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The Country Radio Format: Fighting Itself as Audience Shares Continue to Decrease. by Ed Ryan
What has become a consistent topic at the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville was once again the hottest discussion item this year: Has Country Radio become too Pop? In recent years Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks and others have become Pop stars along with superstar status in the Country format. Programmers and label executives are consistently debating whether or not that crossover is good for the format especially in light of the fact that Country has been losing listeners over the past decade.
Back in the early 1990s, Country Radio stations were consistently banking double-digit shares. It was not unusual for some Country stations to have a 20 share in their markets. While most agree those days are gone forever, the two sides of the format fence are still trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding to keep current listeners in the format as well as to bring back some of the lost listeners.
Radio programmers and label executives argue about why listeners are leaving the format. PDs say Nashville doesnıt produce enough good music. The labels say PDs run songs up and down the charts so quickly that an artist never has a chance for an extended run at success. In the middle sit Country music superstars who are becoming Pop stars.
In any given Radio market, you can listen to a number of other formats and hear those Country superstars. More than in any other format, there is such a strong bond between Country music programmers and the artists, that some PDs take offense to the crossover, saying, "Those are our artists on those Pop stations." So, why should listeners stay with a Country station and sit through songs and artists they donıt even recognize when they can get everything they want from a Pop station? Itıs a real dilemma.
Along comes consultant Ed Shane. Shaneıs company was commissioned to do a study on Country music listeners to determine why they are fleeing the format. The study asked former P1s where they are now. Here are some of the findings:
- Of the people who have left the format, 65% still listen to Country; 35% donıt listen at all anymore.
- Of the people who have left the format, 14% left in the past two months; 17% left in the last year. In the last 5 years, 50% of the audience has been lost.
- Of the 50% that have left the format, the majority left for an AOR-formatted station.
Some of the verbatim reasons listeners are leaving and have left the format:
- There are too many depressing songs.
- There are too many flash-in-the-pan artists.
- Listeners are now into Pop music.
- The music all sounds alike.
Some of the verbatim reasons Countryıs P1 listeners have left the format.
- Itıs too pop, too commercial, too fake and too slick.
- Itıs not real country.
- There are no older singers.
- Same things being played over and over again.
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