How to take full advantage of The Cure's new "On Sale" status

[pdaines 209]

RADIO CAMPAIGN. 

TAKEAWAY: Send messages, tweets, texts, etc. to radio stations MENTIONING CASUALLY "The Cure"'s current iTunes position. This ensures that the current iTunes position of The Cure (which will be relatively high because it is on sale) is at the top of radio programmers' minds as they decide who to spin. 

LIST OF RADIO STATIONS TO CONTACT: https://sites.google.com/site/urbrhypopradiostations/home (also links to their mediabase request form; again, only fill it out ONCE with similar information or within a small amount of time per radio station, include a BRIEF comment about The Cure's current iTunes position). 

WHAT NOT TO DO: Don't under any circumstances mention or indicate that The Cure is on sale!!! They will actively discount its iTunes position if they realize that it is on sale and that will ruin the effect! DON'T even toot how much it has GAINED on iTunes because that will cause some radio programmers to dig deeper and see if there is a reason, which may lead them to realize that it is on sale and then they will discount its iTunes chart position. Don't be annoying in any way shape or form. Try to be HELPFUL, and to make them LIKE YOU. Don't send more than a single message from any one account or within a short period of time or they will feel like you are trying to manipulate them.

WHAT TO DO: Compare The Cure's iTunes chart position favorably with songs that ARE getting increased radio airplay. For example, if you can say "Oh look, The Cure just passed Harry Styles' new song up on iTunes," that would be REALLY HELPFUL. Why? Because these kinds of statements indicate broad support for The Cure in the population -- not just how pushy one whiny fan can be. Just send ONE message to each radio station. 

Gaga's management put The Cure on sale for one reason and one reason only -- to improve Gaga's radio numbers. Unless you are completely oblivious, you should be aware that The Cure recently stalled out unexpectedly at pop radio (and to a lesser extent, Hot AC). This is true even though its iTunes ranking actually picked up from about #49 to #30 without being on sale over the past several days. I think the management were looking at the improved iTunes ranking and expecting to see a bounce back on radio in response. When that didn't happen, they took matters into their own hands -- and made the improved iTunes ranking more obvious by putting The Cure on sale. Unfortunately, this means that we will never know where The Cure would be ranking now but for being on sale. But, fortunately, this gives The Cure a much needed and very visible stat boost which the label can use to promote the song to radio programmers. 

How do we know that iTunes rankings affect radio programmers' decisions? I made some compelling charts and explained my argument in full in this article I wrote after they took "Million Reasons" off-sale: https://musicindustrysandbox.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/open-letter-to-gagas-management-from-a-fan/ Disclosure: I didn't actually get around to publishing that article at the time because I was trying to shop it to an actual news publication and then I was swamped with law school and forgot about it. I just put it up on my blog now because I can't just insert the chart images into this forum thread. Want more evidence? Gaga's label ran a test recently. They put "The Cure" on sale in the UK immediately but held off in the US for a few weeks. http://gagadaily.com/forums/topic/230566-the-cure-hits-10-on-uk-airplay/ The Cure was in the top 5, then the top 10, then the top 15, and now back in the top 10 on British iTunes as a result, and radio growth has been strong there, and it actually managed to rise from 23 to 19 in its second week on the overall singles chart (instead of debuting lower and dropping substantially as in the US). Thankfully, they are now experimenting with putting it on sale in the US again. So, let's help them take full advantage (and admittedly ruin their numbers in the process by making them overly favorable to on-sale status -- but that just means they are more likely to put Gaga's songs on sale early and often and leave them on sale so that they can have even more of a chance of being successful!!!). 

Now get to work! 

 

[Luc 4,772]

Are you from Gaga's management team?  this thread really looks like it could be

[pdaines 209]

6 minutes ago, Luc said:

Are you from Gaga's management team?  this thread really looks like it could be

 

Ah, thanks! But no, I'm not. Just a passionate fan. 

[Bio 23,538]

I'mma let it flop

[darkchylde 14,857]

a better idea: let it go

[Luc 4,772]

Just now, pdaines said:

Ah, thanks! But now, I'm not. Just a passionate fan. 

