https://radioinsight.com/ross/172026/why-soft-ac-is-booming-now/
I read this article. Your thoughts?
I read this article. Your thoughts?
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Soft AC making a comeback?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
The growth of streaming services like Pandora and Spotify has likely brought new interest in the 45-64 demo which is probably less likely to use such services as is mentioned under "Adult formats are booming".
The radio pros, though, keep reminding us that their research shows radio being used by over 90 percent of Americans, which would indicate that, despite purely anecdotal "no one I know" tales of younger people ignoring radio or not even knowing what radio is, there is a sizable, apparently invisible, majority of them who are still listening, and that number dwarfs the user base for Pandora and Spotify,
The real motivation for this format, from what I can see, comes from the ratings success of several stations, including KISQ in San Francisco. They launched as The Breeze in April 2016. Then of course The Sound in Seattle last year. There's a lot of slicing and dicing of the upper portion of the demo going on right now.
What I haven't seem is solid revenue success. Until that's documented, it becomes primarily useful as a flanker format, and that's about it.
The radio pros never talk about time spent listening when they cite that figure. Sure, just about everyone listens to radio a few minutes a week. But:
According to Arbitron and Nielsen data, radio TSL is down immensely since 2008. Persons 12+, daily usage:
2008: 2h 48m (According to the 2008 Arbitron Infinite Dial report)
2016: 1h 47m (According to the Q4 2016 Nielsen Total Audience report)
Presumably the drop is greatest among the younger listeners. In the 2016 report, Nielsen says those 50-64 use 48% more radio hours than those age 18-24.
According to Arbitron and Nielsen data, radio TSL is down immensely since 2008. Persons 12+, daily usage:
2008: 2h 48m (According to the 2008 Arbitron Infinite Dial report)
2016: 1h 47m (According to the Q4 2016 Nielsen Total Audience report)
Presumably the drop is greatest among the younger listeners. In the 2016 report, Nielsen says those 50-64 use 48% more radio hours than those age 18-24.
TSL has been declining since the late 80s. At the time it was attributed to new devices like Gameboys. Declining TSL has changed the way radio is programed and sold. Then of course the thing that happened in 2008 was the arrival of PPM.
If you think TSL is low for OTA radio, you should look at the numbers for streaming services like Pandora. It's about half that of OTA.
The 2008 report, based on 2007 numbers, was diary data. The PPM reduced average time spent listening by 40% due to more precise measurement; we can't compare diary based data with PPM data.
That said, since the PPM began, there has been a reduction in Persons Using Radio (PUR) from around 12 to as low as 8 in some markets. And that is a PPM only measurement, based on 10 years of data.
The only station with the format long enough for revenue data to be analyzed is WFEZ and, perhaps, WDUV.
WFEZ, which had dreadful billing when it began as a really old WDUV-like easy listening station, is now #1 in 25-54 and it is also now top 5 in billings. The success was so great that WDUV was reformatted from easy listening to the "new" vision of soft AC, moving from 15th in 25-54 to the top 3 and billing moved from 15th into the top 10 within a year.
The other stations are really too new in the format for revenue to catch up with the ratings. What we don't know is whether the power ratio of this kind of station will be low or not yet.
I really do not see "new interest" in the 45-64 demo. That is because there has never been advertiser interest in the 55-64 demo in the ratings and agency driven markets.
45-54 and, more broadly, 35-54, have always been the target of formats ranging from Classic Rock to Classic Hits and Adult Hits (even Adult Hits in Spanish, too) and Urban AC.
What's happening now, but only in about 6 "proven ratings results" markets, is an interest in a softer and totally gold based AC format. As classic hits stations have become more up tempo and rock leaning, and AC stations have been playing around 20% currents, there has been a gradual opening of opportunity for a more traditional AC format.
The idea that folks in the higher end of the sales demos (35-54) don't know how to use smartphones and the Internet has been amply debunked.
I'm often surprised how aware younger demos are of older music. And conversely how aware some older demos are of newer music. This is not to say it becomes their primary music of choice. But it's becoming harder to make generalizations these days.
