In his newest Programming To Win column, Pat Welsh asks if the Alternative format is poised for a big comeback in 2013? Following crossover hits from fun., Gotye, Mumford & Sons and more over the past year, what is next for the format? Welsh analyzes the spins and data for songs at the Alternative format for 2012 and shares his findings.
Pat Welsh
By Pat Welsh
In case you missed it, just before the holidays, Arbitron released its annual Radio Today report. The 2012 edition covers the period through the end of 2011. Among the things that jumped out at me was the poor ratings performance of Alternative. According to this report, Alternative’s national share has dropped below 2.0. It’s now included in the dreaded “Other Noteworthy Formats” section.
But something’s been happening with the format over the last couple of years, and it accelerated in 2012. Alternative has turned to a new generation of acts and most stations are now playing more currents and recurrents.
I started to dig into this while looking at how much Alternative and Active Rock had diverged, musically, after years of being similar. Through the early 2000’s, the two formats shared half or more of their new music; recently, they’ve moved in opposite directions. In 2012, Alternative had more in common with CHR and Hot AC than it did with Active Rock.
To analyze the changes, I compared annual year-end charts (not peak chart positions) of the most-played songs for Alternative and Active Rock to see how much they had in common. I looked at 4 things to get a clearer picture of how they’ve separated and why:
- Lists of the Top 50 most-played songs at each format
2. The Top 10 lists for each
3. Which songs and artists were shared each year
4.Gold percentages at each format over the years
Fewer Shared Songs in the Top 50
A comparison of the annual Top 50 lists illustrates the dramatic change. Every year through 2005, the two formats shared at least half of their top 50 songs (peaking at 34 out of 50 in both 2001 and 2002). Every year since then, the formats have shared less than half, with that number dropping rapidly after 2008. The two formats shared just 9 songs out of 50 in both 2011 and 2012
Fewer Shared Top 10 Songs
The same trend held when zeroing in on the biggest hits (the shared Top 10 songs) with more similar lists in the early years. In fact, in both 2000 and 2003 the two formats had the exact same songs in first and second place, and in 2001 they shared the same #1. They shared as many as six of ten in both 2002 and 2007. Since then, it’s been a different story: no shared songs in 2010, two in 2011 and just one last year.
Big Drop In Shared Artists
Besides the number of shared songs, the other big story is which songs and which artists have been shared over time. As recently as 2007, both the Active Rock and Alternative year-end Top 10 charts included songs from Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace and Papa Roach. But since 2009 the only artist the two formats shared in their respective Top 10s has been the Foo Fighters.
Both Formats Started to Play More Gold
Both formats have increased the amount of gold they play over the years. Going back 10 years, both formats went from being less than 50% gold to being well over 50% now, in a (mostly) gradual process. But that has started to change. Throughout 2012, Alternative stations steadily increased their percentage of currents and recurrents. At the beginning of the year, they were averaging about 56% gold; in the 4th quarter, most Alternative stations were closer to a 50/50 balance of new to old.
Conclusions
The divergence of the two formats has been based on several factors. The most important has been the lack of any new trends to drive the success and popularity of current rock music. It’s also worth noting that divergence of the two formats coincided with the deployment of the PPM. All of the studies on PPM success show stations can increase their shares much faster by building cume than time spent listening. Active Rock and Alternative have increased their mass appeal in its own way:
- Active Rock’s changes are based on era, rather than artists – Both formats have become more gold based, but Active Rock has accelerated the pace, and gone back further:
a. 1999 – 29% of Active Rock’s Top 100 gold songs were at least a decade old
b. 2012 – 92% of the Top 100 gold songs at Active were at least 10 years old - Active Rock relies on many of the same current artists – Active Rock currents and recurrents tend to be dominated by many of the same artists that the format has relied on for years. Artists that the two formats had in common in the mid-2000’s (e.g. Papa Roach, Stone Sour, Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, etc.) are still staples of Active Rock playlists, but are nowhere to be found on most Alternative stations today.
- Alternative has moved distinctly towards mass appeal current hits – In 2012, Alternative shared more Top 10 songs with CHR (Gotye and Fun) than with Active Rock (Foo Fighters). Acts like Foster The People (#1 in 2011), Gotye (#1 in 2012) and Fun (#4 in 2012) have been at the top of Alternative most-played charts in recent years, but they don’t crack the top 50 at Active Rock.
- Alternative is developing its own stars – Acts such as Muse and Mumford & Son sold a lot of albums and concert tickets when they were exclusive to Alternative. Now these acts have developed into huge crossover hits – in both airplay and sales – in the mass market. But the jury’s still out on others. Should Fun, the Lumineers, Gotye and Foster The People begin preparing their speeches for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, or will they end up as Dexy’s Midnight Runners or Thomas Dolby reincarnated?
- Both formats still share a lot of gold – There’s still a lot of common ground with the old stuff. Active Rock stations keep adding more pre-grunge classic rock back into the mix, but the sweet spot for Active Rock gold, as it is for Alternative, is still 90s music, especially grunge.
Alternative seems to have finally tapped into an emerging music trend, introducing a new generation of acts. Are they really “rock” acts? Will Active Rock start to embrace some of them, adopting a stance of “rock by genre” rather than “rock by format”? The answers to these questions will have a lot to do with whether we see an Alternative renaissance in 2013.
Pat Welsh, Senior Vice President/Digital Content, Pollack Media Group, can be reached at 310 459-8556, fax: 310-454-5046, or at pat@pollackmedia.com
