mt. Rushmore of Country Music Stars.
Cry Pretty never tested very well. Capitol fought that one hard. It was the title cut from the new album. They channeled their best Monte Hall and got that song to #9. It was a heavy lift. Then came Love Wins. It also tested uh… less than Capitol would have liked. But we played the song because it was Carrie. Their job as record promoters is to “promote” and they did but fell short and the song will forever be a #11.
I’m sure we all have great faith in Southbound. To me it is sonically better. Even the very biggest female in the format get bias in her favor but the songs didn’t test well enough to get the songs to above 11 and 10 respectively.
Next class will be about newcomer Tenille Townes.
This is me way back in Seaford, Delaware when 1280 WSUX (that’s right WSUX-AM) was country. It was a day time only station and in the summer was on the air till 8:45pm. That gave me an after school summer job. They made me music director. This was 1976. Red Sovine -Teddy Bear which I added was on the air. I knelt down because I wanted it to capture the studio equipment in the picture. Adjunct Professor Keith Hill with a BA in real world experience. (Beware of folks with a Doctorate in Musicology who have never worked in radio and never added even one record!)
Dan + Shay “Speechless”
Just so you know. I will remove the tape and keep talking!!!!!!
Coming soon more lessons about Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Tenille Townes records. I did not say “payola” .. I whispered “new payola.”
Keith Hill
252-453-8888
A PARODY OF DR. JADA WATSON’S “RESEARCH” TO HELP YOU BETTER UNDERSTAND
A PARODY OF DR. JADA WATSON’S “RESEARCH” TO HELP YOU BETTER UNDERSTAND
MY STUDY IS CALLED… “A CAREFUL AND THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT THE BIAS AGAINST BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM BY THE ICE CREAM MANUFACTURERS”
THEN IMAGINE YEARS OF GRAPHS THAT LOOK LIKE THIS:
CONSUMPTION OF ICE CREAM FLAVORS
AND FOR THE SAKE OF SAVING DIGITAL SPACE LET’S STIPULATE THAT IT’S BEEN THIS WAY FOR 53 YEARS 4 MOS AND 6 DAYS. YEAR AFTER YEAR BLUEBERRY COMES IN AT PLUS OR MINUS .02 OF 1%. CLEAR AND STEADY PROOF OF THE BIAS BY THE ICE CREAM MANUFACTURERS AGAINST THE BLUEBERRY GROWERS OF AMERICA. COLLATERALLY THERE HAS BEEN SIGNIFICANT BIAS AGAINST THE NEW JERSEY AND CALIFORNIA FRUIT GROWER ASSOCIATIONS.
ALSO OF SIGNIFICANT NOTE IS THE STRONG EXPENDITURES BY THE COCOA POWDER LOBBY IN WASHINGTON. ALSO THE VANILLA ACT OF 1981 WHICH MANDATED THAT VANILLA ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE BY ANY SHOP OFFERING ICE CREAM FOR SALE IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES.
THESE CLEARLY BIASED ACTIONS HAVE DEPRESSED THE CONSUMPTION OF BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM GOING BACK TO THE 1930’S WHEN THIS DATA WAS FIRST RECORDED.
ONE CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE OF THE DAMAGE THIS HAS CAUSED TO THE BLUEBERRY GROWERS TALLYS THE LOSS OF ACRES FARMED IN BLUEBERRYS HAS ATROPHIED OVER 35%. THE USDA ALSO CONSERVATIVLY ESTIMATES THAT 75,000 FAMILES HAVE HAD TO SELL FAMILY FARMS DUE TO THE BIAS AGAINST BLUEBERRY GROWERS IN THIS ANTI BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM CABAL.
WHY QUITE FRANKLY IT’S NOT A STRETCH TO IMAGINE SUICIDES AND EARLY DEATH RATES AMONG BLUEBERRY FARMERS HAVING SPIKED AS THE RESULT OF THE COORDINATED EFFORTS OF THE PURVEYORS OF CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA ICE CREAM.
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO STRATIFY THE DATA TO SHOW HOW CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA ICE CREAM MANUFACTURES EFFORTS HAVE EVEN PREVENTED THE BLENDED FLAVORS OF BLUEBERRY WITH CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA. HOWEVER, WE CAN SAY CLEARLY THAT THESE EFFORTS HAVE MARGINALIZED THE BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM CONSUMPTION IN INSIPID WAYS.
