Radio
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The world’s biggest broadcast company, iHeartMedia, has laid off another round of employees in recent days, as the debt-plagued radio industry continues to contract during the music-streaming era. “Right now, it seems like the business model they’ve had the last few years, of making one person do 40 people’s jobs, is where it’s going,” says Nick Jordan, an assistant program director of Raleigh, N.C., country station WNCB until he lost his iHeart job Monday (Nov. 4). “But we did a good job, for as long as we could, keeping everything local and community-oriented.”
A rep for iHeart, which owns 860 stations in 160 U.S. markets and advertises “there’s a local iHeartRadio station virtually everywhere,” would not specify the number of recent layoffs, which follows a wave of job cuts in March and others since the pandemic. Radio-news outlets such as Radio and Music Pros and Barrett Media have listed more than a dozen laid-off names this week, including morning-show hosts, promotion and programming execs and big-city regional directors. Jordan said he was watching a video Monday morning of Bill Squire, an iHeart colleague who lost his job in Cleveland, when “one of the big bosses” walked into his own station to deliver the news.
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“S— happens,” says Jordan, 31, a nine-year industry veteran. “It’s part of the radio business.”
Although radio listenership has declined, according to some studies, the business remains resilient, drawing 82% of adult Americans as of 2022. And while major labels such as Universal and Atlantic have correspondingly laid off radio-promotion employees over the past year, the medium is still important for breaking hits, especially in country and other genres.
According to Wendy Goldberg, an iHeart spokesperson, “very few jobs” have been affected in the 10,000-employee company. She rebuts data that suggests a decline in audience consumption.
“Our broadcast radio audience has more listeners than it did 10 years ago,” she says, citing a Nielsen study that shows that younger listeners increased slightly in the third quarter of this year. She adds that iHeart remains “the No. 1 podcast publisher, bigger than the next two combined, and we’re five times the size of the next largest digital-radio service.”
“We’ve been able to achieve this by modernizing the company and increasing our use of technology,” Goldberg says in a statement. “These changes are another step in that journey.”
Squire, a stand-up comedian who has co-hosted the Alan Cox Show on Cleveland rock station WMMR since 2013, received the news of his layoff by phone Monday a.m. “They assured me it’s not performance-based: ‘There are big cuts across the company and there’s nothing they can do,’” he recalls.
Squire, who plans to return to the road as a touring comic, promoting his album We’re Getting Famous, says the radio business is “cutting costs wherever they can.” While Jordan is hopeful the “pendulum will swing back a little bit,” Squire says of media cuts: “You see it in radio, you see it in TV, a lot of Hollywood is out of business right now. The entertainment field has changed so quickly with the Internet and YouTube and podcasts that legacy media is just trying to catch up and figure out how to adapt to it.”
SiriusXM reported a 4% decline in revenue and a nearly $3 billion net loss last quarter after it completed a financial maneuver that was aimed at simplifying its publicly traded stock, the company reported on Thursday.
The $2.96 billion quarterly net loss stemmed from a $3.36 billion non-cash impairment charge, a type of accounting expense the means an asset’s value on the company’s balance sheet was written down. When SiriusXM merged with Liberty Media’s tracking stock in September, Liberty Media valued the company’s goodwill based on a sustained lower stock price.
The charge does not impact on SiriusXM’s cash flow. However, lower subscriber revenue and softer-than-projected advertising revenue in the second half of this year caused the company to trim its 2024 revenue goal to $8.675 billion from $8.75 billion targeted earlier in the year.
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SiriusXM’s stock price was down 3.27% at $26.50 as of 11:20 a.m. in New York.
The company reported total third quarter revenue fell 4% to $2.17 billion, and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and assets (EBITDA) fell 7% to $693 million, representing a 32% margin, compared to the year-ago quarter.
Tom Barry, SiriusXM’s chief financial officer, described seeing green shoots from the company’s investments in its subscription business and content, including 14,000 more net self-pay subscribers and a 6% increase in podcast advertising revenue.
“We are focused on executing our long-term strategy of strengthening our subscription business, enhancing our advertising offerings, and optimizing costs as we reinvest in the business,” Barry said in a statement.
The growth in self-pay subscribers due to lower churn reversed the contraction the company saw in the third quarter last year when it lost 96,000 subscribers. SiriusXM’s average revenue per user fell $0.53 to $15.16 due to a “higher proportion of subscribers on self-pay promotional and streaming-only plans,” the company said.
Known for its in-car satellite radio subscriptions, SiriusXM launched a new in-car subscription priced at $9.99 for just SiriusXM’s music channels. The company reported seeing podcast and on-demand listeners increasing on the app it rolled out last year.
