What's the Deal with Country Radio?

[rainie]

Hey guys. So just a bit of backstory I mainly follow the rock/alt charts, but also the hot 100. Country really ain't my thing but I'm curious about a couple things that I've heard about country radio.

Supposedly it's a much more money driven format and pretty much all the #1s are driven by payola. There's also a massive turnover rate at #1 because of this. Why is it this way? Is it because of how big of a market it is? Does it have something to do with the urbanization of the format?

Also I've heard that country typically drops songs after 15 or so weeks. Why is this?

Thanks.

[Mr. Thonk Eyes]

Country songs may drop after 15 or so week on the Hot 100, but pretty much every song these days lasts well over 15 weeks on the Country Airplay chart.

As for your actual question, I really have no clue why the hell all these big "max spins week" shit and fast drops after hitting #1 started happening, but it seems like it was around 2008/2009 or so.

[someguy]

Yeah, country radio actually hangs on to songs from non-superstars for a ridiculously long time.

As for the revolving door, it's been discussed a lot in the subforum (I'll try to link a couple topics to look at), but essentially labels all want their turn at #1, and seem to play nice with each other to ensure that it happens. For whatever reasons (incentives probably) country radio is more than happy to play along.

EDIT: There are probably others, but this topic is a good start:

pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/141341/current-state-country-radio-bro

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Personally I don't get why country radio would rather let a single take 40 weeks to climb into the top 10 instead of just releasing the album (hi, William Michael Morgan).

[.indulgecountry]

Sept 11, 2016 13:33:55 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

Personally I don't get why country radio would rather let a single take 40 weeks to climb into the top 10 instead of just releasing the album (hi, William Michael Morgan).

I don't understand what you're going for here. William Michael Morgan (and many others) not getting their album out in a more timely matter is in part due to the length of time it takes to get a single up the country charts to become a hit, but it's on the label's shoulders to release the album whenever they see fit. In other words, country radio has no control over when WMM's album came out. The label could've put it out awhile ago if they wanted to, but they chose to wait. I can't blame them for wanting to drop it when "I Met a Girl" is a bigger hit to maximize impact, but we've seen plenty of labels still not release albums even on the heels of a big hit (Greg Bates, Chase Bryant, RaeLynn, etc.), so I don't think that is really a country radio issue at all.

[travelrocks24]

Sept 11, 2016 0:53:03 GMT -5 someguy said:

Yeah, country radio actually hangs on to songs from non-superstars for a ridiculously long time.

As for the revolving door, it's been discussed a lot in the subforum (I'll try to link a couple topics to look at), but essentially labels all want their turn at #1, and seem to play nice with each other to ensure that it happens. For whatever reasons (incentives probably) country radio is more than happy to play along.

EDIT: There are probably others, but this topic is a good start:

pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/141341/current-state-country-radio-bro

That is the thread that explains a lot of the country genre in general.  I really think radio is clueless in terms of what people want to hear, as opposed to the so called "experts" that play a game of favorites to get to radio instead.