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Yay, CHBE 107.3 in Victoria is one of the stations I have programmed in our cars, along with the Vancouver Top 40 station and CLCK 98.9 in Seattle (which was the first one to play GT and has increased its spins in the past week or so after a little drop). So now if GT comes on and DH changes the station, it might be playing on another one, lol!
This has been a very patient, very well-orchestrated promo plan. It must have been frustrating for Canadian fans to watch the promo ignore the country but by waiting, Adam could work less to get on the radio there because of the US radio response.
I noticed that a number of Members have asked questions about why "Ghost Town" is not moving up the charts as fast as ______. A few people (including me) responded with number-y posts that really did not explain it very well. For example, yesterday
thelambertluvva asked about Tori Kelly.
I want to take one more stab at explaining how great the radio response has been to "Ghost Town", how it is not close to done yet and why this bodes well for the next TOH (album) single.
Adam's market position before he released TOH/Ghost Town - he was not a pop artist.
1. Adam was never an established pop artist. He was classified as an Adult Pop artist -- and his only BB Hot 100 Top 10 hit (WWFM #10) peaked at #13 on pop radio over 5 years ago. His 2012 album did not garner much radio airplay in the US, Canada, UK or any other major market. So when he released "Ghost Town", pop radio audiences had little or no awareness of him.
2. Adam is known -- but not as a pop music artist. My guess is that if you walked up to a group 20 year olds on the street and asked them "What is the first word that comes to mind when I say Adam Lambert?" the most likely words you would hear would be "American Idol" and "gay".
US Radio is not centrally controlledUS radio is not centrally controlled.
Labels cannot "buy" a song onto radio.
When you look at a radio chart listing, it is actually the aggregation of hundreds of individual decisions by program directors -- should the song be added to the playlist, how many rotations a week, what dayparts (times of day), when to add, increase, decrease. These decisions are rolled up into one number, then compared to other artists. A number that looks simple, number of spins GT got last week is not simple. It gets more complex when you look across a format at rank -- #29 this week is not the same as #29 last week. 1,000 spins in small markets are not the same as 1,000 spins in big markets. The Mediabase charts are designed for radio programmers, not consumers. Spins matters to radio program directors, but AI (audience impressions) and Coverage (where a song is played, geographic distribution) and Quality (the time of day matters for consumer impact) and other factors are more important as a popularity measures.
The label's promo team will work to make sure a song does not go up the chart faster than it can be support -- so if you got 1,000 promo spins on Week 1 and 500 on Week 2 that would basically kill a song because it will be a huge decrease indicating to PDs that the song was not popular. Syndicated radio spins (when a song gets played by over 100 stations on one program, SNOL, AT40 and so on) are dangerous unless they are matched every week.
Generally it takes weeks before radio listeners are familiar with a song -- usually 3 to 6 weeks. Even when a song is getting a lot of airplay. "Ghost Town" is just starting to reach familiarity levels that matter (industry standard is >60% of listeners are familiar with a song). Sometimes it happens faster but that is rare even for singles that race to the top of the chart. The exceptions are songs that are memorable after 1 listen -- one example is "Get Lucky".
A hit song will have high memorability and low burnout (meaning it is easy to remember the song but if you listen to it a lot you do not get sick of it.) This is not what fans of the artist think, it is what radio listeners think.
"Ghost Town" is a deep house trackWBR and Adam and his team made what I believe was a brilliant choice with GT. It is not like anything on pop radio. US radio is not that friendly to synth-pop and does not play house musice. In fact, I believe it is the first house track to ever get significant airplay on pop radio. BUT if they released a pretty standard pop track, radio PD's might not have chosen to play it. Adam has an uneven track record on pop radio, pop radio listeners are not familiar with his music, he is 33 and has been around for 6 years -- being new and young is an advantage in pop radio.
GT is different, it was a risky but excellent track to demonstrate that Adam is 1. relevant, and 2. put out some killer music.
The good news is that it worked.
Adam's relaunch is looking a bit like Nick Jonas' relaunchNo two artists are the same. If you want to look at an artist who is similar to Adam -- and few have done what he is now doing -- and who start his comeback last year, look at Nick Jonas (who is only 22 years old -- an easier age to do this relaunch at).
Nick Jonas did something that few have done -- moved from preteen pop to contemporary pop.
Nick now has two monster hits on pop radio....[may Adam be so lucky!]
#2 Jealous released September 8, 2014 radio peak January 3, 2015 [this was the second single released from the album, the first single and lead single from his album "Chains" initially was ignored by radio.
#6 Chains released July 30, 2014 impacted mainstream radio stations on January 20, 2015 radio peak May 30, 2015
***
"Ghost Town" was released on April 21, 2015. It impacted radio on April 28, 2015. It is less than 2 months old. The average hit song takes 4 to 5 months to peak on pop radio, longer on HAC and AC.
I wrote "average hit song" because about 20,000 singles a month are promoted to rad>io. About 20 songs each month (0.1%) ever achieve significant pop radio airplay.
> GT is actually a fast moving song -- and it is still moving up.
> GT is doing really well. To me, surprisingly well.
> GT is just starting to get real club play!
> GT is just starting to hit familiarity numbers that are meaningful.