The company invests heavily in its content. In the third quarter, SiriusXM signed an exclusive deal with “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper and launched shows with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Gen Z political commentator Dylan Douglas, and the beloved former football coaches Jimbo Fisher and Bill Belichick.
Revenue from the company’s Pandora and off-platform business segment slipped 1% to $544 million as Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium’s self-pay subscriber-based declined by 76,000 to 5.9 million. The company said the decline stemmed from fewer trial starts and churn after the price of certain plans was hiked.
The old saying that any publicity is good publicity isn’t always true in the music business. And this year, Sean “Diddy” Combs is proving that listeners and corporations alike have limits.
Near the end of 2023, Combs was enjoying the momentum of the September release of The Love Album: Off the Grid, which spent seven weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart and peaked at No. 19 on the Sept. 30 chart week. Meanwhile, album single “Another One of Me” by Diddy, French Montana & The Weeknd featuring 21 Savage peaked at No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100.
However, those numbers would start dropping quickly. In November, the Bad Boy Records founder was the subject of three separate lawsuits by an ex-girlfriend, Cassie, and two other people with various allegations of sexual and physical assault. While his weekly streams and radio plays — composed of various solo recordings under names including Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — could be expected to experience some decay as the weeks passed after the album’s launch, the controversies arguably accelerated Combs’ downturn with listeners.
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When Combs stepped down as chairman of digital media company Revolt a week later, his streams fell 22%, while his radio spins fell 36%. Two weeks after that — when brands severed ties with Combs’ e-commerce company, Empower Global, and Hulu scrapped plans for a reality show involving Combs — his radio plays fell another 55%.
That’s not to say that being in the news always hurts an artist’s streaming numbers. After Combs was arrested on Sept. 16 after being indicted for allegedly running a federal sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, U.S. on-demand streams of Combs’ music jumped 37% in the week ended Oct. 3. That Combs’ music benefitted from negative publicity isn’t a surprise — heavy media coverage, whether due to a death or a high-profile lawsuit, tends to influence what listeners seek out on streaming platforms. But the post-arrest bump was short-lived. Three weeks after Combs entered the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, his streaming numbers had fallen to pre-indictment levels.
Diddy
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Radio is a different story. While many listeners continued to stream Combs’ music, radio programmers, who risk losing advertisers by playing controversial artists, quickly abandoned Combs. In the first quarter of 2023, well before any public signs of impropriety, Combs’ music was getting played on U.S. radio anywhere from 800 to 1,000 times per week. But the March 25 FBI raids on Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami coincided with a 27% drop in weekly radio spins. By the time a video of Combs assaulting Cassie in the hallway of a hotel surfaced at CNN in May, weekly spins of Combs’ songs were down to 352 — 94% below where they were when Cassie filed her lawsuit seven months earlier. By June, his weekly radio plays had dropped below 200.
Radio’s interest in Combs’ music reached a nadir soon after. The week after his arrest on Sept. 16, Combs’ weekly radio spins were down 25%, and radio programmers have largely refrained from playing his music ever since.
Combs’ experience at the hands of music streamers and radio stations echoes that of R&B singer R. Kelly a few years earlier. Long hounded by allegations of sexual abuse, Kelly managed to avoid accountability until the Washington Post ran a story titled “Star Treatment” that detailed how the music industry overlooked his deeds. In the wake of the article, Spotify and other streaming platforms decided in May 2018 to deemphasize Kelly’s tracks in algorithms and editorial playlists, and his average weekly U.S. on-demand streams dropped 10%. Radio programmers had an even bigger impact: Kelly’s weekly U.S. radio plays dropped 29% following the article’s publication.
Kelly’s arrest in February 2019 didn’t lead to an immediate drop in his streaming numbers; throughout 2019, his weekly on-demand streams consistently hovered around 15 million to 16 million. But radio programmers began abandoning him; by the time Kelly was arrested and charged by the state of Illinois in February, his weekly radio plays had already bottomed out at just over 100, down from about 2,000 a year earlier.
Over the next few years, streams of such songs as “I Believe I Can Fly” and “Ignition” would gradually and consistently decline. In 2020, Kelly’s tracks were doing roughly 9 million to 10 million streams per week. The next year, weekly streams fell to roughly 8 million, then 7 million.
Following a guilty verdict in September 2021, Kelly was given a 30-year prison sentence in June 2022. Like with Combs’ September 2024 arrest, media coverage of his sentence resulted in a small, single-digit gain in weekly streams, but the numbers showed a clear damage to his reputation. A week after the verdict, Kelly’s U.S. on-demand streams stood at 8.8 million per week — down 40% since the Washington Post article ran in 2018.