THIS WOULD BE A PICTURE WITH A SINGLE MESSAGE OF BIAS IF PEOPLE ONLY ATE ICE CREAM ONCE A YEAR. HOWEVER, SINCE THE AVERAGE PERSON VISITS AN ICE CREAM PARLOR 13.47 TIMES A YEAR, CONSIDER THAT ONCE A MONTH AND POSSIBLY FOR A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION PERHAPS, THIS HORRIFIC BIAS IS SIMPLY MAGNIFIED AND COMPOUNDED BY EACH CALENDAR PAGE.
COMBINE THE BIAS OF ‘WHAT’S OFFERED” AT ICE CREAM PARLORS WITH THIS REPEAT VISIT METRIC AND YOU HAVE A CYCLE THAT SIMPLY REINFORCES THE REGULAR CONSUMPTION OF CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA. WE WILL NOTE SIMPLY LATER THAT EVEN IF BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM WAS STOCKED AT A HIGHER LEVEL AND MADE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE CONSUMPTION OF BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM WOULD NATUALLY RISE. WE NOW HAVE A CYCLE OF CONSUMERS WHO DON’T SEE WHAT THEY DON’T SEE AND NOW OVERLOOK THE CHOICE. GOD FORBID WHEN IT’S NOT EVEN PRESENT IN THE GLASS FREEZER TO BE SEEN!
TIME AND BUDGET DIDN’T ALLOW US TO DELVE INTO THE RICH AND ROBUST DATA OF GROCERY STORE PURCHASES OF ICE CREAM. SUFFICE TO SAY THE SAME RETCHED BIAS THAT THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA MANUFACTURERS HAVE PURVEYED VIA ICE CREAM PARLOR CONSUMPTION IS SIMPLY MIRRORED BY GROCERY PURCHASES AND HOME CONSUPTION. ONCE AGAIN WE REPRISE THE SIMPLE FACT THAT BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM IS NOT AS PREVALENT AND SOMETIMES NOT STOCKED AT ALL BY GROCERS! THIS IS THE KIND OF BIAS THAT DEVELOPS THE CYCLE OF REPEATED CONSUMPTION OF CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA!
MUCH NEEDED STEPS ARE NEEDED TO CORRECT THIS INJUSTICE TO THE BLUEBERRY GROWERS OF AMERICA!!!!! IT WILL TAKE AN INDUSTRY WIDE ALL-IN SERIES OF EFFORTS. THEY ARE:
ICE CREAM PARLORS– STOCK MORE BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM. PARLORS THAT DON’T HAVE BLUEBERRY MUST BEGIN STOCKING AND DISPLAYING IT NOW. THE PLACEMENT OF BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT. IT CANNOT BE HIDDEN LIKE SOME DENT IN A CAR. IT MUST HAVE EQUAL DISPLAY TO THAT OF THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA ICE CREAMS. PERIOD.
MANUFACTURERS– ICE CREAM MANUFACTURERS SIMPLY NEED TO INCREASE THE GALLONS MANUFACTURED OUTPUT OF BLUEBERRY TO CREATE A FAIRNESS AND EQUITY IN OUTPUT. THIS IN TURN WILL FORCE THE SHEVLING AND PRESENTATION FOR SALE AND CONSUMPTION OF MORE BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM. THIS WILL BE A BEGINNING TO BREAK THIS CYCLE AND CULTURE OF ANTI BLUEBERRY BIAS.
PROMOTION– WE NEED TO MAKE JULY NATIONAL BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM MONTH. LET THIS NOT JUST BE A SINGLE MONTH PROMOTION. THERE NEEDS TO BE FIVE AND HALF MONTHS OF NATIONWIDE RADIO, TV, BILLBOARDS, FREE SAMPLINGS AND THE LIKE. AFTER JULY THERE NEEDS TO BE ANOTHER FIVE AND HALF MONTHS HALO OF THE MEMORY OF THE USAGE AND DELIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE CAMPAIGN. ONLY THROUGH A ROBUST CAMPAIGN OF MARKETING CAN BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM CLIMB UP FROM THE YEARS OF NON-STOP BIAS FROM TWO OTHER FLAVORS OF LEGACY PRIVILEGE.
