Country vs. CHR: It Starts with The Chart

January is typically a month of ratings rebounds for any format that is not Mainstream AC. But in Nielsen’s PPM monthly ratings, released in mid-February, there were some attention-getting station comebacks in both CHR and Country. 

Top 40 rebounds included:

• WKSC (Kiss 103.5) Chicago, 2.9-4.3
• KMVQ (Now 99.7) San Francisco, 3.5-4.3
• WKQI (Channel 95.5) Detroit, 4.3-5.9
• KDWB Minneapolis, 4.5-6.4
• KALV (Live 101.5) Phoenix, 3.4-5.6
• KMXV (Mix 93.3) Kansas City, 5.0-5.8
• WKST (Kiss 96.1) Pittsburgh, 4.3-5.2
• WKSS (Kiss 95.7) Hartford, Conn., 4.7-7.1

Notable Country months included:

• KBAY (Bay Country) San Jose, 2.5-5.0
• WPOC Baltimore, 5.0-6.4
• WYCD Detroit, 4.1-5.8
• KEEY (K102) Minneapolis, 4.4-6.2
• KSD (93.7 the Bull) St. Louis, 4.3-5.7
• KNCI Sacramento, 4.7-6.7
• WLHK (Country 97.1, Hank FM) Indianapolis, 4.9-7.0
• WUSH (US106.1) Norfolk, Va., 4.8-6.3

In Seattle, both KKWF (The Wolf) (3.1-3.8) and KNUC (The Bull) (2.4-3.5) were up in the latter station’s final month before switching to Triple-A KPNW. Even a battle fought in the mid-threes seems abnormally low in what was once a robust Country market. While it seemed like a commentary on Seattle that Hubbard would prefer to compete against a non-comm Triple-A, the Top 40 situation in the market is similar: KQMV (Movin’ 92.5) (3.2-3.8), KBKS (Hits 106.1) (2.6-2.9), and dance KNHC (0.9-0.9). 

Neither format saw across-the-board rebounds. On a national level, though, the Country story is stronger. Nielsen shows Country in PPM markets up 5.6-6.0 from January ’22. Top 40 went 5.0-4.9 year-to-year. Both formats are still looking to return to their 2022 high points: 6.2 for Country from July through October; Top 40 last saw the 5-share range nationally with a 5.1 last May (which, as it happens, was the month that Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” was released).

All formats dependent on current music have found themselves diminished in recent years, impacted by both the rise of streaming and a COVID-era change in radio usage habits. The biggest January-to-January gainer is still Mainstream AC, playing only a handful of currents, and up 8.0-8.5 year-to-year, despite a drop-off from a 14.4 over the holiday book. 

But as the industry gathers in Nashville for Country Radio Seminar to be held March 13-15, Country does so with more momentum than CHR. And in recent weeks, I’ve found myself rethinking the usual industry discussion about the usually frustrating Country chart, known for its glacial movements and for the tendency of labels to work songs long after their counterparts in other formats would have walked away from them. 

Over the last year, there have been notably rapid rises for some hits by major (but not automatic) acts like Cole Swindell’s “She Had Me at Heads Carolina” or Kane Brown’s “Like I Love Country Music.” Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place” is No. 3 after 13 weeks, a particularly rapid ascent for an artist’s second hit, (but notably on a song that had been incubating virally for nine months). But those are exceptions. Brett Young’s “You Didn’t” sits at No. 12 after 53 weeks. Lainey Wilson, despite her growing stardom of the last year, is No. 4 after 43 weeks with “Heart Like a Truck.”

To look at the Country chart as somebody not involved in the week-to-week promotion process is to see records struggling in the lower- or middle-reaches of the chart, sometimes even with a declining number of radio spins, then to look up weeks later and realize that same song is in the top 15. Blake Shelton’s “No Body” is 18-19 at Country as I write and -25 spins from a week ago. It continues to be worked; it might not be at CHR.

Each year’s CRS is marked by calls for Country radio to better acknowledge the streaming-driven changes in the way that listeners discover and consume new music. At last year’s CRS, you heard this from both label and radio people in a way that made you wonder who was perpetuating this system that nobody liked. I’d like to see the Country chart paradigm change as well, but at this moment, it seems to have left Country with certain advantages.