R. Kelly’s music seems to have reached a plateau, however, and interest in his catalog on streaming platforms has remained steady since his sentencing. Over two years later, Kelly’s weekly on-demand streams remain unchanged at roughly 9 million per week, though radio remains disinterested in playing his songs. This suggests that Diddy’s music could perform better online than at radio as his saga plays out.
Cox Media Group Orlando relaunched its WOEX Éxitos 96.5 station as HITS 96.5. The new Spanish AC format will be a hybrid of Spanish and English music featuring pop hits from the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s by artists like Michael Jackson, Ed Sheeran, Adele and Shakira. HITS 96.5 will be hosted by Spanish-speaking radio personalities including Epi Colon, Liliani Hernandez, […]
When Warner Music Nashville released Cody Johnson‘s collaboration with Carrie Underwood, excited programmers took note, giving the ballad enough first-week spins that it debuted at No. 21 on the Country Airplay chart dated Oct. 12.
Parmalee took note, too, but the band was far less enthusiastic. Guitarist Josh McSwain texted lead singer Matt Thomas about what seemed a potential threat. Johnson’s single, “I’m Gonna Love You,” had almost exactly the same title and lyrical hook as “Gonna Love You,” a Parmalee ballad that had reached the top 10 on that same chart, just 11 slots ahead of Johnson and Underwood. Thomas was mildly stressed about it until he was able to give it a listen.
“I think I would have been a lot more concerned if we weren’t moving up in the top 10 and the song’s researching and doing well,” Thomas says. “If we’d have heard it was coming out right before ours dropped, then it’d be like, ‘Shit.’”
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There’s no legal issue at play — songwriters live by the general rule that titles can’t be copyrighted — but the programming ramifications are significant. Country broadcasters make an effort to keep the sound of their stations changing, while staying within the perceived boundaries of the format. Playing the same title back-to-back is the opposite of variety. Programmers have periodically faced the issue for years, though many outside of radio may not have contemplated it before.
One harsh scenario from 1982 illustrates the potential consequences. The music scheduling software at WKHK New York inserted a Dolly Parton & Willie Nelson duet, “Everything’s Beautiful (In Its Own Way),” next to Ray Stevens‘ “Everything Is Beautiful.” The programmer eyed the comparable titles and ran a line through Stevens’ single, costing it a spin.
“That is heartbreaking right there,” Thomas says.
That scenario is a bit different, though, than Parmalee’s situation. The Parton/Nelson single was current in ’82, while Stevens’ record was 12 years old. A gold title losing a single spin wouldn’t hurt anyone’s chart position and was unlikely to make much difference in Stevens’ royalties as a songwriter. In fact, programmers generally make an effort to keep their current singles’ spins at their assigned rotation, even if similarities in individual singles create separation hurdles.
“A great example, maybe more so than title separation, is artist separation,” WWWF Farmingdale, N.Y., PD Patrick Shea says. “When you’ve got 14 Morgan Wallen songs and 14 Post Malone songs, how do you make them work? You don’t want to lose spins, because they’re all good and they’re all researching really well, so you juggle to the very best of your ability to make sure that those songs are all getting heard.”
The issue arises more often than one might expect. Jelly Roll‘s”I Am Not Okay” is sharing space on many current playlists with Megan Moroney‘s “Am I Okay?” Meanwhile, Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap” and Justin Moore‘s “This Is My Dirt,” two songs with plots and sentiments that were even more similar than their titles, rose through the chart at the same time. KUZZ Bakersfield, Calif., had both of those titles among the seven singles that were simultaneously in heavy rotation.
“If those are the two of the seven best songs we can play,” KUZZ PD Brent Michaels says, “we’re going to do it, even though thematically — and even sonically, a little bit — they’re sort of the same.”
Labels pay attention to those kinds of details, particularly if the titles emerge from the same firm. Triple Tigers issued a Jordan Fletcher focus track, “Fall in the Summer,” to digital service providers in July, just two months after releasing Scotty McCreery‘s “Fall of Summer” to radio. Executives considered the problem, then shrugged it off.
“How many times has the song ‘Gone’ been written by how many different artists?” Fletcher asks rhetorically. “Or ‘Wasted Time?’ Or, you know, ‘Love Me Tomorrow’? How many times have those names been rewritten and connected with different people in different ways, and nobody gave it a second thought?”
Likewise, Warner Music Nashville released Tyler Braden‘s “Devil You Know” while it was already working Ashley McBryde‘s “Devil I Know” earlier this year. It wasn’t the original game plan — consumption spurred WMN to send Braden’s “Devil” to radio — but programming partners didn’t protest the move.