MANAGEMENT AND AGENCIES– TAKE A PAGE FROM THE LEAD OF THE US AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS. WHEN TRUCKS STARTED OUTSELLING SEDANS TWO TO ONE THE AUTO MANUFACTURERS DID NOT STAND ROADSIDE IDLY BY. INSTEAD THEY SHUT DOWN HALF OF TRUCK MANUFACTURING TO CREATE A SMALLER SUPPLY OF TRUCKS. THAT EFFORT COMBINED WITH THE ARTIFICIAL FINANCIAL INCENTIVES CREATED BY THE US GOVERNMENT IN THE FORM OF TAX REBATES FOR THE PURCHASE OF SEDANS SLOWLY BEGAN TO CREATE MORE OF THE RIGHTEOUS BALANCE OF TRUCK TO SEDAN PURCHASES. WHILE WE HAVE NOT ACHIEVED PARITY, GREAT PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE BY THE SEDAN INDUSTRY IN PUSHING BACK ON THIS INGRAINED CULTURAL BIAS.
CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA GROWERS AND LOBBIES COME ON! YOU’VE HAD THE LEAD FOR LONG ENOUGH. PERHAPS IT’S TIME TO PASS LEGISLATION FORCING COCOA AND VANILLA MANFUCTURES TO PURCHASE BLUEBERRY FARMS SO THEY CAN HAVE BLUEBERRY SKIN IN THE GAME.
EATERS AND CONSUMERS – REALIZE THERE IS AN IMPLICATION TO YOUR PURCHASE CHOICE. DO YOU WANT THE FORECLOSER OF BLUEBERRY FARMS ON YOUR … LIPS? YOU MUST STEP UP AND CUT BACK AND SAY NO TO CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA FROZEN TREATS. YOU MUST ADD BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM TO AT LEAST A MIX (FAIR MIX PLEASE) OF YOUR ICE CREAM PURCHASES AND CONSUMPTION.
LASTLY
THESE SOLUTIONS ARE NOT HARD, BUT THEY DO REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT CHANGE. THEY REQUIRE PUBLIC COMMITMENTS, ACTION PLANS AND BENCHMARKS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY. THE DECISIONS DRIVING THE INDUSTRY SHOULD REFLECT AND REPRESENT ITS DIVERSE AND GROWING AUDIENCE. THE FUTURE OF ICE CREAM CAN BE ONE OF INCLUSION AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.
“I SAID TOMATO” NOW I SAY TO DR. JADA WATSON “BOVINE SCATOLOGY”
“I SAID TOMATO”
NOW I SAY TO DR JADA WATSON “BOVINE SCATOLOGY”
Over four years ago I spoke at Country Radio Seminar on a panel about music scheduling. Folks attended and took notes. Hopefully some learned some things. No controversy. Nothing said at the seminar itself was seen as controversial by folks inside the industry.
A few weeks later Country Aircheck reprised my comments. Then non-industry folks read it. When the sausage making was revealed there was a tomato explosion.
For four years now there have been numerous articles on the issue of the number of songs by females in country appearing to be low. I continue to maintain there is no misogyny. Instead there is a system to play what drives ratings up.
Now Dr. Jada Watson from the University of Ottawa has released what she calls a “Study.” It claims to be a “data-driven study of gender representation in the country music industry, which focused on the role of radio in the genre’s culture.”
The research was also supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
The “Study” also claims to have been done with consultation from WOMAN Nashville.
Rolling Stone has an article about it.
You can read the study for yourself. Below is my cliff notes version.
Here’s a link to the study.
https://songdata.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SongData-Watson-Country-Airplay-Study-FullReport-April2019.pdf
Here’s a link the article in Rolling Stone.
New Study Examines Impact of Country Radio Programming on Women
What does the study say? First, that council in Canada should get its grant money back. All Watson did was run and tabulate Mediabase reports. There is nothing new there.
Then she concludes
“Also new in this study is the discussion of spins. Focusing on the year-end spin counts for artists gives us a new perspective on how women factor into programming decisions. These results show that women are not receiving anywhere near the same amount of spins as their male colleagues, suggesting systemic issues of gender discrimination in radio programming far beyond what was originally presumed. The last five years (and in some cases 2018, in particular) emerge as particularly problematic for country culture, which lacks diversity and perpetuates gender biases. These results show us the results of programming decisions, and the impact that they have had on female artists and male-female ensembles.”
Let me reprise the heart of this:
“gender discrimination in radio programming far beyond what was originally presumed”
Well uh… sorry. There is NO discrimination. It is simply the result of the Free Market. Especially when it comes to the arena of spins! When songs test poorly we spin them less or not at all. When songs test well we spin them more. I’m here to report clearly and vividly that we often don’t even look at the artists and titles. We look at the percentage of Favorites, Likes, and Total Positive Responseto make the decisions of what to play more and less. Dr. Watson should know that she’s been in college classes from 2003 until 2015 studying to be the Doctor and Musicologist she is today. I see from her University’s web site she teaches Music Research. I presume that includes auditorium and call out studies and the many techniques of music hook research.
