All Access is a website that offers the latest radio industry news and music news, music promotions for record companies new music, radio station song charts, and much more. This interview was published on February 6, 2020
Q: You’re closing in on 20 years in the research business. The technology of today wasn’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eyes in 2001. How have those advances changed the way that you gather data?
A: The technology has been a godsend for music research. Today we literally can see exactly what music fans are consuming daily! No more assumptions, no more guessing. We’ve gone from the days of calling record stores, sending call-back cards, using telephone callout or published charts to streaming technology that tells programmers exactly what is being consumed. For radio, music meetings have become a much simpler exercise. Today our programming clients open their streaming research data each week, note the most popular songs being consumed by their listeners, determine passion, and make music list changes accordingly.
Q: As a former programmer, when you started the company did you feel that you’d immediately be able to provide information that radio didn’t know it needed?
A: When we started Bridge Ratings in 2001, the intent was to offer market listening ratings to small markets that were only seeing Arbitron (now Nielsen) ratings once or twice a year. Our goal was to offer a monthly service that would bridge the few reports stations were already receiving once or twice a year. Thus, the name “Bridge Ratings.”
We quickly learned that there was an untapped need for media consumption metrics that are more useful in understanding listener behavior and how all media platforms are impacting radio. In 2002, we began to add perspective to the ratings picture by giving insight into competitive digital behaviors as it was beginning to impact radio listening. Our ongoing Bridge Ratings “New Media Gauntlet” studies (available at www.bridgeratings.com) explicitly track how digital media has impacted radio.
The data we now provide is focused directly on actual consumption of all competitive media and is a more productive approach. Making music decisions by outdated methods like referring to published airplay charts, rather than streaming data, is programming by consensus. It dilutes the value of the most important songs, which are the ones listeners want to hear.
As on-demand music streaming has become a mass behavior, we began offering weekly detailed P1 format-listener streaming consumption data to an industry that was thirsty for listener and market-level song value insight. The barter option brings this definitive weekly research to companies with little or no research budget.
Q: Is there a difference in the way that you survey PPM markets versus Diary markets?
A: Not really. Listener media consumption is agnostic when it comes to tracking listener behavior. We are interested in true behavior as it applies to a spectrum of audio listening options over the course of a typical day. And we reflect that behavior by tapping directly into the technology being used.
Q: When you were on the other side of the table depending on research to help you win, what was the biggest thing that you thought was missing?
A: When I was programming, and later as General Manager of stations, my discomfort with the margin of error associated with radio ratings and music research were key drivers for the original reason I founded Bridge Ratings. I thought we could do it better coming from a broadcasting background.
The technology that has been perfected in the last two decades has enabled radio programmers to understand how their stations are being used and what music their listeners are consuming. Programmers’ roles have changed. Ever since popular, siloed radio formats became a big business, programmers held the position of choosing the music we thought listeners wanted to hear. Today, with 85% of Americans streaming music online, we have the technology and the metrics of on-demand streaming research to know exactly what listeners want to hear and can provide radio stations with that data so they can respond quickly to listeners’ specific song choices.
Q: Social media is engrained in our lives. Has that made it easier or harder to set up representative survey samples?
A: Bridge Ratings provides insights into radio listening, digital media consumption, and music preference as those insights apply across a multitude of platforms. Social media has become such a mass activity – even among Boomers – that the information is additive, supportive, and often expansive to the research we provide. Social media behavior varies across generations, so we can use those variances to provide a 360-degree understanding of how radio users and non-users use various media and why and how digital behavior is affecting radio listening.
Q: Is the size and influence of the Millennial generation a factor in the way that you generate your studies?
A: Our generational studies division, Genergraphics™, provides in-depth behavior analysis for media and lifestyle. I did a webinar series recently which covered each generation’s media behavior and how using a generational filter to understand consumption was far more effective than the demographics that our industry has used for decades. And this genergraphic understanding of behavior is more effective with targeted marketing needs. Millennials are certainly an important part of the mix when understanding media consumption and purchase behavior, but media behavior analysis data on Gen-Z is the most exciting I’ve seen in my career.