“If I’m being honest, that shocked me,” Team WMN vp of radio Anna Cage says. “I myself thought that there might be an issue there. But at the end of the day, they’re two completely different songs. Obviously, one’s a female vocal, one’s a male vocal, even though they have the same anecdotal ‘Devil You Know,”Devil I Know.’”
It might create some branding issues, she allows, if consumers search for the song by title online and don’t know the artist’s name. It’s not a concern with Braden and McBryde.
“It wouldn’t take long for them to realize, ‘This isn’t the one I was looking for,’ ” she says.
Programmers are prepared to manually create separation if the titles appear in the same window. Shea would want them in separate quarter-hours, though with the two “Gonna Love You” singles, their tempo already solves that problem: His rotations only allow one ballad per 15-minute sweep. Michaels has even less of an issue — both songs are among the 11 titles KUZZ has in medium rotation, and they play in order. One is slotted at No. 1 in that tier, while the other is entered at No. 6; they automatically appear about four hours apart.
“Right away, we tried to separate those,” Michaels says, “so they didn’t come up too close to one another.”
So even though those repetitive titles get noticed on Music Row and in station music meetings, they may not be the obstacle one might expect.
“I don’t think it’s a radio programming problem,” Shea says. “I think it’s a radio nerd problem because I don’t think your average listener is going to notice anything at all.”
Still, one music nerd understood the conundrum in a heartbeat. Asked about “I’m Gonna Love You” mirroring the Parmalee title, Johnson was immediately sympathetic.
“That was not intentional,” he says. “If you know those guys, tell ’em, ‘My bad.’”
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Now, that’s how to get your day off to a good start, with a phone call from Brothers Osborne, the reigning CMA Award winners for vocal duo of the year, informing you that you are a 2024 CMA Broadcast Award winner. That’s just what happened on Wednesday (Oct. 9) for six teams of broadcast personalities and four radio stations.
Any full-time, on-air broadcast personalities and radio stations in the U.S. and Canada were eligible to submit entries. The entries were judged by a panel of broadcast professionals, representing all market sizes and regions.
The categories are established by market size based on population as ranked by Nielsen. Entries for broadcast personality of the year are judged on aircheck, ratings, community involvement and biographical and impact information. Candidates for radio station of the year are judged on aircheck, ratings, community involvement and leadership and impact information.
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CMA Broadcast Awards winners are not eligible to enter the same award category in consecutive years; therefore, those who received trophies in 2023 were not eligible in 2024.
The 58th Annual CMA Awards — co-hosted by Luke Bryan, Peyton Manning and the reigning CMA entertainer of the year, Lainey Wilson — will air live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Brothers Osborne is nominated for vocal duo of the year for the 10th consecutive year.
Here’s the full list of 2024 CMA Broadcast Awards nominees, with winners marked.
Weekly national
“American Country Countdown” (Kix Brooks) – Cumulus/Westwood One
“Country Gold with Terri Clark” (Terri Clark) – Westwood One
WINNER: “Crook & Chase Countdown” (Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase) – Jim Owens Entertainment
“Highway Hot 30 with Buzz Brainard” (Buzz Brainard) – SiriusXM
“Honky Tonkin’ with Tracy Lawrence” (Tracy Lawrence and Patrick Thomas) – Silverfish Media
Daily national
WINNER: “The Bobby Bones Show” (Bobby Bones, Amy Brown, “Lunchbox” Dan Chappell, Eddie Garcia, Morgan Huelsman, “SZN Raymundo” Ray Slater, “Mike D” Rodriguez, Abby Anderson, “Kick Off Kevin” O’Connell, and Stephen “Scuba Steve” Spradlin) – iHeartMedia
“Michael J On Air” (Michael J. Stuehler) – iHeartMedia
“Nights with Elaina” (Elaina Smith) – Westwood One / Cumulus Media
“PickleJar Up All Night with Patrick Thomas” (Patrick Thomas) – PickleJar / Cumulus Media
“Steve Harmon Show” (Steve Harmon) – Westwood One / Cumulus Media
Major market
“The Andie Summers Show” (Andie Summers, Jeff Kurkjian, Donnie Black, and Shannon Boyle) – WXTU, Philadelphia, Pa.
“Chris Carr & Company” (Chris Carr, Kia Becht, and Sam Sansevere) – KEEY, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.
WINNER: “Frito & Katy” (Tucker “Frito” Young and Katy Dempsey) – KCYY, San Antonio, Texas
“The Morning Wolfpack with Matt McAllister” (Matt McAllister, Gabe Mercer, and “Captain Ron” Koons) – KKWF, Seattle, Wash.
