A Wall Street Journal article last week surged during the weekend to the #1 Most Popular article at wsj.com.
According to the story, radio faced
with growing competition from digital alternatives, has managed to
expand their listenership with an unlikely tactic: offering less
variety than ever. In other words, radio is more repetitious than
ever. Radio types would probably opine they're simple playing the
hits.
The story cites Mediabase, a division
of Clear Channel Communications. Mediabase reports the top 10 songs
last year were played close to twice as much on the radio than they
were 10 years ago.
Mediabase tracks radio spins in 180
markets. The most-played song last year, Robin Thicke's "Blurred
Lines," aired 749,633 times. That is 2,053 times a day on
average. The top song in 2003, "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors
Down, was played 442,160 times that year.
That is partly because about 70 new Top
40 stations have sprouted up over the past decade, said Clear
Channel's president of national programming, Tom Poleman, while
stations specializing in rock and smooth jazz have dwindled. But
other radio formats are getting more repetitive, too, while the line
is blurring between pop songs and songs that once fit more neatly in
other categories, as artists and listeners to embrace a wider variety
of sounds as they jump from genre to genre on digital playlists.
The top country song last year, Darius
Rucker's "Wagon Wheel," was played 229,633 times, while
2003's top country hit, Lonestar's "My Front Porch Looking In,"
got only 162,519 spins.
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