Gorgeous update for GT.
Rolling charts have it at
25 on the Top 40 (Pop) chart with that important Audience Impression (AI) at 11.2
HIGHEST POINT SO FAR This implies spins at much better times of day reaching larger numbers of people and there was a gain of 75 spins.
I have often compared GT to a jellyfish bobbing up and down with the waves and enjoying when songs went out with the tide and staying in place when other songs passed it but now I think there is going to be more self propulsion.
On HAC there is also good signs with spin increase of 18 and AI over 9 for the first time. There is also the likelihood it will move up a position this week to 17 (where is the brass band? Gotta hire one when that happens)
Go Ghost Town!!!!!! The little train that could.
The Ghost Town radio numbers are great but the AI increase is not because the time of day the song is being played has shifted. It is up because it is getting played more often.
>> In fact, overall the average audience size per spin is slightly down because GT got more spins outside of prime time and in smaller markets.
In the US the "prime" dayparts -- largest audiences -- are Morning Drive, Midday and Afternoon Drive.
AM = Morning Drive is 6AM-10AM (in some markets AM for media buys is 5AM - 9AM, not for radio airplay charts)
Midday is 10AM-3PM
PM = Afternoon Drive 3PM - 7PM
Evening = 7PM - Midnight
Overnight = Midnight to 6AM
AI/Audience Impressions is an estimate of how many times the song was heard in the past 7 days. It is calculated by adding up the audience size estimates (from radio ratings) for each time the song is played.
Ghost Town has a total AI of 11.200 +0.251 = it was heard 11.2 million times on Top 40 stations monitored by Mediabase in the past 7 days, an increase of 251,000. This is an estimate based on the number of spins and the estimated audience at that time of day on each station.
AI can go up because....
1. The song was played more times -- and in GT's case this week, the AI increase is mostly from the +spins the song got in the past 7 days. This is mostly due to new station playing it.
2. The song was play more times in bigger markets with larger audience reach than last week. So for Ghost Town that happened at WIOQ-FM Philadelphia.
Spins: this week 33 last week 27 +6 on WIOQ-FM
Spins by daypart: Overnight: 12 AM: 1 Midday: 5 PM: 6 Evening: 9 Audience Impression 0.425
That means in total with 33 spins at all these different times, about 425,000 people heard Ghost Town on Q102FM Philly.
Comparing this to last week, turns out the gain was mostly in the Evening when this station has a smaller audience than during drive time (AM and PM).
3. The song was played in parts of the day that have larger audiences. This actually did not happen for Ghost Town this week -- it was he spin increase mostly that did it and a bit of a shift in which markets played the song.
***
Here are three stations who all have GT programmed with similar daypart mixes but the AI is vastly different because the market sizes are different...
KBEA-FM Quad Cities, IA- Spins: this week 40 last week 39 +1 Overnight 15 AM 4 Midday 9 PM 9 Evening 3 AI 0.045
WYKS-FM Gainesville Spins: this week 40 last week 40 no change Overnight 12 AM 2 Midday 10 PH 8 Evening 8 AI 0.071
WLAN-FM Lancaster Spins: this week 40 last week 45 -5 Overnight 13 AM 2 Midday 10 PM 7 Evening 8 AI 0.25
***
Now here is the good bit -- and why I posted such a numbery post in the news thread -- I consider this big news. These numbers are better when you dig into them then they look on the surface. A few things happened in the past 7 days that dropped the total. For example, Ghost Town lost one spin on SNOL last weekend vs. the prior week. (SNOL is a syndicated radio program that is broadcast on over 150 Top 40 stations.) Adam will be on SNOL this week, so he will get back the spin. In other words, this song is up and the increase is bigger than it looks on the chart right now!!