“The Most Fun Afternoons With Scotty Kay” (Scotty Kay) – WUSN, Chicago, Ill.
Large market
“Dale Carter Morning Show” (Dale Carter) – KFKF, Kansas City, Mo.
“Heather Froglear” (Heather Froglear) – KFRG, Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.
WINNER: “Jesse & Anna” (Jesse Tack and Anna Marie) – WUBE, Cincinnati, Ohio
“Mike & Amanda” (Mike Wheless and Amanda Daughtry) – WQDR, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
“On-Air with Anthony” (Anthony Donatelli) – KFRG, Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.
Medium market
“Brent Michaels” (Brent Michaels) – KUZZ, Bakersfield, Calif.
“Joey & Nancy” (Joey Tack, Nancy Barger, and Karly Duggan) – WIVK, Knoxville, Tenn.
“New Country Mornings with Nancy and Woody” (Nancy Wilson and Aaron “Woody” Woods) – WHKO, Dayton, Ohio
“Scott and Sarah in the Morning” (Scott Wynn and Sarah Kay) – WQMX, Akron, Ohio
WINNER: “Steve & Gina In The Morning” (Steve Lundy and Gina Melton) – KXKT, Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.-Iowa
Small market
“Dan Austin Show” (Dan Austin) – WQHK, Fort Wayne, Ind.
“Dave and Jenn” (Dave Roberts and Jenn Seay) – WTCR, Huntington-Ashland, W. Va.
WINNER: “The Eddie Foxx Show” (Eddie Foxx and Amanda Foxx) – WKSF, Asheville, N.C.
“Hilley & Hart” (Kevin Hilley and Erin Hart) – KATI, Columbia, Mo.
“Officer Don & DeAnn” (“Officer Don” Evans and DeAnn Stephens) – WBUL, Lexington-Fayette, Ky.
Major market
KCYY – San Antonio, Texas
KKBQ – Houston, Texas
KYGO – Denver, Colo.
WXTU – Philadelphia, Pa.
WINNER: WYCD – Detroit, Mich.
Large market
WIRK – West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, Fla.
WMIL – Milwaukee-Racine, Wis.
WINNER: WQDR – Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
WSIX – Nashville, Tenn.
WWKA – Orlando, Fla.
Medium market
KXKT – Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.-Iowa
WBEE – Rochester, N.Y.
WIVK – Knoxville, Tenn.
WLFP – Memphis, Tenn.
WINNER: WUSY – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Small market
WCOW – La Crosse, Wis.
WKML – Fayetteville, N.C.
WKXC – Augusta, Ga.
WXFL – Florence-Muscle Shoals, Ala.
WINNER: WYCT – Pensacola, Fla.
When Coldplay tours, the British rockers typically play to tens of thousands of fans per show – in fact, as of Aug. 2024, their Music of the Spheres World Tour became the biggest rock tour of all time, according to Billboard Boxscore.
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So when Chris Martin & Co. hit the stage at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg – a 650-person capacity venue — on Monday (Oct. 7) afternoon for a SiriusXM Presents show in support of new album Moon Music, the crowd was freaking out more than a little bit. Which might explain why one attendee, toward the end of the concert, shouted out a request for a nonexistent Coldplay song.
The saga began when Coldplay gave fan-favorite Music of the Spheres track “Coloratura” a rare performance, explaining that people online had been clamoring to hear it live. After that, fans began shouting out song titles, with one guy yelling, “Fix It.” Presumably, the man was thinking of the Billboard Hot 100 hit “Fix You” from 2005’s X&Y, but Chris Martin wasn’t letting him off that easy.
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“’Fix It’ is another song from another band, my brother,” Martin said, shaking his head before leading the band through “Yellow.” But after wrapping up their breakthrough hit (“Yellow” was their first Hot 100 entry back in 2001), Martin seemingly decided that perhaps “Fix It” should be a Coldplay song after all. Apologizing to the fan for getting a bit “cross” with him, Martin sat down at the piano and freestyled an impromptu tune on the spot, dedicating it to the dude.
“Here is a song called ‘Fix It,’ specifically just for that guy / It’s okay if you come to a concert to call out of the name of a song,” Martin sang, chuckling good-naturedly. “[But] I’d much prefer you don’t get the name of the song wrong / Oh, fix it, let’s fix it / It was broken a long time ago / Yes, fix it, a famous song called ‘Fix It’ / That before today even I didn’t know.”
One can only imagine what it was like to be that man in that moment. In less than 10 minutes, he mangled a Coldplay song title in front of the band, got gently mocked by Martin, received an onstage apology and then had a brand-new song dedicated to him – one that will probably never be performed again. Iconic.
