No standard version?

LOS ANGELES: The radio world has just been taken aback by the recent sale of all of Disney’s Radio Disney owned-and-operated stations. Cayman Records, a small record label under the Universal umbrella that has previously signed artists Zedd and Ellie Goulding and currently has Ariana Grande on its roster, has bought the struggling group of 23 stations (excluding LA-based KDIS) on Friday, January 9th, 2014. At 12:01 am on January 10th, Cayman Records started stunting all the stations with a continuous loop of Ariana Grande’s latest single “Heartbreak” and re-branded them as Radio Heartbreak. For those of you who don’t know, “stunting” in the radio world is when a radio station plays audio that is uncharacteristic of what it normally plays; this is done prior to switching to a new format. This is often a single song or a few songs on a loop, sound effects, a sneak preview of the new format, a temporary format, an overlap between the old and new formats, or playing Christmas music. KDIS was kept by Disney to serve as the originating station of Radio Disney, presumably so they don’t have to pay as much royalties. However, every other station, including the sole FM station WRDZ-FM in Indianapolis, was sold and immediately transferred to Cayman Records.

It is currently unknown why Cayman Records bought the station. Popular theories include Cayman Records wanting to make a huge push for Ariana Grande, Cayman Records diversifying their interests, and Cayman Records putting an effort in starting a radio network for CAL. Currently, all but one of the former Radio Disney stations (as well as KDIS) are AM stations, meaning whatever goes on those stations is destined to flop, unless it’s sports, talk, or minority programming. Cayman Records could try to sell most of these stations and purchase FM stations to put in their place, but it depends on if people actually want to buy these AM stations. Cayman Records will most likely hold onto both WRDZ-FM as well as WQEW, the New York station, as it is a clear-channel station meaning its signal can often be listened to in many areas of the country at night.

There are currently rumors going around that the Heartbreak Radio format may eventually lead into a format solely supporting Ariana Grande’s upcoming album Keep Me Close. Alternatively, it could switch to a general format for Ariana or just switch to that after promoting Keep Me Close. It does seem like the goal is to either form a new radio conglomerate or to make a CAL radio network.

All stations that are currently licensed to broadcast in HD Radio have now turned on their equipment that allows them to do so; Disney had turned off the HD Radio equipment of 13 out of 22 stations that were able to broadcast in HD radio. Two stations are currently in the process of being certified for HD Radio. Cayman Records seems to already be looking for more stations to purchase, mainly FM stations. The next few months in radio should be very interesting.

When will your fave have entire radio stations dedicated to her latest single?

Also Egle, I think you need to boost the airplay part of the formula for Ari. Heartbreak's getting a crapload of airplay right now

The standard is the first cover and track list

NEW YORK: Ariana Grande stopped by the Good Morning America studios today to promote her new single “Heartbreak.” Ariana is kicking off a major promotional tour across the country to promote “Heartbreak”, which is the lead single from her upcoming album Keep Me Close, which is due to come out in the coming weeks. It is Ariana’s third album, after Yours Truly and My Everything. Despite disappointing sales last week, Ariana is not discouraged. She is still going to try to promote despite running out of time before the CAL chart tracking week ends on Saturday. She hopes to have Heartbreak peak at number one.

During a short interview just before the performance, Ariana gave some background for “Heartbreak”: “The song is about a relationship I had between Nathan Sykes and Big Sean; the media didn’t get ahold of the story at all, but it happened. I won’t mention his name, but let’s just say he’s a major star… Anyway, we were all lovey-dovey for a while. And then, he decides to start seeing someone else while he was still dating me! We made up, but we decided to end the relationship. I wrote this song a few days before we made up. My song New York Lover from Keep Me Close is about another relationship I had during this time that didn’t make it out to the media.