Your analysis seems spot on. I just think there has to be a distinction between bigger stations (those where a song can get over 1M AI in a week) and smaller stations (where a song usually gets <0.01M AI per spin). Bigger stations will probably have more attentive people composing the playlists with more influence from the label and a balanced view of different indicators. Smaller stations look to the bigger stations for inspiration and will indeed have 'lazy' people composing the playlist, based off of iTunes for example. The bigger stations will not be 'tricked' as easily.

 

 

Do you only care for analysis of US music industry or also European and East-Asian? Only radios or also streaming? I think that would be interesting.

[TSUNAMI 20,182]

8 minutes ago, Entropy said:

a better idea: let it go

Are you serious? Do you know at what forum you are? 

 

I STILL can't let go of that fuse.tv mess Britney vs. Gaga from 2009

[Ryusei 59,929]

9 minutes ago, pdaines said:

Ah, thanks! But no, I'm not. Just a passionate fan. 

Seems like something an undercover manager would say 

Jk lol

[MonsterOfSpain 8,275]

Idk, I think the discount wasn't needed. What she needs to do now is release the video, that will help it gain exposure and keep rising on iTunes + radio.

[pdaines 209]

6 minutes ago, Luc said:

Your analysis seems spot on. I just think there has to be a distinction between bigger stations (those where a song can get over 1M AI in a week) and smaller stations (where a song usually gets <0.01M AI per spin). Bigger stations will probably have more attentive people composing the playlists with more influence from the label and a balanced view of different indicators. Smaller stations look to the bigger stations for inspiration and will indeed have 'lazy' people composing the playlist, based off of iTunes for example. The bigger stations will not be 'tricked' as easily.

 

 

Do you only care for analysis of US music industry or also European and East-Asian? Only radios or also streaming? I think that would be interesting.

 

I care about music industry chart analysis everywhere. I have back-knowledge mostly of the US industry over the past few years. Streaming is increasingly the MOST important of the three components for chart purposes. 

I agree that larger stations will not likely be "tricked" easily, but that doesn't mean that you can't make a difference by contacting them in a respectful and non-annoying way and helpfully pointing out the strong points in The Cure's metrics. 

The biggest problem is that radio stations tend to rely heavily on Mediabase callout reports (direct listener reaction research) that is only available (published) when songs cross 60% audience familiarity. Until then, even big stations don't have that much information on which to base their decisions. Radio stations are primarily forced to rely on three sources of information: 1) streaming data (not Gaga's strong suit, and which are heavily driven by radio airplay); 2) sales; and 3) what other radio stations are doing (right now, NOT giving it additional streams).

Thus, 2 of the three factors are CIRCULAR. A top 10 iTunes ranking is actually a pretty important indicator, even for big stations with relatively high sophistication. Further, they can't say where a song would be if it weren't on sale with any certainty. All they really know is that the song is in the top 10 on iTunes, so there must be a lot of people buying it, so they probably can't go wrong giving it some spins. 

Big radio stations also rely a bit on their own individual surveys, and requests from fans, but that is actually where you come in!

[MonsterOfSpain 8,275]

Why have the AI updates become smaller though? She was gaining 1.5m+ every day last time I checked  

[pdaines 209]

11 minutes ago, MonsterOfSpain said:

Idk, I think the discount wasn't needed. What she needs to do now is release the video, that will help it gain exposure and keep rising on iTunes + radio.

 

It was definitely needed. I'm pretty sure Gaga's management were hoping that the song would take off on its own without a video, and I suspect that they would like to wait to drop the video on Memorial Day, exploding an already huge song and thus opening up Song of the Summer (which only counts points generated between memorial day and labor day) possibilities. 

But if radio keeps deteriorating, then I'm all in on a killer music video drop to reignite the flame -- assuming that they already have a good one in mind and have had time to film it!!! 

[pdaines 209]

3 minutes ago, MonsterOfSpain said:

Why have the AI updates become smaller though? She was gaining 1.5m+ every day last time I checked  

 

I don't know. One possibility is that she had a bad radio day, and then radio saw that she had a bad radio day and gave her another one because that is what they perceived as happening. Radio programmers are like sheep. They clump together like crazy. 

[Lextyr97 17,538]

37 minutes ago, Bio said:

I'mma let it flop

Get off this site lmao

Spoiler

Low-key doing the same by not doing any of the above

 

[SHOOKGA 2,604]

I live in hong kong

There are only like two radio stations

I dunno how this works.