This week, hundreds of attendees of the Country Radio Seminar are heading home with a national music test presented by NuVoodoo’s Carolyn Gilbert and Leigh Jacobs on March 15 as this year’s research session. The “front page” of that library test was dominated by gold titles from the ‘90s and early 2000s. Among the key results:
- The No. 1 song was Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow’s “Picture.”
- John Michael Montgomery’s ‘90s hits, “I Can Love You Like That” and “I Swear” were No. 2 and No. 4 respectively.
- 89% of the ‘80s and ‘90s songs tested came back in the top half of the test. By comparison, 68% of ‘00s songs, 42% of 2010-14, 25% of 2015-19, and 20% of 2020-22 songs came back in that top half of the test which roughly comprises the songs that a station would consider playing.
- Besides their appearance on the front page, acts like Alabama, Reba McEntire, Shania Twain, and Trisha Yearwood also did well in some key artist indicators.
The strength of older Country drew some gasps from attendees. Those major-market programmers with regular access to library testing, including Audacy VP of programming Tim Roberts (one of several PDs who was on the dais to react) were less surprised. Through the format doldrums, many Country stations have seen lots of older gold, and almost no recent titles at the top of their test, although the first caveat here is that “many” and not “all” is an important distinction.
McEntire’s “Fancy” is one of a number of songs that would have come back playable for many Country stations at any time in the last 30 years, but during the early ‘10s format boom, few mainstream Country stations would have seen the need to test or consider it. “Listeners would like to hear a wider variety and more Classic Country” has been a perennial theme in radio strategic research, but has resonated with programmers more at certain times in the format cycle than others.
How perennial? In 1994, with Country radio at the height of its Garth-era powers, and at its most aggressively current, researcher John Parikhal presented a research study at Country Radio Seminar suggesting that a hole had developed in many markets for a gold-based Country station. “Hot Country” stations, eager to head off a potential competitor, responded by throwing in more older titles, some of them unknown to recent format converts. That decision undoubtedly played some role in the format’s subsequent tapering off.
In 2023, any excitement about today’s Country music is nascent (although the second caveat is that there is some excitement). Unlike 1994, streaming has made younger and newer listeners more open to songs that were “before their time” in the format. PDs in the ’90s were willing to slow Country’s roll when the format was hot, just to head off a hypothetical rival. Today’s stations may own their own competitor and many are realizing that a gold-based Country station makes more sense in many markets than a “New Country” war of attrition. The conditions already exist for PDs to want to make their stations sound older. When should they?
A music test dominated by older oldies is always a tricky one for a station in any format with a substantial current-based component because it’s the one that has the greatest potential to alter the sound of the radio station. There are stations where Reba’s “Fancy” into Walker Hayes “Fancy Like” will sound great and will be already in line with current strategy. Newer-leaning stations, cautiously riding the wave of Morgan-mania, and the other streaming-driven acts that followed Wallen, may want to implement this test differently. Whether you are saying to yourself “these will sound great on the air” or “play Reba? Really?” right now matters.
The CRS Music Test will likely inform both stations that do regular music testing and some that have never had a library test. That makes this a good time to discuss how to best implement a music test. Nothing that follows should be construed in any way as a rebuttal of the findings. It’s based solely on my experience in helping implement music tests for 20 years. These issues are not just applicable for Country stations, Hot AC PDs are as likely to have similar “what now” questions when an ’80s song on the format fringe like “Livin’ on a Prayer” comes back bigger than “As It Was.” These are some things to consider:
A music test is not a strategic survey or a format finder. A music test is meant to be implemented when you are already comfortable with the direction of your radio station. Some Country stations are already playing “Song of the South.” For others, it will come as close to a format change as anything other than leaving the Country arena outright. Those stations need to proceed judiciously.