Q: What about Generation Z—how do you crack the code on their constant use of their phones? How do you get the attention of those who are paying attention to everything else at the same time?
A: We must be where they are. Gen-Z has perfected the behavior of multitasking. But this has become a mainstream behavior as well for most generations. We love our gadgets! In our most recent Gen-Z studies in 2019, more than 70% claim they are addicted to their phones. Social media and music consumption are the greatest uses and video dominates their engagement. We use online focus groups and social media groups and questionnaires to get clarification on Gen-Z behavior. Our Gen-Z focused division, TeenTrends™, conducts most of its teen research digitally and has found teens use their smartphones 20 hours per week – more than any other device -- and they gravitate to YouTube for music and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok for social media.
Q: There are so many podcasts available now. Is there room for all of them? Is there a living to be earned there?
A: Is there room for all the books or music that is available to us? Of course. We have choice! The expansive universe in these entertainment categories brings more people to usage. We’ve just passed 800,000 podcasts with over 30 million episodes as of December 2019. This can be overwhelming for some consumers. While the industry is continuing to show dramatic growth in both usage and ad revenues, decision-stress in podcast discovery remains one of the key findings that is holding back the growth. And with the proliferation of voice devices, and natively integrated podcast applications in cars, we’re sure to see audience numbers grow exponentially from here.
But the long tail we see in most consumer product categories exists in podcasting as well. The marketing of podcasting through word-of-mouth and the recent expansion and frequency of mentions on radio are helping identify the most popular podcast episodes and categories. And like the long tail of podcast episodes, there is a similar structure occurring in revenue generation. Most podcasts are generating significant revenues and, like with most media, the podcasts with the largest audiences are seeing the greatest revenue.
Q: Terrestrial radio competes with satellite radio, YouTube and a myriad of streaming options and is still used by over 90% of the population. What would you say to over-the-air broadcasters to make them feel good about the future?
A: Let’s be clear. Digital has certainly impacted behavior for radio’s time spent listening and the trend is startlingly vivid in our “New Media Gauntlet” graphic, which I mentioned earlier. Radio still plays an important role in the daily lives of 300 million listeners.
But how we listen to radio is changing, and radio has adjusted well. It still reaches most Americans every week because it still offers a variety of entertainment and information options and serves as the lifeblood of emergency communication.
Broadcasters should keep in mind that radio also serves a day-to-day role in the lives of its communities. Radio provides listeners with awareness of the great products and services of its clients.
Our studies show that radio listeners come for the love of music and discovery as well as information. Music radio continues to be the primary source of fan favorites, hits, songs they know, ties to the artists they love, along with the immediacy of audio information. Radio has done a fantastic job of adjusting to its digital competitive landscape through apps on phones, streaming, and smart speaker use. While radio may no longer be the sole portable entertainment medium, it remains a key component in most American’s daily lives and serves a key purpose for entertainment and information. Broadcasters should embrace the technical changes, continue to adapt, and do their best to understand listener needs by focusing on them every minute of the broadcast day. Broadcasters can be assured that they wake up every day knowing that listeners depend on what they do. Radio is still an entertainment medium and the future holds promise if the industry continues to be creative and effective at communicating its uniqueness.
Source: www.allaccess.com
Radio Continues to Miss the Hits 2019 Update
As you may know, my company, Bridge Ratings Media Research, has been specializing in the analysis of on-demand music streaming for six years. In that time we have been up close and personal with billions of data points related to songs that are consumed by choice (on-demand) on the many streaming platforms available - from Amazon Music and Apple to YouTube and Spotify and everyone in between, large and small.
We started providing this important “music intelligence” to radio stations and record labelsin 2014 and I’m happy to say that over time the discomfort associated with using streaming research to properly align radio playlists is beginning to turn to confidence.