I just re-read the Sean Ross article in the OP, and there's one point that really caught my attention:
"Meanwhile, AC has essentially disabled its ability to start songs without Top 40. “Tequila” by Dan + Shay and “You Say” by Lauren Daigle are the 2018 equivalent of “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw and “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me — the sober but quite legitimate Country and Christian AC crossovers that gave AC something to play in the early-to-mid-‘00s, before the CHR product began flowing again."
This is so true. I can list ten songs like the two examples Ross gives that weren't even sampled by AC. Songs that have already proven their value in other formats that should have found new life in AC. I'm talking about Grammy nominated songs. Lots of artists found crossover success this way ten years ago. Now the door has been closed. My question is who is closing the door? The record labels or the radio programmers? I don't know, but I'm going to start asking that question tomorrow. I suspect its coming from labels, because I don't even see these songs being offered to AC. If a label doesn't attempt to break a crossover song, it's not likely to happen under its own power. Songs need a push. The push comes from great promotion people. We're at a time when Top 40 is in a down cycle. It's time for the music industry to wake up and seize the opportunity. Bring back the crossover hit.
"Meanwhile, AC has essentially disabled its ability to start songs without Top 40. “Tequila” by Dan + Shay and “You Say” by Lauren Daigle are the 2018 equivalent of “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw and “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me — the sober but quite legitimate Country and Christian AC crossovers that gave AC something to play in the early-to-mid-‘00s, before the CHR product began flowing again."
This is so true. I can list ten songs like the two examples Ross gives that weren't even sampled by AC. Songs that have already proven their value in other formats that should have found new life in AC. I'm talking about Grammy nominated songs. Lots of artists found crossover success this way ten years ago. Now the door has been closed. My question is who is closing the door? The record labels or the radio programmers? I don't know, but I'm going to start asking that question tomorrow. I suspect its coming from labels, because I don't even see these songs being offered to AC. If a label doesn't attempt to break a crossover song, it's not likely to happen under its own power. Songs need a push. The push comes from great promotion people. We're at a time when Top 40 is in a down cycle. It's time for the music industry to wake up and seize the opportunity. Bring back the crossover hit.
I am surprised at the number of songs that many AC stations refused to play in recent years -- even those that made it into or near the Top 20 of the Billboard AC chart nationally were largely ignored, such as:
Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out (#17 AC)
Sam Smith - Like I Can (#17 AC)
The Revivalists - Wish I Knew You (#18 AC)
Weezer - Africa (#19 AC)
Foster The People - Sit Next To Me (#21 AC)
Ed Sheeran - Don't (#24 AC)
Mr Probz - Waves (#25 AC)
Sheppard - Geronimo (#25 AC)
Charlie Puth ft. Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye (#27 AC)
Little Big Town - Girl Crush (#29 AC)
Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out (#17 AC)
Sam Smith - Like I Can (#17 AC)
The Revivalists - Wish I Knew You (#18 AC)
Weezer - Africa (#19 AC)
Foster The People - Sit Next To Me (#21 AC)
Ed Sheeran - Don't (#24 AC)
Mr Probz - Waves (#25 AC)
Sheppard - Geronimo (#25 AC)
Charlie Puth ft. Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye (#27 AC)
Little Big Town - Girl Crush (#29 AC)
OK, let's take the top song on the list: In its most successful week, there were 16 current songs that were more popular. 16 currents seems like a lot for an AC. The number is probably closer to "five". AC is not "current driven and probably never will be. To some extent, that's what Hot AC is for.
And Hot AC is more likely to draw whatever crossovers it programs from Urban. Weezer, Sheeran and Puth ft. Trainor aren't what that format is looking for.
Not as much "from urban" as "not from alt leaning". The focus of Hot AC is to be pop without hardcore anything. Rhythmic but not r&b, and so on through the genres.
But most of the AC stations here in the NJ/NY area play songs with rap sections included, such as Maroon 5/Cardi B, Max/Gnash, Charlie Puth/Wiz Khalifah. And Nickelback's "Photograph" has been consistently on AC playlists for over a decade now, even though it's pretty "hardcore" rock and was only a #16 AC hit when it was new. Heck, even Soft AC stations like WISX are playing it!
So I guess hardcore is OK on AC as long as it's the kind of hardcore that soccer moms like. Probably the alt-leaning songs' fatal flaw is that they are too male-leaning.
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