Guy Zapoleon Shares Mid-Year Music Cycle Update For 2023

Yes, we’re still deep into the worst doldrums in music and radio history, and it’s a rough start for 2023. We’ve seen the amount of new songs being played on Top 40 diminishing this year, and this week there were only two debuts on Mediabase’s Top 40 chart.

Another indicator of the health of Top 40 is the tracking of the consensus Power Rotation songs that reach power at a majority of Top 40 radio stations. We've seen the number of these consensus powers dropping to historic lows at the format since 2020.

So far in 2023, you only have six songs that have become consensus powers, and that puts Top 40 on track to have 15 consensus powers by the end of 2023. That would be almost 50% less than 2022 and, yet again, another record low. Also, five of these six songs are from before 2023, four are from 2022, and one of those powers is a 2011 bring-back, “Sure Thing” by Miguel. This drought on consensus hits, with programmers holding on to their powers longer, creates a “bear market” for new music, with Top 40 programmers taking fewer risks on new artists.

It just tells you where we are in the Music Cycle, and hopefully this is the Doldrums’ lowest ebb with music and Top 40 ratings, which were an all-time low in 2022 at 4.9.

Old Vs New Music Consumption

Passionate music fans of all ages are also more devoted now to streaming than radio. Labels are more focused on finding new ways to reap more revenue from catalog streams and sales than they are in breaking new music and new artists.

Consider this: back in 2004, catalog accounted for 35% of sales. In 2014, catalog was 50% of sales, and now in 2023, catalog is close to 75% of their revenue from streaming and sales. That comes at the same time as labels are complaining that it is harder than ever to have a song crack Spotify’s top 200, which is filled with established artists.

TikTok, one of the lead sources for music discovery, is facing being banned in many states with concerns over user privacy and national security due to its links to China. Plus, there are now concerns over AI being used to clone voices, and a recent incident where a song is pulled off steaming services for cloning Drake and the Weeknd.

Will that be a cost-saving strategy for the music industry in the future that reduces dependence on the artists themselves? Crazy times! So, it’s a chaotic time in music, and it is certainly getting tougher to break hits in 2023 as well as finding new hits for radio.

Radio will continue to play it safe to satisfy the more conservative and, indeed, older audience that remains listening mostly to radio. In contrast, as almost always happens during the Doldrums, you see a greater focus on Gold music, with formats featuring more Gold doing better in the ratings than current music-based formats. You often see older classic tracks becoming hits again, or coming back as remakes. Sometimes songs never given their due originally -- like Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and Miguel’s 2011 semi-hit "Sure Thing" -- coming back as a huge hits. You have another future power on the way with Luke Combs’ “Fast Car,” a remake of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit.

Also, superstar artists are taking up more playlist real estate, as you frequently see 15-20 tracks from a superstar artist’s new album occupying the Top 50 of Spotify’s 200 Weekly Top Songs playlist. That’s pushing many songs, often by new artists, out of the Top 50. Besides the struggle to break through at streaming, you also have Top 40 stations going deeper into a new album from major artists and doubling up on two or more songs from that album in current rotation, again taking away more slots from a newer artist.

What are the solutions for music and for radio musically? It’s as simple as my friends Steve Rivers and John Ivey and I would always say, “Play The F***ing Hits.” But I add an addendum: Play ALL the hits no matter where they come from.

You’ve seen my complaint about Top 40 radio getting away from reflecting the national hits on the Billboard chart. Billboard’s Hot 100 is heavily influenced by streaming, and certainly the best gauge of the overall most popular music in the U.S. Yes, a portion of those songs will be streaming hits that don’t convert to Top 40 radio, but it’s a real problem when the duplication of the 100 most played year end hits at Top 40 on radio as seen on Mediabase is less than 50% on the Billboard Year End Hot 100 hits. Top 40 radio needs to get deeper into the songs that populate the Billboard Year End Hot 100.

2023 Popularity Charts Vs Top 40 Airplay

Here's a mid-year analysis of Mediabase’s most-played songs so far this year that are most likely to make the Mediabase Year End Top 100 for Top 40.