That unscripted moment gives a good sense of the vibe throughout Coldplay’s underplay, which was broadcast on SiriusXM later that same day. Thanks to the intimate space and a respectful but enthusiastic audience, Martin seemed warm and congenial, pointing at specific people in the crowd and sticking his tongue out for fans’ cameras. He even joked about the band going the Taylor Swift route with its back catalog. “We released Parachutes (Taylor’s Version), it’s going to do very well,” he quipped while speaking about their new LP, Moon Music.
Of the new Moon Music tracks, the live highlights were undoubtedly “The Karate Kid,” a gorgeous piano ballad that saw its first-ever live performance during the SiriusXM show, and “Good Feelings,” which brought collaborator Ayra Starr onstage and saw The Weirdos — Coldplay’s puppet alien rock band — pop up on the venue’s balcony. Much like their recent Saturday Night Live performance, Coldplay brought of Elyanna & TINI for an emphatic “We Pray,” too.
As for the anthemic sing-alongs, “Viva La Vida” and “Sky Full of Stars” enjoyed wild responses from the crowd, while a live run-through of “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” from 2002’s classic LP A Rush of Blood to the Head proved that Coldplay can still kick ass as rock n’ roll band.
Although the mood of the show was light, joyous and celebratory (confetti blasted the audience more than once), Martin did take a moment to acknowledge that the concert took place on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel and the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
“Today, on October 7, we send peace to the Middle East,” Martin said prior to “Coloratura.” The juxtaposition was perhaps intentional, given the opening lyrics: “We fell in through the clouds / And everyone before us is there welcoming us now / It’s the end of death and doubt.”
When “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, it became Luke Combs’ 18th chart-topper on the tally. But this one was different from its 17 predecessors for the Sony Music Nashville artist. “Oklahoma” was the lead-off single from Atlantic Records’ Twisters soundtrack and his first hit spawned from a movie. Also, as the song spends its second week atop the chart, it brings Combs’ cumulative weeks spent at No. 1 on Country Airplay to 53, making him only the sixth artist in history to have spent more than a year at the summit.
Every one of those 18 No. 1s has been promoted to country radio by Sony Music Nashville senior vp of promotion Lauren Thomas, who oversees promotion for SMN’s RCA and Columbia imprints. And that feat earns the radio veteran, who joined SMN in 2009, the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Thomas explains how Sony Nashville and Atlantic worked together to promote both the song and the movie, how Combs’ previous No. 1, his remake of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” paved the way for a broader audience and how Combs integrated the song into his sold-out summer stadium tour. “Honestly, [‘Oklahoma’] is a Luke Combs song through and through and perfect for the live stage,” Thomas tells Billboard. “Luke did the perfect job of writing something for this massive film and soundtrack and making sure it was original to him as well.”
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is No. 1 for the second straight week on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. What key decisions did you make to help that happen? We are fortunate to have a hit song along with an incredible track record with Luke at country radio. The team’s relationships paired with communication with our partners on our goals — and ultimately their support — drove this one home.
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is from the Twisters soundtrack, which Atlantic released. How did you and Atlantic work together to take “Oklahoma” to country radio, while also promoting the film? Working with Kevin [Weaver, Atlantic Records president, West Coast] and his team from the beginning was exciting. From the beginning, their team wanted to make some noise. With the teases of the trailer directly [to] moviegoers inside the theaters to the massive music video with Luke and all the film footage, we were given the ball to make this Luke’s next No. 1 single and their team trusted us to do so.
The song leans more into rock than Combs’ songs usually do. Did you receive any initial pushback from radio? Luke has a solid track record and his sound covers a wide range. Tempo from a superstar like Luke was embraced fairly quickly and given a real opportunity with immediate airplay from a world premiere across all chains.
Though written specifically for the soundtrack, what about the song do you think appealed to Combs’ existing fan base and did you work it as if it were a standard Combs’ single release or were there different elements that came into play because of the film?
Honestly, it’s a Luke Combs song through and through and perfect for the live stage. If you’ve never seen a Luke show before, it fits perfectly into his set. Whether a ballad or something more hard-hitting, they love Luke and are here for him and I think Luke did the perfect job of writing something for this massive film and soundtrack and making sure it was original to him as well.
How did you tie in with the success of the movie to help promote the song?
It was all Luke. Luke was on his massive sold out stadium tour at the time of the movie so there was an easy tie-in to have Luke talk about the song as well as what it was like to shoot the music video for such a big blockbuster — which, as Luke explained, was a very different process from a standard music video shoot, most notably having debris flying at him during filming. That, and of course the weekend the movie came out Luke invited Glen Powell and some of the cast up on stage for his shotgunning beer moments.
