La radio ripetitiva aiuta a vendere?

Sulla scia della discussione relativa alla user generated radio si innesta questo eccellente articolo del New York Times che accusa le stazioni americane di ripetitività che ormai sfiora l'ossessione. Un brano come "Apologize" (immagino che il gioco di parole sia involontario) degli OneRepublic è stata trasmessa 123 volte in una settimana da WIOQ-FM Philadelphia, una volta ogni 50 minuti. Apologize ha frantumato ogni record di ripetizioni dall'introduzione del monitoraggio computerizzato (1990). La canzone è stata trasmessa più di 10.200 volte. Il quotidiano newyorkese dice che non c'è poi da stupirsi se l'audience radiofonica sia in perenne contrazione. E tira in ballo i consulenti che affermano: la radio regisce con la paura e quindi con l'ossessione all'attacco subito da Internet e dalla musica MP3. Ma i radiofonici rispondono che è solo un inevitabile adattamento alla contrazione subita dal tempo di cui tutti noi disponiamo: chi ascolta la radio 15 minuti al giorno deve avere le stesse chance di incappare in Apoligize. Continuando così, controribattono la radio non andrà da nessuna parte. Ci sarà sempre una quota di pubblico pronta ad accettare ciò che le stazioni propinano, ma inevitabilmente crescerà quella delle persone che preferiscono costruire da sole la propria offerta mediatica.
Tra i due litiganti emerge però un dato che dovrebbe essere tranquillizzante: la radio è ancora il mezzo più efficace quando si tratta di promuovere un gruppo musicale. Anche se forse le cose non sono poi così lineari. L'album degli OneRepublic, Dreaming out loud ha venduto al suo debutto 75 mila copie nella prima settimana. Ma Apologize, che sull'album è una traccia nascosta, grazie forse al battage radiofonico ha venduto 140 mila copie nell'ultima settimana come singolo nei negozi online come iTunes. Gli stessi OneRepublic devono il loro rilancio con una nuova etichetta alla popolarità raggiunta con MySpace.

Radio’s Newest Strategy: Play a Hit, Again and Again
By JEFF LEEDS

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 30 — For the millions of Americans who listened to Top 40 radio last week, it was almost impossible to miss “Apologize,” the string-tinged elegy performed by the modern rock band OneRepublic and remixed by the eclectic producer Timbaland.
WIOQ-FM, a pop station in Philadelphia, played the song 123 times last week, letting as little as 50 minutes tick by between repeat spins. And this month, “Apologize” broke the record for the most plays of a song on the nation’s Top 40 stations in a single week since computerized tracking began in 1990. The song played more than 10,240 times in a week, reaching an estimated audience of more than 70 million listeners, according to Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, an airplay monitoring service, and the chart-keepers at Radio & Records, a music trade magazine.
The song’s success is more than yet another sign of Timbaland’s prowess — it’s the third hit from his latest album, “Timbaland Presents Shock Value” (Interscope), a compilation of genre-bending collaborations with everyone from Elton John to Fall Out Boy.
It’s also a sign of how radio stations are responding to the competition for listeners as radio’s audience fragments and rival entertainment choices abound. While the overwhelming majority of Americans still tune into traditional broadcast radio each week, they are listening less. And they are increasingly drawn to the dizzying choices of music and other programming available on iPods and satellite and Internet radio.
But many pop radio programmers appear keen to repeat the biggest hits as much as — or more than — ever. “Apologize” surpassed a record that had been set only in July by Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” according to the data. Of the 10 songs that have notched the most plays in one week, 8 joined the list in the last three years. And the oldest of the 10, Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” dates only to 2002. (The all-time most-played song across all radio formats is Santana’s “Smooth,” with more than 1.1 million total plays since it was released in 1999.)
Tom Owens, the executive vice president of content for Clear Channel Communications, which is the nation’s largest owner of radio stations and a big influence in the Top 40 format, said that “Apologize” deserved such heavy airplay because it had received “off the charts” results in listener research testing, and added that the song is devoid of content that might prompt more conservative pop stations to limit its airplay. Mr. Owens also said that Radio & Records and tracking services are counting slightly more stations than they used to, making it easier for big songs to break the record.
Even so, executives at some individual stations say they are playing hits more heavily than they did even two years ago. That is not so much out of concern over digital competition as it is a desire to respond to listeners’ busy lives, said Kat Jensen, music director for KKMG-FM in Colorado Springs, which played “Apologize” 78 times last week. “There’s a very limited window. If they’re going to listen 15 minutes a day, you want to make sure they hear their favorite song in that 15 minutes. It’s really the fast-paced life style that we all live.”
Many stations are also trying to keep up with listeners — and trying to draw new ones — by integrating their over-the-air broadcasts with social networks on their Web sites and other online features. But that comes against a backdrop of an eroding audience. The amount of time people tune into radio during the course of a week has fallen by about 13 percent during the last decade, according to data from Arbitron, which measures ratings for the radio industry.
Some analysts say that responding to the decline by repeating the big hits even more will set broadcasters on a path to losing listeners.
“What most of these folks do is retreat to a more safe position, and in radio, the safer position is to play fewer songs more often,” said Mike Henry, chief executive of Paragon Media Strategies, a consulting firm in Denver. Mr. Henry, whose firm helped develop a wide-ranging radio format known as Jack FM in the United States three years ago, added that the increase in plays of songs reflected “a fear-based response. That will only take you so far.”
While, “there will always be people who are just fine taking what they’re given,” Mr. Henry said, more and more people will be enticed by “programming their own media.”
For now, however, radio is regarded as the most powerful promotional tool when it comes to exposing new music — even if the connection between popularity on the airwaves and popularity in record shops is not as direct as it once was. OneRepublic’s album, “Dreaming Out Loud” (Interscope), sold roughly 75,000 copies in its first week on sale, a solid if less than remarkable debut. But the “Apologize” remix, which is included as a hidden track on the album, brought in sales of more than 140,000 copies on digital services like iTunes for the week that ended Nov. 25, for a total of almost 1.6 million copies of the song.
Not a bad comeback for OneRepublic, which was formed by high school friends in Colorado Springs and suffered through a near-miss with fame — including losing its previous record deal with Columbia Records — before the band’s popularity on MySpace helped it land a new contract with Timbaland’s imprint, Mosley Music Group, which is distributed through Interscope. “Even though radio does seem like it’s kind of an archaic behemoth, in terms of actually being able to pay the bills, it’s still one of the best ways,” said Greg Wells, the longtime producer who oversaw “Dreaming Out Loud.” “I’m aware of how fickle this kind of attention can be. Songs like that are rare for anybody.”