For the performance, Ariana wore the pink version of the Problem-era dress. The performance was outside, and she was with her backing dancers. The beat to “Heartbreak” kicked in, and Ariana started dancing. Her dancers started dancing, and then she started singing the first verse. Ariana was moving flawlessly and effortlessly; she looked like she had been dancing all her life! Of course, the spotlight was on her vocals; she sang the entire first verse flawlessly. However, her voice cracked during the pre-chorus, when she sang “it’s about to go down.” This is understandable, as it was pretty cold and artists don’t always have their vocals on-point.

Ariana then went into the chorus: “Hope you enjoyed my love / cause it’s gonna be gone.” Ariana flawlessly executed the high notes as well as the deep notes, making a dramatic recovery from the mess in the first pre-chorus. The crowd started roaring at this part, and it made it hard to hear over them. However, Ariana kept slaying. During the second chorus, Ariana was picked up by the twin backing dancers and carried around the stage. The rest kept on dancing. She was put down for the pre-chorus, which she slayed so much. The crowd went wild! She kept these hot vocals going through the chorus, where she went around high-fiving all her fans in the audience.

Ariana then sang the bridge in the middle of the stage. She slayed the low notes at the beginning and the high notes at the end. She sang the chorus and outro with no flaws, even improvising some high notes and whistle notes. Overall, the GP loved the performance and want to see more of Ariana on their televisions.

I think I'm gonna promote Heartbreak for another week then release the album.

THIS JUST IN: Ariana Grande has broken a record. In its first 24 hours on YouTube and Vevo, Ariana’s music video for her latest single “Heartbreak” supporting her upcoming third album Keep Me Close has broken the Vevo record for most views in 24 hours, with 25 million views in its first 24 hours. The previous record holder was “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj, which got 19.6 million views in its first 24 hours. “Anaconda”, in turn, took the record away from “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus, which held it for nearly a whole year with 19.3 million views. This also marks a huge increase compared with the previous record holders.

When asked about this surprising record, Ariana stated, “I have no idea how this happened. I expected it to be huge, yes, but I didn’t expect to debut with 25 million views in the first 24 hours! I have to thank my fans for getting the word out there, and also ABC for promoting my video! I’m just overwhelmed right now… I don’t know what to think… Hopefully this means that more people are going to be buying the single this week! I’ll try to keep the momentum going here. You should all be on the lookout for more performances soon!”

It seems like a lot of people are giving credit to Ariana’s fans and a Twitter snowballing effect for the unprecedented record number of views in 24 hours. Arianators (or Loves, as Ariana herself calls them) used hashtags such as #HeartbreakVideoOnVevo, #HeartbreakOnVevo, #ArianaHeartbreakOnVevo, #WatchHeartbreakOnYouTube, #BuyHeartbreakOniTunes, and #PreorderKeepMeClose to promote the video and its related works; all of these became trending topics. The terms Vevo, Heartbreak, Keep Me Close, Ariana, and Ariana Grande also became trending topics; the #1 trending topic throughout the first 24 hours of the video was #HeartbreakVideoOnVevo. YouTube has reported that most of their traffic came straight from Twitter, with all the links to the video on there.

However, the video’s success isn’t just due to Ariana’s fans and Twitter. The video was initially aired on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. It was also just prior to the ball drop in Times Square, so it got huge viewership. Surely, tons of people headed to the YouTube or Vevo websites or apps as soon as possible to check if the video is available yet; it was made public just after the ball drop, so many people were probably successful and watched the video.

Currently, the video is being extremely well-received by critics and the general public alike. It currently has a 1,000-to-one like-to-dislike ratio. Critics, after first being taken aback by the differing frame rates of the video, now are finding that the choice to use alternating frame rates was the best one, as it makes a clear distinction between the present-day scenes and the 1960s scenes. The GP are also sharing similar sentiments. We reached out to Becky G, who Ariana had a little beef with in the last week, but she declined to comment.

You can start now if you want.

When exactly are the charts coming ? 12 or 3 pm EST

12PM EST, because I have to go watch Eurovision immediately after the Charts Show.