If you’re already at Country Radio Seminar, you may have already read enough manifestos, even though we’re not yet 24-hours in to the convention as I write this. But with the format discussion already highly charged, I’m arriving in town on Wednesday morning with a lot of thoughts on “What Country Radio Must Do Now” in its attempts to “Escape From Boyfriend Country,” a place where listeners aren’t exactly happy, but largely unprovoked. And that’s the first problem.
“Total Acceptance” Is The Enemy – Rival researchers are battling it out this week on whether audiences are sincere in wanting to hear more female artists, or agree only in theory. But the most reactionary programmers aren’t even focused on that question. They’re probably looking at the third of the respondents to the CMT-commissioned survey on female artists that say they mostly like hearing men. The issue has never been as simple as serving the largest piece of the audience, it has been more of a drive for total acceptance, and fear of antagonizing a single listener on even a single song.
It never defuses anything to bring up the Dixie Chicks, but their banishment from most Country stations began in the same place: programmers in format battles who felt the need to win every punch against a rival station were not willing losing a single listener. And that was before PPM measurement with its panicky directive to win the punch, win the quarter-hour, win the hour, win the week, win the month. For those PDs, the knowledge that some listener somewhere likes hearing male voices better is enough. Now, another survey could probably also show that they don’t necessarily sit through anodyne back-to-back boyfriend country, either. But merely not tuning people away is not a winning strategy now, because Country listeners are finding some reason to tune away and we can safely say that we’ve eliminated “too many female vocals.”
Equity Starts From The First Spin – Part of the reason there have been fewer female hits is because the format’s most reliable female hitmakers have been stuck on the 40 week path to No. 1, not the 24 week trip to the top. Being throttled to one hit a year inherently meant that Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris weren’t going to have the same depth of catalog. Morris got around that, like Bebe Rexha before her, with a multi-format hit. After two No. 1 songs, she will likely be on the fast track this time, but also facing the callout research buzzsaw sooner. Whether fairness means 50/50 female/male to you, or just more diversity than what we’ve got now, it’s pretty obvious that the female acts that Country does choose to play deserve enough support to have hits.
The “Fast Chart” Issue Is Realy Three Issues – Slowing down the charts in this time of trouble is an understandable response, but Country had eight fewer top 20 hits last year, it’s down almost 20 fewer top 20 hits from its 2013 peak. So after years of being told to slow down, why aren’t ratings better if we’re finaly “playing the hits”? In part, because the issue of Country allegedly burning through the hits is really three issues:
- The Glacial Development of Hit Songs, including those neutral/passive songs that need 40 weeks to climb the charts and are given that by the labels, thus taking resources from more active titles;
- The “No. 1” Game, in which a label takes a trade ad saying “increase spins now” (often with no story of why a song would deserve that support) and stations put at least one song in power, maybe two, that doesn’t belong there;
- No. 1 Songs Going To Recurrent (Or Being Dropped) Instantly – That doesn’t really happen to every No. 1 song. It happens to the ones that got there through “increase spins now.” As a listener, it never feels like there aren’t enough recent hits still receiving significant rotation.
One Chart Is A Problem – Country radio stations are on three different format templates. Some are comparable to CHRs. Some are more like Mainstream ACs, which regularly take 40 weeks to incubate hit songs. Many are like the Adult CHRs in the middle. Pop CHR isn’t so fast on music these days, but imagine if Post Malone’s “Circles,” the current CHR leader, had to wait another two months to close out the Mainstream AC panel as well, including some stations that probably should never play it. Nashville thinks that one chart is strength. But it throttles the number of stories, and it limits the type of songs that can reasonably expect to be No. 1 at Country. If we could allow our yesterday-and-today Country stations to play records at their own speed, they could focus on making every immaculately researched record broadly accepted, while other stations could focus on those that generate passion.
“New Country” Is Not The Only Way – Our last two major station rebrandings have been to “New Country.” Whether it’s the name of the station or just a positioner, programmers are afraid to jeopardize that franchise. It seems like an odd choice now—both because the yesterday-and-today position languishes in many markets, but also because “new country” brings to mind those faltering CHRs who used “today’s best music” both during the 1992 doldrums and the 1996 comeback. When the records were good, it was a great position. When the songs weren’t as good, it raised the question “is that all you’ve got?”
Why Don’t You Just Meet Me In The Middle: Country’s last three No. 1 songs are telling—Dan + Shay & Justin Bieber’s “10,000 Hours”; Jon Pardi’s “Heartache Medication”; Maren Morris’ “The Bones.” Two multi-format pop-leaning songs that were undisputed testers flanking a traditional throwback that eventually tested, according to PDs, but not on the same level. For all the concerns about Country’s pop lean, which has often prompted PDs to overreact by reaching for “I Met A Girl” or “Heartache Medication,” it’s the pop songs with multi-format support that are Country’s truest hits at the moment. We could defang the pop vs. traditional issue by having more songs in the middle. When Country is at its best, the game-changer songs confound that issue anyway—what is “Big Green Tractor?”; what is “Wagon Wheel”?
Is “Girlfriend Country” The Answer? In the past few weeks, I’ve heard more languid mid-to-downtempo love songs from female artists that feel like a determined attempt to offer “boyfriend country” with female leads. If we suddenly have a glut of “girlfriend country” songs, it will be radio’s fault, because we challenged artists to make the records radio wants. But are those the records that listeners want?
What Is Missing From Country Isn’t Traditional, It’s Rap: In 2012-2013, the format’s peak years. “bro country” gently brought a Hip-Hop presence into the format that panicked many programmers. It was the easiest thing to blame and it quickly steered us to “boyfriend country,” often the same lyrical clichés, but delivered more reverently without the Hip-Hop beats. With five years’ remove, it seems to me that Hip-Hop was a significant part of Country’s calling card, both with younger listeners, but also with 32-year-old men for whom Hip-Hop serves the same purpose that Country would have 30 years earlier. The Hip-Hop element was what most scared radio. But the format hasn’t been the same without it.
Hunker Down For What? One of the most bewildering aspects of the female artists discussion has been the industry’s willingness to double down at a time when the format’s numbers are down sharply. The format sounds claustrophobic in multiple ways. Are any of them worth defending?