You have the right (obligation, really) to do what makes sense for your radio station. Remember that “Breathe” by Faith Hill would have tested in 2013, too, but might not have worked on your station next to “Cruise.” The amount and depth of gold that makes sense for your station will be a function of what you’re already playing, the heritage of your call letters, and whether you are successfully “No. 1 for New Country” in your market, or losing a war of attrition to be the “today” station.
There is no one correct sort of a music test. How a station applies mathematical filters and its own judgment, to decide which songs to play—a short list of smashes or a wider list with more variety—is a function of its broader strategy. Some stations will want robust ‘90s and ‘00s categories to keep the older songs they add from losing their “oh wow” value too quickly. Others will want to play only the best-of-the-best.
Same goes for changing the clocks. Programmers sorting a gold-dominated Country test are often confronted with three times the number of songs currently in their “throwback” category (and almost no playable recurrents). Should you create separate ‘00s and ‘90s categories? Add an additional gold position to every hour (or some hours)? Keep the same number and rotation of oldies and just bicycle songs in and out more often? It depends on whether you want to sound older.
If you play an extra oldie each hour, what do you take out? The tendency for many PDs will be to drop a current. Personally, I feel we are turning the corner on currents, and that there is more excitement in hearing them than, say, songs from 2017, which is a big slice of many stations. It’s important to note that the study also found that more listeners feel Country music is getting better than they did a year ago. The success of “Fancy” or “Picture” is always more noticeable when the currents are weak. If your station truly is “No. 1 for today’s new Country,” you may not want to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You have to choose who wins the coin toss. The line between the generations is more blurred than before, but it has not been erased. NuVoodoo found significant differences by age and by a listner’s history with the format. When you sort, you may want to play a tight list of smashes that are agreeable to every demo, or you may want to decide which demo is most important to your radio station. Generally, a station should choose one place to go deep, rather than being deep in currents, deep in ‘00s, deep in ‘90s, etc. There is a difference between a station “leaning” in one direction and staggering back and forth erratically.
Consider what sounds good and fits a need for your radio station. Gold-leaning tests like this confront radio stations with a lot of ballad gold, much of it AC-flavored because multi-format hits often have an advantage with non-P1 listeners. Both “How Do I Live” and “Forever and Ever, Amen” tested. One will probably sound better next to your currents than the other. Also consider whether the ballad that slows down your radio station this hour should be “Breathe” or “Wait in the Truck.”
There’s a trick to the artist tallies. NuVoodoo showed an artist batting average graph—average score for artists with three or more titles–led by McEntire, Yearwood, Montgomery, Shania Twain, and Alabama. Shortly after I tweeted that, somebody asked “what about George Strait”? Batting averages tend to favor those artists like McEntire whose catalogs have been pruned down to a small number of reliable testers over the years. (She went three for three here.) If you don’t see Strait, or Kenny Chesney, or Jason Aldean, it’s likely because they have more songs in play that are more hit-and-miss. Edison Research shows both batting average and “most songs above the mean score” for artists—some acts overlap, some don’t.
Not every station looks like this. As a researcher, I also see Country stations where there is more new music on the front page. Sometimes those markets are the ones with more than one Country station to help develop the recent hits. Sometimes they are just the stations that manage new music well—not overplaying every recent hit to the point that, natch, older Country sounds refreshing and evokes more passion.
You should still do your own music test, especially if you are winning the “today” position. You can consider the source here. I’ve done music research for 20 years. I am always excited to see new and different listener intel. But there are stations that have been fortunate not to participate in the new music downturn, or are already feeling the product cycle improve. Those stations are looking to answer very different questions than a yesterday-and-today station. When they screen in respondents, they probably want to make sure they are attracting an audience passionate about a music mix that resembles the station.
The CRS test is a great resource. It offers far more insight than the tail-chasing of looking only at monitored airplay and trying to guess what research results might have driven it. But if you have your own questions and your own research budget, you should still do your own research. There will be similarities, there will be differences, and you will profit from both.