While more programmers in 2019 began using our service , most radio stations still prefer other methods to gauge song popularity in this digital age of tech that puts essentially all the available music at consumers’ fingertips. All of that consumption information associated with listener behavior has become our clients’ secret weapon.
On-demand streaming services are attacking radio. Why more programmers don’t use their custom data to fight back is a mystery!
The slow adoption of radio to use this amazing technology and data has caused most radio formats to miss the right songs when it comes to properly representing their listeners’ tastes.
Over the years we’ve learned that the closer radio aligns their playlists with their local listeners’ consumption the great the time-spent with the station on a weekly basis.
Like it or not, radio listeners continue to want the “hits” from their favorite stations and, depending on the format, those listeners generally like to discover new songs as well. Research has shown that radio is one of most-mentioned way most people discover songs be they old or new.
And just to be clear, “music discovery” doesn’t necessarily refer to new recently released songs. Depending on the generation, music discovery means different things. For Quintile Four or Five music consumers - deemed occasional listeners by the amount of time they listen to music in a given week - we often see songs that have been big hits for weeks listed by some of these listeners as having “just discovered that song”.
So, here at Bridge Ratings, while supplying the radio and record industries with all this data weekly, we also keep track of how the industry as a whole is performing at reflecting true listener-song appeal.
We’ve just analyzed the radio industry’s success at mirroring listener tastes for 2019 and the results are mixed. These findings compare the percentage of hit streaming songs that stations add to playlists. “Hit songs” are defined as songs that sustain a top 40 streaming rank for six weeks or longer 2018 vs 2019.
We look at a national group of radio stations in six major radio formats, note the songs they’ve added and compare that list of “industry adds” with the reality of streaming song popularity at the time of those adds to playlists.
Keep in mind, the musically “active” radio listener - even passive radio listeners who may not stream as much music as the heavy users of streaming platforms - tend to be more aware of popular songs much sooner than radio programmers and record labels give them credit.
The following chart compares our Song Adds “Miss/Hit” rates from Full Year 2019 with the industry’s rates from Full Year 2018.
How to read: The Urban music radio format (R&B/Hip-Hop), missed 56% of the top streaming hits in 2019 compared to 50% in June 2019 and 45% in 2018.
Unfortunately, only 2 of six of the radio formats we analyzed improved year over year; Alternative Rock and Country . Urban, Top 40, Mainstream Rock and Hot ACs are missing more popular songs than a year ago.
As a whole -based on these six main radio formats - 47% of the songs added by the industry this month are true listener favorites based on the streaming data we track which is based on millions of data points each week. 53% were missed.
That 53% miss figure has held steady based on our analysis from the entire year 2018 in our report “Radio Missed Some Hits Last Year” when we found the industry missed or underplayed 52% of the most popular streamed songs of the year.
Certainly, music consumers use many options to hear their favorite songs and radio remains in the mix alongside increasingly popular streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Before the potent research data of on-demand streaming, radio programmers used to “pick the hits”. They listened to songs and determined for listeners what deserved to be heard on the radio. Over the years sharp programmers began researching song popularity by contacting record stores in the early years or conducting music testing in more recent years.
Today, though, the listener is in command and radio programmers who heed the data are seeing improved station loyalty, more frequent listening occasions and longer time-spent-listening.
From the data we see each week, radio can do a better job of not “picking the hits”, but by simply observing station-specific streaming data and playing the hits.
We’ll take another look at this topic mid 2020.
The Divergent Paths of Music Radio & Its Listeners Update
Since 2001 Bridge Ratings has been tracking and trending media consumption. Broadcast radio, internet radio, satellite radio, streaming, social media - it all is part of the daily manner in which audio consumers spend valuable entertainment time.
Traditional radio is no longer the only option.
So why are radio programmers missing the boat and not reflecting the tastes of their audiences.
Much has been written in recent years about the strengths of traditional AM/FM radio (its reach of 93% of the population) and its weakness (annual time-spent listening attrition).
“Traditional radio’s music exposure structures no longer align with audience need.”
For many, music radio these days still uses structural exposure playbooks from the 1970s.