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is Combs’ 18th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. What has been the strategy when taking him to radio in terms of picking singles and working with him and his manager, Chris Kappy? It is very much collaborative with Kappy, Sophia [Sansone] and our respective teams. Luke definitively knows his audience and speaks into the decisions we make — he leans in and always has with both his fans and our partners. It’s wild to think about the days of driving Luke around in a rental car to radio station shows and visits and now Kappy, Sophia and I get on bi-weekly calls to talk through things like multiple sold-out stadium dates. Wild.
Combs’ songs have now spent a cumulative 53 weeks at No. 1 on Country Airplay, making him only the sixth artist to have registered more than a year. Is there one thing you and your team have consistently done when taking Combs to radio that has resulted in such a huge number? It really is the perfect marriage of compelling music and communication to partners. Luke has done an incredible job of consistently delivering music that moves people in a variety of ways. The enthusiasm from Luke and his team is contagious and the Columbia promotion team carries that energy into the promotion of his music and the execution of our goals.
He took his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” to No. 1 in 2023 and that song also received some crossover play on pop formats. How did that increase his audience?
The whole collective team — management, marketing, press, promotion, etc. — came together to push this in front of new audiences. It really wasn’t one thing alone. The song and story behind it were everywhere and people who had never heard of Luke Combs now know who he is.
This might be a really silly example, but I have worked every Luke Combs number one. When “Fast Car” came out, it was the first time my dad spoke to me about Luke Combs’ music. He knew who Luke was but this song and story behind why Luke cut it was familiar and clearly spoke to him. In contrast, same story with my little brother. Working with [senior vp of pop promotion] Brady Bedard and the team at Columbia was a dream and opened the door for both Luke and that song to have another moment with audiences at the different formats.
The song also made history for Tracy Chapman and brought us one of the most memorable Grammy performances to date. They both just looked so happy. I will always be honored to have been a small part of that song.
What did you learn from this rollout that you can use with other songs from soundtracks, and do you think the Twisters’ soundtrack success will lead to more country artists having songs on soundtracks?
I think we always have to be open to different ways to promote music and this song helped our team do that. Having an extra bonus of a song being in a film and as the lead from the soundtrack just helps add the exposure of any song no matter the genre.
Country music is about storytelling so I think music supervisors should certainly pay more attention to the genre to help tell the stories of their films and shows. This soundtrack helped bring the genre to the forefront at a time when country music is shining. I can only hope that the music teams at these film companies realize the power a song can have to really amplify their story.
Young Disney Jr. viewers can now hear their favorite characters on SiriusXM, with the subscription service’s launch of Disney Jr. Radio.
SiriusXM announced Disney Jr. Radio, an exclusive channel themed to the TV network’s shows for the preschool demographic, on Wednesday (Oct. 2). It’s a companion to SiriusXM’s Disney Hits channel.
Playlists on the new Disney Jr. Radio will feature music from familiar shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends and SuperKitties, as well as speciality programming throughout the day surrounding Disney Jr. content for the younger audience.
Here’s a rundown of the current Disney Jr. Radio programming schedule on SiriusXM, as of Oct. 2:
7-8 a.m. ET: “Mickey Mornings” — hosted by Mickey, of course — will be a parent’s helper in the morning routine of getting dressed, brushing teeth and having breakfast. It also kicks off the day with fun learning songs appropriate for preschoolers.
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12-1 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Let’s Play!” is hosted by Disney Jr.’s favorite mermaid, Ariel, and encourages kids to get some midday play and movement in with upbeat, high-energy music.
3-4 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Hits,” with Spidey as host, features a mix of popular Disney Jr. songs for kids to sing along to.
6-7 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Live on Tour” brings top tunes from the Disney Jr. tour to your speakers, with the help of host Bitsy, from SuperKitties.
1 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. ET, 10 p.m. ET: Keep those hours in mind if they align with nap or bedtime — or “quiet time,” aka when mom or dad need to rest while their four-year-old fights sleep. “Disney Jr. Lullabies” is all about gentle, soothing versions of Disney Jr. melodies.
Take a look at the Disney Jr. Radio channel on the SiriusXM app to see if it’s a fit for your family.
At the end of 2022, pop singer-songwriter Mark Ambor felt lost in his music career. Despite recently signing a record deal and releasing his debut EP, Hello World, something didn’t feel right.
“I fell into this routine of teasing a song, [and] if it did well, putting it out, but I was feeling like I wasn’t saying anything I really mean,” he remembers. “I wasn’t digging deep or singing about things important to me.”