As for Rolling Stone a publication that has published articles about rape on the campus of UVA. Those articles by Sabrina Erdely had to be retracted and Rolling Stone paid a UVA Fraternity a one-point 6 million dollar settlement for the defamation that was printed.
Marissa Moss in the Rolling Stone article points out the outlier of Tenille Townes – Somebody’s Daughter. Funny. That just happens to be country music’s most played song that programmers are being forced to play right now. iHeart has Tenille appearing at their upcoming music festival in Austin. iHeart has an internal term “on the verge.” That means the local programmer is told he or she must play the song a certain number of spins. Dr. Watson this is not bias for the Townes record. It is a deal between iHeart and Columbia Records. I suspect that without this “deal” Tenille Townes would have less than a tenth of the spins she has now.
WOMAN Nashville. Yes, I engaged on twitter with them. They blocked me when I correctly pointed out that Twitter site was really ONE WOMAN Nashville. Staci Kirpach presented WOMAN Nashville as some large group of women working together. It didn’t even number five women.
You shouldn’t be able to take an opinion and present it as a study result.
Please let me repeat that one.
You shouldn’t be able to take an opinion and present it as a study result.
Dr. Watson you accuse me and legions of my co-workers in radio with gender bias. I say no bias exists.
I hereby accuse you of simply making bar graphs out of Mediabase data and not doing any study as the reasons for what you find. Dr. Watson didn’t study anything. No research. She just made graphs from airplay captured electronically by digital watermarks on songs played on the radio. She makes up a conclusion. It’s not based on anything other that her bias that the men and women in country radio are bad actors.
Dr. Watson have you even been a Music Director, Program Director or Brand Manager of a radio station? Ever added or changed the rotation of a single record on a radio station? Oh. you were busy getting a doctorate in Musicology.
Sorry Dr. Watson you have tabulated Mediabase data and made bar graphs out of the data. Then come to a study conclusion… “country radio has a culture of systemic bias against women.”
NOPE! THAT’S JUST BOVINE SCATOLOGY
THE TRUTH… IF YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH
Dr. Jada Watson is using data without finding WHY it is that way. It’s not because of radio. It’s because of the LISTENERS!
Keith Hill doesn’t have a doctorate in Musicology and has only been in the radio industry since 1973. Mr. Hill merely has a Bachelor of Science in Radio-TV-Film from the S. I Newhouse School of Public Communications and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. (81)
COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR 2019 50TH YEAR!!!! AKA WHAT’S WRONG WITH COUNTRY?
COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR 2019 50THYEAR!!!! AKA WHAT’S WRONG WITH COUNTRY?
I love country radio seminar. I’ve been to a lot of ‘em.
Me and Martina before I said “tomato”
Tom McEntee and those folks who helped create the seminar had a great idea. Country can be a strong format by embracing the labels, artists and sharing information and intel.
The Motto was and remains “Growth Through Sharing.”
Easy for anyone to say the agenda may not be what we need. In fact I know they have tried to address the input that “there needs to be more for small market folks.”
Here are thee most important things that won’t be discussed in any session.
Those would be:
Charts Are Useless
The charts are virtually useless because of the large numbers of stations from the same companies. Then those companies play the same new songs all in unison. It’s the New Payola. Two major corporations make a deal. The big label group gets major chain to play the same new record multiple spins a day on the same days. In exchange that group gets valuable promotional trips to give away to see one of the labels other major superstar acts.
The New Payola
The New Payola warps the charts and creates worse product for radio airplay. It’s in the labels best interest to keep cranking out new acts that get streamed. It’s immediate cash. Protecting the Mount Rushmore Superstars isn’t something the labels worry about. Those stars make more money from touring. The labels don’t’ get much of that pie. That’s why the labels do more to create a Russell Dickerson than to keep a Luke Bryan at a high profile level.
Who? Nameless Faceless Acts
This chart and label combination is the cradle and incubator of creating many more nameless and faceless artists. They manufacture their careers via artificially trumped up played singles. Radio needs stars much more than it needs songs.
Is This Even Country?