What's wrong with that?
Music radio song category structures and exposures no longer align with how the audience consumes music and in our latest findings here at Bridge Ratings, we've discovered that passion for music radio is slipping for 75% of the four major music formats we analyzed: Top 40 (CHR), Country, Urban Contemporary and Alternative.
Reduction in passion for music radio doesn't necessarily mean less passion for the music; on the contrary.
Of the four music radio formats we studied, only Urban Contemporary continues to align its programming to the needs of its listeners.
The Study
Methodology: Bridge Ratings has been tracking radio usage since its founding in 2001. Since 2001 each year we have randomly selected 5 radio stations in the four music formats in three market categories: Major Market (Ranked 1-10), Medium Market (Ranked 11-40) and Small Market (Ranked 41+). This totaled 20 radio stations per music format in each market category. Sample sizes varied by format and by year.
We tracked listening occasions per personal interviews and on-line surveys.
For each member of our sample aged 12 and over, we tracked their preference and passion for each type of music associated with each of the music formats (Passion Index).
The result was a comparison of weekly listening tune-in occasions and the passion.
The following charts summarize our findings:
Top 40
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As with all of these format examples, Passion for Pop music on Contemporary Hit Radio/Top 40 remains high over the sixteen year term of this study. What has changed is the number of weekly occasions of listening. Drop-off began as early as 2006 - long before many of the alternative methods of consuming Pop music became available. The divide between the passion and the tune-in is significant for this format yet provides an opportunity.
“The gap between the Passion Index and the Tune-in Listening Occasions represents the growth potential for these formats.”
Country
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According to our samples, passion for Country music has sustained its high numbers throughout this period having reached its highest point today. And as well-programmed are many of the Country radio stations reflected in this study, the passion for the music and the number of times listeners tune-in each day has slipped and in 2010 began to diverge into a Country music life group that is not as satisfied with Country radio as it could be. The gap between the passion index scores and the tune-in occasion number is the potential the format has for growth.
Alternative Rock
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Evidenced in most of these music formats is the growing gap of non-alignment and nowhere is it more evident than in the Alternative Radio segment. Passion for the Alternative music category which can include everything from Alternative, Punk, Indie, Rock and Alternative Pop remains greater than the satisfaction levels delivered by the stations represented in this next chart. Despite the drop-off, the passion for the music is only 14% lower than it was in 2000 while tune-in to these radio stations on average has dipped faster after a high in 2007.
Urban Contemporary
Click on image to enlarge.
An example of well-aligned radio to its audience is Urban Contemporary as shown in the following chart. Passion for the music and tune-in occasions have followed similar growth trajectories since 2000 and today the format is performing better than ever. Does this have anything to do with the fact that Urban music tends to be the most-consumed whether by stream, download or physical purchase? We believe it does.
Solutions
According to a separate research study of radio program directors conducted late Summer 2016, only 44% of radio programmers used some form of music research. 70% of the group that doesn't use music research depends on published airplay charts to choose and manage their playlists.
The slow disintegration of station tune-in occasions not only aligns with advances in technology but also seems to align with an era when budget for solid station product research began to be cut or reduced and as revenues dried up since 2005, costs were eliminated and research was one of the victims.
“The disconnect between listener expectations and radio’s music programming provides an opportunity.”
Radio today continues to reach over 90% of the U.S. population weekly. And it's no secret that with all the entertainment options available, traditional radio has competition for the short attention span of most listeners.
With the varied audio options available to radio consumers, frankly they've gotten more sophisticated in their tastes, needs and expectations.
Our listener panels and the charts in this report point to one of music radio's key vulnerabilities: listener expectations are not being met.
Even listening behavior of older demographics have significantly adjusted to the influence of new technology.
The disconnect between listener expectations and radio's music programming provides an opportunity.
The radio industry can view this data in hindsight and wonder why time spent listening is dropping. However a return to investment in the product in the form of research, talent and marketing could resolve or at least halt the deterioration in listener commitment to radio stations that play music they are passionate about.