Streaming’s Researchers on Radio’s Big Questions

They are questions that programmers grapple with on a weekly basis, or should. How much weight should streaming have in music decisions? Is it the only metric that matters now? If a song isn’t streaming, does a callout story still matter? Can airplay affect or merely reflect streaming? What songs are stations missing, even with their greater attention to streams?  What is the role of gut now?

Those are also the questions that this column stares down almost as often. There aren’t a lot of songs put before radio now that don’t have some sort of streaming story, but there are still a lot of songs that PDs triage outside the top five where streaming has trailed off, but callout hasn’t yet kicked in. Recently, there have been a handful of major-artist releases where streaming evaporated quickly. Do they deserve time to grow on radio listeners?

The researchers who help radio turn streaming data into programming decisions have different products, different methodologies, and often surprisingly different takes on which songs below the top tier are hits. As the Song of Summer 2025 field takes shape, these are the people to whom I posed some of radio’s biggest questions. 

Veteran programmer/GM Dave Van Dyke’s Bridge Ratings began measuring digital downloads in 2007, then streaming in 2014, making him a longtime advocate for streaming in the trade press well before it had currency among most programmers. Bridge’s StreamStats gives clients a weekly streaming chart that “gathers local-market DSP consumption data and aligns it with a station’s P1 audience through the on-air playlists.”

Mike Castellucci is a record-promotions veteran whose Longboard Insights works with both radio and label clients. The Power Indicator Score is meant to anticipate traditional callout research by combining streaming with other metrics, including an artist’s historic airplay, and even song structure to come up with an overall score for every song in the airplay top 50.

Sam Zniber’s 25-year-plus programming career spans four continents. His MusicDatak platform, created during COVID when his then-cluster’s research budget disappeared, offers several radio products, including DataKallout, which evaluates 50 songs each week “offering real-time insights by blending social signals, streaming trends, airplay, and local appeal. That local layer is often where our clients say they find the real differentiator.” Clients include KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco, as well as a number of the NRJ and Bauer Media networks worldwide.

While overseeing Coleman Insights’ callout division Integr8 Research, Matt Bailey “saw streaming come into its own.” His Hit Momentum Report is a weekly newsletter evaluating Spotify’s 200 biggest songs with a special focus on “not just what people are playing this week … but what people keep playing week after week,” with a special focus on differentiating first-week streaming stories from sustained radio hits. It’s a companion to his weekly Graphs About Songs newsletter.

One place where all four researchers agree is on the continued importance of programmer gut. “Now more than ever, radio needs real people who really love the music to distinguish what we do from DSPs,” says Bailey.

What has changed, however, is that they believe gut should be used to make the best decisions about data, not to, say, scour a major act’s album for the next single contender. “There are more records than ever before, and more than enough have strong metrics behind them. Gut should be used when deciding which of the strong performers make the cut when there are limited spots,” says Castellucci. 

“MusicDatak’s philosophy isn’t about replacing a program director’s instinct—it’s about validating it with data they can trust,” says Zniber. “Great programmers are integral to the process, but when they are backed up by incredible data resources, it’s magic.”

Here are some of the other questions poised to the group.

What is the correct role of streaming in a station’s decision-making? Is it one of several indicators or the primary tool? Despite the bullishness on streaming here, there are successful PDs who rely heavily on traditional callout. Veteran programmer Guy Zapoleon still believes it should be the determinant for sending a song to power vs. secondary.

“This is a question rooted in PD comfort,” says Van Dyke. “Some PDs are more comfortable using [callout], others are strict streaming supporters who use our data literally, and still others prefer a mix.”

“If a station is limited in their resources, streaming is the best bang for your buck,” says Castellucci. “It has a general alignment with callout and has anticipated success with multiple records this year. ‘That’s So True,’ ‘Luther,’ and ‘Pink Pony Club’ all had strong Power Indicator scores weeks before their first batch of callout.”

“Streaming is a valuable tool, but it is one of several that should inform programming,” says Zniber. “The MusicDatak platform … integrates social media signals — from platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram — as well as local radio airplay data.”

Is there still room for a song that doesn’t stream, but perhaps has a different story or just contributes to the core sound of a station? There’s consensus here, too. “That era is over,” says Zniber. “Mainstream radio doesn’t need to take on that level of risk,” says Castellucci, who believes that there’s no value in a song that an act’s core fans have already lost interest in. 

“If you’re a CHR, playing a song people don’t play for themselves misses the ‘hit’ in Contemporary Hit Radio,” says Bailey. He does say that for those stations still able to do traditional callout, “If you want to know what a specific segment of your audience knows, loves, and hates, callout is still the only tool to give you that data directly.”

Can airplay ever drive streaming, as opposed to only responding to it? None of the researchers believe radio can start a streaming story that doesn’t already exist. But Van Dyke does believe that airplay had a role in reversing the fortunes of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra,” an instance where core interest did trail off quickly, but which did get a later boost from “radio’s consumers who also stream,” whom he says are StreamStats’ target.

Then there’s the related issue of radio picking up left-field titles from streaming just as those stories start to fade away. Is radio availability ruining their specialness? Only Zniber believes that “some songs flatten or drop in streams once they hit heavy radio rotation.” Bailey does think there’s the related danger of stations allowing songs to linger forever based on their streaming, to the point where it threatens their value to listeners “who want to know what’s current.”

Streaming researchers have very different views of certain songs below the top tier of hits. Asked about the Weeknd’s “Cry for Me,” Bailey says, “I don’t understand how a song no one is playing on Spotify is top 10 in airplay,” but Zniber, looking at multiple metrics, considers it a “solid current performer.” Zniber is also more generous about Ariana Grande’s “Twilight Zone” and Ed Sheeran’s “Azizam” than any of his colleagues. 

All four researchers do see a case for Teddy Swims’ “Bad Dreams,” which, like “The Door” before it, had seemed to be driven more by callout than streaming. “‘Bad Dreams’ doesn’t have a lot of streams, but the fans who do stream it keep playing it,” says Bailey. “Our momentum index, which correlates far better to what listeners know and love in callout than raw stream counts do, shows ‘Bad Dreams’ at an amazing 94%.”

What are the songs that Top 40 radio is missing? Both Bailey and Castellucci cite Leon Thomas’s “Mutt,” which the latter says “is outperforming 80% of the top 50 now and has been for several weeks.” Bailey agrees with Van Dyke’s contention that “‘Like Him’ by Tyler the Creator & Lola Young is building a significant following even among CHR listeners, but radio doesn’t seem comfortable with it.”

Both Zniber and Bailey mention Sombr’s “Back to Friends”; the latter also mentions “Undressed,” which became a rare recent example of WHTZ (Z100) New York becoming the first official add on a brand-new song/artist. Some of the titles the researchers cite are already on their way at radio, if not spinning proportionate to streaming (Drake’s “Nokia,” Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” BigXthaPlug’s “All the Way), but among other suggestions:

• Castellucci: Jessie Murph, “Blue Strip”
• VanDyke: the Marias, “Heavy”; Tate McRae, “Revolving Door”
• Zniber: Blanco, “Wale”; WizTheMc, “Show Me Love”; Selena Gomez w/Marias, “Ojos Tristes”; Malcom Todd f/Omar Apollo, “Bleed”