The strength of country has always been the excellent and robust song writing community. Then their fine material gets recorded. Have we stretched the production rubber band past its breaking point? I think what can be presented as country can be quite wide but now more than ever radio has listeners complaining about the music saying, “that ain’t country.” I am not suggesting we dust off Hank Sr. and Ernest Tubb. What I am suggesting is that there needs to be a production discussion. The problem seems to be the streaming revenue model will never reflect what radio needs. So revenue from streaming is more than just a competitor for time it pulls the product further away from what radio needs.
Radio Could Be Better – Two Things Scream For Attention
Radio is a local medium. The concept of voice tracking from outside of the market feeds the transmitter but leaves a lot not done. Who is cutting the ribbon at the remote opening the new cell phone store? Who is at the high school tailgate party? If the highest profile personalities are from four states away they can’t do these things. Let alone describe the weather, road closures, or things that are happening in that local marketplace.
Partly because there are fewer local radio announcers there is less time to write and produce quality commercials. Radio (Country Radio and all formats) run awful commercials. Poorly conceived, poorly written and produced with about as much care as taking out the garbage.
Our big problems are USELESS CHARTS, THE NEW PAYOLA, STREAMING HAS LED TO FACELESS ACTS, A LOSS OF AN IDENTIFIABLE COUNTRY SOUND, VOICE TRACKING, AND AWFUL SPOTS.
Sure could use a robust industry discussion on these topics.
The CRB Board isn’t interested in my voice. Why I actually share and tell uncomfortable truths. I’m politically incorrect. And the folks who run the CRS are political and politically correct. If they let Keith Hill have a voice why he’ll say that we actually play 15% women and then say the word “tomato.” God Forbid!
Keith Hill
252-453-8888
unconsult@aol.com
Does Radio Do This?
DOES RADIO DO THIS?
A guy who is an excellent production director I work with emailed me this clip of Steve Jobs and asked me the question.. “isn’t this was radio is doing?”
Steve Jobs looking at Xerox claims that they could have been the biggest thing in computers. The problem was the successful folks in sales were running the company. They sold copiers. They sold toner. They were called “toner heads.” She when they came in and saw the new computer technology they didn’t know what they were looking at.
Jobs claims that XEROX tripped up when the product development folks weren’t valued or given enough voice to the destiny of the company the sales guys caused the ills that prevented them from growth.
Does Radio Do This?
steve jobs on why xerox failed
Keith Hill
252-453-8888
unconsult@aol.com
AN OLD FORD ECONOLINE VAN AND THE COUNTRY RECORD CHARTS
AN OLD FORD ECONOLINE VAN AND THE COUNTRY RECORD CHARTS
There has always been some level of manipulation in all music charts. Why isn’t that the job of record promotion folks?
Promo Person on a call – “It just won song wars on KBBB 3 nights in a row and it beat star name!”
Another call – “hot phones in Parkersburg and Scranton”
Another call – “Joe Jones is testing it in Big City and it’s his #3 tester with 80% positive!”
Fast forward 35 years… “Hello Rod… we want to talk about a cooperative venture.” I can only speculate about the rest of that call.
I even suspect there is candor… “look my midline artist record isn’t testing well but I need a few more weeks so let’s talk about what we can do together.”
Now what does all of this have to do with a Ford Econoline Van?
Well many years ago in addition to my radio career I had several rental apartments. At one point I had enough of them that I needed to buy a van to move furniture and appliances. So I went really cheap. I bought an old beat up extended van that had rust holes and ran really rough. It actually barely ran. Oh and it didn’t lock and the dashboard didn’t work.
With a dashboard that doesn’t work you just have to drive what you think is the right speed. The real trick is always topping off the gasoline because you never really knew how much gas there was in the tank.
As I look at the Mediabase and Billboard I see clear evidence of manipulation, jive, deals, and various kinds of olas. I can only guess the compliance folks have found the loopholes, or are actually the sherpas giving guidance to the promo departments.
As I look at the charts these days it reminds me of that dash; it didn’t work on that old van. It didn’t give me any useful information.
Promotional initiatives with large groups of radio stations take rookie no name artists up the charts quickly while Mount Rushmore superstars climb like turtles with at least one broken leg.
Here’s what the charts do indicate today. They indicate what the labels want country radio to play. They in no way indicate the popularity of these songs with audience on America’s country radio stations.
I hate to sound like a presidential tweet but that’s “SAD.”
So, what do I do? What can you do? Do what I did with that old Ford Van with a dashboard that didn’t work. Drive very carefully.
Do you know what to play WITHOUT the charts?
Call Keith Hill 252-453-8888