While during the Doldrums you often do see Pop at around 50% or less, which is expected, it’s still probably a bigger proportion that there isn’t enough genre variety from Country, Pop/Alternative, AC or, especially, Latin hits considering their huge streaming numbers. Also, the duplication between Billboard and Top 40 airplay continues to be below 50%, when in 2016 the duplication was 50%.

The good news is we are beginning to see Top 40 radio picking up on hits from Country, and of course that makes sense when you see that Country has tied with Pop at 26% for the top genre gaining the most top 10s in Billboard during the first quarter of 2023,

according to Hit Songs Deconstructed. Of course, the first Country hits Top 40 is picking up are the enormously popular Morgan Wallen, who has 20% of hits on the Billboard Mid Year Charts, as well as Luke Combs’ new hit as well. The sad thing is there has been great Country music that should have crossed over to Top 40 for the last 20 years that just got ignored. Good to see that’s beginning to change.

Next Rebirth Happens with Age & Consensus

But I still agree with Integr8’s Matt Bailey when he stated that we won’t see things improve for music and radio until around 2026, “when today’s high school seniors (reach “adulthood”) when they turn 21.

Also, the next Rebirth phase won’t happen as long as the consumption of music is spread out among so many digital music platforms and apps (and radio), with no one dominant place for a vast majority of people to become familiar with the new music and new artists and reach consensus on the same songs to become hits. That also will take at least a few more years for that to shake out.

Radio’s Challenges

The future of radio’s survival, its 13-34 listener, spends 70% of their time on streaming services vs. 30% on radio. At the same time, the amount of people that own a radio at home is shrinking, as it’s now eight out of 10 households. The numbers show 70% or less for Millennials and Gen Z, and forget about Gen Alpha, as that is much less.

Even in radio’s longtime stronghold, the car, you have the #1 most requested app being Bluetooth, so Gen Z and Gen Alpha can use their mobile phones to listen to music and podcasts.

Radio desperately needs to transition into digital vs. the ever-shrinking terrestrial signals being consumed on radio receivers. Yes, we have several great streaming apps, but consumers are still confused about radio’s availability on their mobile phone. But radio isn’t following marketing basics with a music and talk delivery platform, which is seeing the migration of audience -- especially 12-34 year olds -- to streaming services and apps for music and talk. We need one universal killer app for ALL radio stations to use, and for radio to be able to reinvent itself and to market this digital option to everyone.

Besides music issues, you have the same challenges and biggest deterrents to listening facing radio.

Radio needs to address streaming platforms’ #1 advantage over radio and the #1 reason for a paid subscription, which “is to avoid ads interrupting the music.” But that can’t happen with the major owners who can’t reduce spot loads because they paid 10x what stations were worth after the Telecom Bill passed in 1996. That means that the monthly station payment takes a big chunk out of a radio station’s budget. Plus, you will have always have high quarterly revenue results expectations of publicly held radio companies.

Obviously, radio’s biggest advantage over the streaming platforms is and always will be its great personalities. We will always need to support, and encourage and teach our current talent to communicate effectively. We need to emulate 102.3 Now! Radio in Edmonton (CKNO) and form a lasting listener bond by harnessing constant personality interaction through socials and texting. We desperately need to find the next great air personalities and get them on the radio.

The legendary Jon Coleman from Coleman Insights posted his thoughts about what it will take to bring back a younger audience to radio. He believes doing “live and local," and even creating content that's relevant to that younger audience won't be enough …

It has got to be game changing, and it has got to be fun for the listeners!

As longtime radio vet John Davis reminded me of while he was an Arizona State student, KZZP’s Bruce Kelly wanted the morning show to do a remote while tubing down the Salt River, which was out of range of our studio even with a Marti unit. Why did we want to do the remote? Because that’s what everyone did in the summer in Phoenix to cool off, and we wanted to have fun with our listeners.

So, we had our engineering team set up the Marti unit at the remote, our engineer Dwayne flew a plane overhead, and the signal was beamed back to the studio. Crazy impossible, but fun and, as Jon Coleman said, it was a “game changing” stunt. Having fun and allowing the listeners to have fun is another aspect of the great radio of the past that we need more of today.

I’ll have another Music Cycle update toward the end of 2023.