Why More Songs Are Succeeding at More Radio Formats In the Streaming Era

Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” has been inescapable this year: Only two songs, Benson Boone‘s “Beautiful Things” and Zach Bryan‘s “I Remember Everything,” amassed more on-demand audio streams in the first six months of 2024 in the U.S., according to Luminate. Swims’ breakout single has also been embraced by five different radio formats, ranging from pop to Adult R&B to mainstream R&B/hip-hop. 

Historically, it’s not unusual for the biggest hits to perform well at multiple radio formats. Before the streaming era, in fact, this was basically a prerequisite to becoming a runaway smash.

But while songs often used to move gradually from one format to the next, conquering fresh territory on the airwaves over a period of many months, this process can now happen all at once. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” made history by hitting the top 10 in four formats simultaneously, becoming the first song to reach that mark on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay, Rhythmic Airplay and Country Airplay charts. Beyoncé, who helped introduce Shaboozey to a wide audience by featuring him on her Cowboy Carter album, was also top 15 in four formats for a week in April.

As labels push fewer songs to radio, veteran programmers believe it’s likely that more hit singles will be played heavily by multiple formats simultaneously. This potentially makes individual formats less exclusive, but it also allows radio to flex what remains of its mass-market power in an era dominated by streaming. 

“Right now, we’re pretty desperate for hits that everyone agrees on,” says Matt Johnson, program director for WPLW, a top 40 station in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Streaming has changed how people consume music, and they’re not as siloed as they were 10 or 15 years ago. So if it’s a quality record, they tend to have a wider footprint across multiple formats.”

“When a song moves at the speed of TikTok, it’s almost like deliberately choosing to lose momentum by going to one format and then going to another two months later,” adds Sean Ross, author of the weekly Ross on Radio newsletter. Now, “It’s less about songs crossing from one format to another,” and more about songs “crossing from streaming to radio.”

Before the streaming era, some superstars promoted different singles to different formats, wooing Top 40 stations with straight-ahead pop, for example, but courting R&B radio with another sound altogether. It’s long been the case that singles that thrived at multiple formats typically grew at one before spilling over into the next. This sequential system for achieving airplay was partially driven by the way labels promoted tracks. “We were just following the patterns of the record labels,” says Tom Poleman, chief programming officer at iHeartMedia.

Labels often promote rap singles, for example, to mainstream R&B/hip-hop radio first, explains Motti Shulman, who recently left promotion after more than three decades. “We’d impact the record at rhythmic three or four weeks after that, so it already was a little more familiar,” Shulman says. “If it was really big, usually like top 10, then a handful of the more progressive pop stations would jump in. And if it worked there, then it could go all the way.”

In addition, labels and radio used to have to wait for “callout research” — audience surveys that helped them determine if a song was eliciting an enthusiastic response or causing listeners to tune out. That process took weeks, if not months, according to Shulman: “You needed at least 100 to 150 spins on a record during the day” before a track’s merits could be judged accurately. It took time for a song to build enough momentum in one format that another would test it out.

Many radio stations still look at those research reports. But while they’re waiting for them, they now have oodles of information to gauge audience demand — they can check streams and Shazams in their market on a daily basis. “We have more data at our fingertips,” Poleman says. “So if we see something really taking off, we think, why wait?” 

There’s another factor driving cross-format pickup: “Labels are serving up fewer songs to us,” says Patti Marshall, managing director of branding and content

for four Hubbard Broadcasting-owned radio stations in Cincinnati. “Multiple formats are out there looking for really good music” — and there aren’t as many tracks for them to choose from. “There are about 55 to 60 songs above 100 spins at most radio formats,” Ross says. “That number used to be closer to 100 songs.”

Labels have pulled back because the benefit of a radio hit is not always clear at a time when streaming drives so much of their revenue. “It was so expensive to work songs — doing promotions and flyaways and paying indies [freelance radio promoters],” Shulman explains. “It didn’t always move the needle on streams. So we were impacting a lot fewer records to radio.”  

All these forces have combined to reduce some of programmers’ longstanding reluctance when it comes to sharing songs with other formats. “I’m a little selfish,” jokes Tim Roberts, Audacy’s vp of country. “I would love it if Shaboozey was only on the country format, just like I’d love if Morgan Wallen and ‘Fast Car’ by Luke Combs only lived on the country format.” 

Chad Rufer, group director of programming for Bonneville International in Sacramento, Calif., also has “mixed feelings” about sharing big hits. “As a country programmer, you wish that pop stations would just leave it so I’m the only place that you can hear the Post Malone country album on the radio,” he says. “But on the other side of that, when it’s played on multiple formats, the audience’s passion for it just gets bigger.”

“There’s always a chance to become less unique” if stations in four, five, or six formats are all teeing up the same track, says Guy Zapoleon, a veteran radio consultant. Now that “streaming is such a huge force,” though, “and people want to make sure that their format reflects the hits, there’s going to be less thinking like that,” he adds. “I think you will continue to see the bigger hits cross over to multiple formats, and even reach the top 10.”

After Rufer heard Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” earlier this year, he added it to both the adult pop and country stations he oversees. “Whether it’s going into Kenny Chesney on one station or Ed Sheeran on the other, it sounds good,” he says. “It fits.”

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