There are more records in play. For the last few years, Top 40 has felt an acute product shortage, which has in turn impacted available product for Adult CHR and Mainstream AC. At Top 40, there are only 55 current songs getting 100 Mediabase spins or more, a number I remember as once closer to 100 songs. The No. 40 CHR song is getting less than 575 spins. The chart and chart show we grew up with could more accurately be named the Billboard Hot 60 and American Top 25 these days. 

Country, by comparison, has 82 current songs above the 100-spin threshold, the most of any current-based music format. (Some of that is driven by first-week airplay for multiple new tracks from Morgan Wallen, who first broke the “only one single in play” paradigm with “7 Summers” in 2020 and will likely do so again, regardless of whether “Last Night” is actually designated a single as “One Thing at a Time” ascends.) The No. 40 song at Country has nearly 1,150 spins.

There is more new artist excitement in Country: In the time when Wallen was off the radio, the streaming model that propelled him to stardom helped drive breakthroughs for other acts—usually traditional leaning but sometimes with overlap in Active Rock or even Triple-A: Zimmerman, Wilson, Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll, Parker McCollum, Cody Johnson, and the next-level ascent of Hardy. SZA’s breakthrough at Top 40 and beginning of the year dominance on the Top 100 is a major story, but she is the only newly ascending artist with multiple hits at this moment. (There is, however, a second Raye song I like.)

Streaming is part of the story in Country, not the entire strategy. Some broadcasters and labels probably wish that Country would become yet more responsive to streaming. In Top 40, it feels like streaming and TikTok have become the ultimate arbiters of whether a record is worked to radio, and we’ve sometimes seen major labels with no current single to work, or only streaming-driven bringbacks. Country has adjusted its promotional strategy to account for more DSP impact and fewer radio gatekeepers, but in Top 40 the results are particularly profound.

Edison Research’s recently released Infinite Dial 2023 study shows TikTok with 33% usage overall (down from 36%) and 55% 12-34 (down from 61%). Those numbers suggest to me that TikTok success should be one story, not the only story. I also believe that pop radio still has the ability to help develop new songs, rather than being merely the finisher. Right now, the scenario under which it might do so doesn’t really exist at Top 40. 

Being artist-driven is, at this moment, a good thing. The annual CRS discussion often comes around to the need for Country to finally transition to being song- not artist-driven. But CHR is currently experiencing an extreme version of being song-driven. Over the last year, even those artists who have broken through at CHR with a story from DSPs and TikTok—Nikki Youre, Em Beihold, Dove Cameron, even Glass Animals—have not had follow-ups promoted to CHR. Some of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy with radio unwilling to break songs without a streaming story, but it has certainly left CHR with less center-lane music to choose from. Similarly, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, whose resurgences are adding excitement to CHR now, would likely have remained more consistent hitmakers on the Country paradigm.

The Country chart may better benefit and measure a song’s endgame. Over each of the last two years, we’ve seen the unusual phenomenon of CHR radio admitting that it had bailed on a song too quickly, first with Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” then Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves.” More often, songs that have already peaked on the chart find their way back into power at certain research-driven CHRs—one recent example is Elton John & Britney Spears’ “Hold Me Closer,” a song that now seems more ubiquitous on New York radio than it was at the time of its No. 11 peak. If the Top 40 scorecard were being tallied after 55 weeks, not 26, more CHR songs would likely be recognized as hits.

Country could become more responsive yet to streaming stories. The “is it really our audience” discussion that kept Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” off radio at the outset is now taking place over Bryan’s “Something in the Orange.” After 20 years of seeing Country radio’s music library testing, it seems almost certain that “Something in the Orange” will be a front-page record in a year in the same way that “Tennessee Whiskey” (and, a decade before, Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse [Ride a Cowboy]”) did.

As for Top 40, I’d like to see radio and labels come out of their upcoming conventions with a better promotional paradigm that takes advantage of both radio’s reach and streaming’s immediacy to create more hits. The most compelling argument to do so is that the current strategy—streaming as the decider, radio as the closer—hasn’t been working so well. With January’s ratings stories, I’m now taking a wait and see attitude until February’s CHR numbers, which I hope continue. Even if they do, I’d like to see CHR have at least the cautious optimism about current product that Country does now.