Masons Observations on When Streaming, Requests, and Radio Align

In the past decade, streaming charts and digital consumption have widely influenced radio airplay. This is no secret. But a problem still exists which often leaves programmers wondering which songs are worth playing and when to jump in. Often a consistently Top 10 song on Spotify goes for weeks with no recognition on radio, while some receive a lot of airplay despite a lack of streaming numbers or any demonstrated passion from listeners.

Right now, it seems like we are in a period where radio is generally quite well-aligned with what people are streaming on Spotify. The summer of 2024 proved to be a strong era for massive hits (and exceptional Pop radio ratings), many of which continue to sit in this week’s streaming Top 50; “I Had Some Help”, “Beautiful Things”, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”, “Birds of a Feather”, “Lose Control” and others. 

The best example of an era when radio was completely out of sync with streaming (and Pop radio ratings were weak) was 2017-2021, when rap and indie music heavily dominated streaming, which most Pop radio ignored. Very few songs from 2017-2020 test well today. That can be greatly attributed to extreme over-exposure to the music radio did play, as single-week spins were at an all-time high. In the late ‘10s, smaller playlists, tighter rotations and less great music to pick from meant that radio was holding on to stuff for way too long and focusing only on “Pop” music instead of popular music. 

Since 2021, actual pop music has become more appealing to young people as opposed to the years prior when all they seemed to be streaming was rap. Hip-Hop is still very important now, but as part of a much healthier blend of other genres too. True pop records like “Espresso”, “As It Was”, “Levitating”, “About Damn Time”, “Greedy”, “I’m Good (Blue)”, “Sunroof”, “Anti-Hero”, “Flowers” and “Stay” would’ve been fabulous to have in that awful 2017-2020 era, along with Alternative and Rhythmic-flavored titles like “Heat Waves”, “Industry Baby,” “Beggin”, “Unholy”, “Calm Down”, “Too Sweet”, “good 4 u”, and “Messy.” 

There are still places where streaming doesn’t translate to radio. There are seven songs from the soundtrack of KPop Demon Hunters in the top 50 and four in the top 10. I believe those are driven by children or parents playing the music for their kids, a niche group of extremely passionate fans who literally just play the songs over and over again. For us, they’re like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, or even “Baby Shark” and “Wheels on the Bus.” For Liveline, the bulk of KPop requests come from pre-teens, unless a song is “APT.”

Mostly, streaming and Liveline requests align, but there are exceptions. Songs like “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga, “Sports Car” by Tate McRae and “Houdini” by Eminem had a strong debut on streaming but then tapered off, while requests held on for much longer. 

A lot of huge Country and Alternative streaming hits get very few requests, which is probably a listener genuinely thinking we would never play it–just as you’d never call a Classic Rock station for Sabrina Carpenter. “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan was one of 2024’s most-streamed songs, though Pop and Country radio mostly ignored it. We had tons of requests for that song every week and still get them. It’s still #39 right now on Spotify. Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims are two artists with few massive “streaming” hits, though we get a few calls every night asking for “anything by them”, mostly from southern and rural markets.

On the Alternative side, “505” by Arctic Monkeys is an 18-year-old song that 95% of the radio-only audience probably doesn’t know, though we still get a few weekly requests for it and it’s been in the Spotify Top 100 for several years.

Pop radio doesn’t need to worry about making hits anymore. They just need to play them, old and new. Radio and streaming will never be perfectly in sync, but more often than not, streaming gets it right, requests come in, radio follows, and we find out after three to six months how popular a song really is. Our live, nightly request data summarizes all the charts best and puts us directly in touch with what real-time, true Top 40 listeners want to hear. No matter the genre (which as a whole need to be more evenly distributed), the era or the mood, Liveline plays the songs that fit into their lifestyle and idea of what their idea of “today’s best music” is because they are the ones asking for it, repeatedly!