To clear his mind, Ambor, 26, embarked on a months-long international backpacking trip with his then-girlfriend — and returned feeling grounded with a whole new wave of inspiration for songs. He quickly wrote the whimsical, acoustic “Good to Be” and now refers to it as the first time he was musically “genuine and fully expressing myself.”
Just a few months later, he struck gold: While playing guitar in his bedroom, he wrote the lyrics, “You and me belong together/Like cold iced tea and warmer weather,” which would become the instantly catchy hook to the cozy, uplifting “Belong Together,” his ultimate breakthrough and first Billboard Hot 100 hit.
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Meredith Jenks
Ambor grew up with a musical background in Pleasantville, N.Y., playing the piano from a young age at his parents’ request. Though the skill took a backseat in high school, he rekindled his love for the instrument as he approached graduation, trading the classical pieces he previously learned for modern-day pop songs. He proceeded to pen his first song that summer, as he grappled with the emotions of having to leave his small hometown to attend Fairfield University in Connecticut. “I didn’t want to leave home,” he says, “and I tried to write a song to get those feelings out.”
He then returned to work that night as a barback and casually sent the song to his parents in a group chat. “My mom was like, ‘Dad and I love this song. Who’s the artist?’ ” he recalls with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Mom, what do you mean?’ It’s me!”
Ambor self-released a few songs while obtaining a marketing degree in college, and upon his graduation in 2020, decided to take six months to completely immerse himself in chasing his dreams as a musician before considering a different job. “COVID happened after I said that,” he recalls. “I got to spend time working on music at home.”
Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, he joined TikTok later that year. He steadily began to grow a following with his cool guy next door vibe: People gravitated not only toward his big smile and curly brown hair, but to his voice and disarming demeanor as well. He soon began posting covers — including breathtaking renditions of Coldplay’s “Yellow” and Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” — as well as a few originals, and ultimately caught the attention of then-independent manager Kyle Thomson, who admits he’s a “sucker” for a great voice over a piano melody and asked Ambor to send a few demos.
“It was so early on in both of our careers,” says Thomson. “I was excited to dive into something that I felt was going to be a fun project to build.” By the end of 2020, Ambor had signed a management deal with Thomson.
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Like Ambor, Thomson knew that some of his artist’s early work wasn’t playing to the singer-songwriter’s strengths. “At the beginning, he told me he wanted to make early 2000s festival, opera-rock music, like Passion Pit or Grouplove,” he says. “I was like, ‘That doesn’t make sense for what I think your qualities are. Why would you take your natural, raspy voice and distort it with synths?’ What he meant [initially] was that he wanted to make music that made him feel the same way that those bands made people feel.”
But after hearing “Belong Together” for the first time, Thomson knew that Ambor had succeeded in his mission. On the heels of his release of “Good to Be” in October 2023 — and its growing popularity on a global scale — Ambor began to tease the forthcoming new track in late December. And following a few months of building hype on TikTok, “Belong Together” arrived on streaming services on Feb. 16.
Ambor continued to stoke the fire well after its release, posting many videos on the platform of him walking the streets of major European cities while on tour and singing its dialed-up final chorus, several of which have compiled more than 10 million views each. Per Thomson, user-generated content and influencer marketing was crucial in making “Belong Together” “as big as humanly possible.”
By May 11, the single debuted at No. 87 on the Hot 100. It later reached a No. 74 high — and has spent 21 weeks and counting on the ranking. It has also reached Nos. 24 and 20 peaks on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. and Pop Airplay charts, respectively. “Belong Together” has earned 141.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 610.2 million official on-demand global streams through Sept. 26, according to Luminate.
“It has been really surreal to write something that is so heartfelt and authentic to myself and then feel it resonate around the world the way it has,” Ambor reflects. “The way a song can mean something to a fan that’s different than my own experience, but it’s their own story that they’ve attached to a song of mine … that part blows my mind.”
Meredith Jenks
In August, Ambor’s debut album, Rockwood, arrived through Hundred Days/Virgin Music Group, despite some hesitation from the rest of his team to put out a full project too quickly. (Ambor notes the success of “Belong Together” helped in convincing them otherwise.) He split with the label soon after its release, and while he doesn’t divulge much on specifics, he emphasizes trusting his gut while continuing to grow his career.
“I think people sometimes get too caught in the industry of it all,” he says. “Maybe I’ll sign to a major; maybe I’ll stay independent forever. What really matters is putting out good music and meeting and talking to the fans.”
“He has the best work ethic of anyone I’ve ever met,” adds Thomson. “Mark thinks that he can be Taylor Swift, and I’m not going to stop him.”
A version of this story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.