Feature on UF longevity
How does Uptown Funk! compare to other massive all-format radio hits?
Overall AI
Uptown Funk!
First day above 200M: January 29, 2015
Last day above 200M: April 16, 2015
Peak: 248.908M (March 4, 2015 - 35 days into run above 200M)
Days above 200M: 78
Happy
First day above 200M: March 3, 2014
Last day above 200M: May 10, 2014
Peak: 305.409M (April 4, 2014 - 33 days into run)
Days above 200M: 69
Blurred Lines
First day above 200M: July 10, 2013
Last day above 200M: September 23, 2013
Peak: 291.932M (August 21, 2013 - 43 days into run)
Days above 200M: 76
All Of Me
First day above 200M: March 27, 2014
Last day above 200M: June 11, 2014
Peak: 271.963M (May 1, 2014 - 36 days into run)
Days above 200M: 77
Pop Radio
Uptown Funk!
Debut: November 11, 2014
Top 10: December 26, 2014 (+45 days)
Top 5: January 11, 2015 (+16 days)
#1: January 23, 2015 (+12 days)
Back below #5: April 16, 2015 (+83 days)
Back below #10: April 28, 2015 (+12 days)
Happy
Debut: January 19, 2014
Top 10: February 20, 2014 (+32 days)
Top 5: March 3, 2014 (+11 days)
#1: March 18, 2014 (+15 days)
Back below #5: May 11, 2014 (+54 days)
Back below #10: May 17, 2014 (+6 days)
Blurred Lines
Debut: May 11, 2013
Top 10: June 17, 2013 (+37 days)
Top 5: June 30, 2013 (+13 days)
#1: July 7, 2013 (+7 days)
Back below #5: September 18, 2013 (+73 days)
Back below #10: October 5, 2013 (+17 days)
All Of Me
Debut: January 30, 2014
Top 10: March 13, 2014 (+42 days)
Top 5: April 2, 2014 (+20 days)
#1: April 17, 2014 (+15 days)
Back below #5: June 8, 2014 (+52 days)
Back below #10: June 23, 2014 (+15 days)
What Is The Christmas Freeze?
What Is The Christmas Freeze, What Does It Affect, and Why?
Written on December 11, 2014
Revised and updated on December 15, 2015
I'm writing this post because I think a lot of ATRL members are confused over not only what the Christmas freeze is, but also what songs it will affect and how it will affect them. Before I delve deep into the investigation, let's remind ourselves what the freeze is (from my brief definition below in the Glossary):
Christmas freeze - A period of time from late December to very early January when the vast majority of songs will stall because of the addition of holiday-themed songs to radio stations' playlists as well as the playing of stations' year-end countdowns (which cause older songs that were big hits during the year to increase and current songs to stall because they are not getting played as much). Often referred to simply as the freeze.
Let's examine the two major factors that cause the Christmas freeze to occur.
1) Christmas music. As Christmas Day approaches, most radio stations will begin to exponentially play more Christmas and holiday-related music. On AC radio, the switch to a full-on Christmas playlist can occur as early as late November, but AC is the exception to the rule for holiday songs. Most pop and HAC stations flip to a playlist with at least some Christmas music roughly one week before Christmas. However, this is not exact, and some stations may very well begin on December 15 or December 22.
So which songs are most adversely affected by the addition of Christmas songs to pop stations' playlists? The ones that are already getting played a lot or the ones that are just starting?
A station can only play so many songs per week, because it has to air a certain amount of commercials. So when Christmas music invades a pop radio station's playlist, it cuts into that amount. Imagine a station playing 1000 songs per week normally. At the beginning of the freeze, 900 of those might be regular pop songs and 100 holiday songs. But how can one tell whether the Christmas music is eating into the plays of the current hits (#1-#10 on the pop radio chart) or the plays of the fastest-rising hits (usually below #15)?
Let's examine some data from the 2013 freeze. On December 15, before the start of the freeze for most pop stations, here were the highest bullets for songs below #10:
Burn 1651
Say Something 1634
Team 1405
Story Of My Life 1126
Let Her Go 1051
And the bullets of the top 5 songs on pop radio:
The Monster 1974
Counting Stars 2184
Demons 43
Timber 1948
Wake Me Up -812
Let's see what happened to each song as the freeze took effect.
Bullets on December 24
Timber 2299 (+351)
Burn 1344 (-307) (-19%)
Team 1223 (-182) (-13%)
Say Something 1134 (-500) (-31%)
Story Of My Life 765 (-361) (-32%)
Let Her Go 729 (-322) (-31%)
Counting Stars 632 (-1552) (-71%)
The Monster 384 (-1590) (-81%)
Demons -356 (-399) (-90%)
Wake Me Up -951 (-139) (-17%)
Timber performed exceptionally well during the freeze and I consider it to be an outlier. Only the strongest pop radio hits can stay unaffected by the addition of Christmas music to playlists.
If we look at the changes in the songs' bullets, we notice that the songs that were hurt the most were the ones that were already on top and thus closer to peaking than the rising songs (although all of the rising songs were significantly affected as well). When songs approach their peak, their bullet dwindles anyway, and the freeze amplifies this effect by giving stations another reason to stop playing them. Another reason this happens is because the songs getting more plays on pop radio have more plays for Christmas songs to take away from them. The rising hits are less affected not only because the stations are not yet tired of playing them, but also because there are simply less plays to lose.
Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that the songs that are affected most by the addition of Christmas and holiday-themed songs to pop radio playlists are the songs that are the highest on the pop radio chart or are very close to peaking.
It turns out that every single one of the rising hits in this investigation went on to become a top 10 pop radio hit (only Let Her Go missed the top 5, but it hit #1 on HAC radio). There are very few cases where a song completely loses momentum during the freeze and never recovers.
2) Year-end countdowns. This is the second aspect of the Christmas freeze and is the reason why it lingers into early January. During the last week of December and the first week of January, the vast majority of stations will compile year-end lists (a Top 100 Songs is common) and play them in full on air multiple times. The effects of these countdowns make the Christmas freeze less straightforward and all the more interesting.
Because these countdowns are meant to encompass the whole year, many songs that have long since had their run on pop radio often make large gains during late December and early January. The bigger the song was, the more likely it is to be included on a station's countdown (and therefore more stations will play it), and the greater its gains will likely be.
For the rising songs that usually dodge the bullet of the holiday songs, the year-end countdowns throw a wrench into the equation. Usually, these songs will stall or decrease because they are not included in the countdowns.
Let's examine some more data from the 2013 freeze. Here are the 9 fastest-rising songs on December 26, after which holiday songs are generally not played anymore:
Fastest-Rising, Dec. 26
Dark Horse 1641
XO 1376
Timber 1030
Team 911
Pompeii 838
Say Something 762
Burn 754
Young Girls 644
Story Of My Life 462
Notice how those bullets have all decreased because of the holiday songs?
Here are some bullets of some of the biggest hits of 2013, which are likely to be played on the 2013 year-end countdowns:
Older Songs, Dec. 26
Radioactive 145
When I Was Your Man 111
We Can't Stop 40
Blurred Lines 1
Mirrors -15
Thrift Shop -123
Summertime Sadness -207
Holy Grail -262
Safe And Sound -301
Hold On, We're Going Home -830
Notice how none of these bullets don't indicate anything except for minor fluctuations with an overall slightly negative trend, which is extremely common for songs that are well past their peak. (except for HOWGH, which was not well past its peak)
Here are their bullets on January 4, 2014:
Dark Horse 1556 (-85)
XO 934 (-442)
Young Girls 902 (+258)
Team 568 (-343)
Pompeii 552 (-286)
Say Something 458 (-304)
Burn 447 (-307)
Story Of My Life 344 (-118)
Timber 275 (-755)
Safe And Sound 490 (+791)
Mirrors 416 (+431)
Summertime Sadness 372 (+579)
Thrift Shop 346 (+469)
When I Was Your Man 272 (+161)
Blurred Lines 221 (+220)
Holy Grail 159 (+421)
Radioactive 150 (+5)
We Can't Stop 115 (+75)
Hold On, We're Going Home -122 (+708)
All of the songs that were big in 2013 got huge boosts! It's radio's way of paying tribute to the big hits, and it comes at the expense of the rising songs. The songs from earlier in the year tend to steal plays from the newer, rising hits that are put on hold for two weeks.
The list of bullets on Jan. 4 actually contains two very interesting cases: Young Girls and XO. Like most Bruno Mars songs, Young Girls increased at a frenetic pace for most of its run, and the freeze didn't seem to affect it at all, but it ended up peaking just inside the top 10 for a few days. XO was one of the few songs that I actually believe the freeze had an effect on. It was a monster before the freeze, and after the freeze it never got its mojo back and its bullet steadily decreased until it peaked well outside of the top 10.
Anyways, I can confidently state that the songs affected the most by the year-end countdowns are the rising songs and older songs that were big hits during the year but are well past their peak. The rising songs will stall and/or decrease and the older songs will surge.
Because of the combined effect of the holiday songs and the year-end countdowns, most songs on the pop radio chart can expect to suffer from the freeze. It is very rare that a song is affected by both (the song would probably have to be a song that was surging in late Nov./early Dec. but had since slowed down). The two types of songs that benefit from the freeze are holiday songs and old songs that were big earlier in the year.
Examining 2014 data shows similar trends. In fact, the Christmas freeze starts well before the 12/26 cutoff that I used in my 2013 investigation, so we'll use 12/20 here. Here is a list of the fastest-gaining songs on December 20, 2014:
The Hanging Tree 2669
Uptown Funk! 1831
Love Me Harder 1740
Take Me To Church 1455
Thinking Out Loud 1276
The Heart Wants What It Wants 1245
I'm Not The Only One 1213
Stuck On A Feeling 1071
Blank Space 1067
Lips Are Movin 862
Let's take a look at how those bullets were doing on New Year's Day, 2015 (12 days later):
Thinking Out Loud 963 (-313)
The Hanging Tree 477 (-2,192)
Love Me Harder 403 (-1,337)
Stuck On A Feeling 264 (-807)
Uptown Funk! 207 (-1,624)
The Heart Wants What It Wants -149 (-1,394)
Take Me To Church -171 (-1,626)
Lips Are Movin -195 (-1,057)
I'm Not The Only One -207 (-1,420)
Blank Space -1036 (-2,103)
Blank Space could have had an even higher peak on pop radio if the freeze didn't happen to hit right at its peak. It still ended up peaking with 20,342 spins on all stations pop radio, though. Remember that the songs affected the most by the year-end countdowns are at their peaks or climbing quickly; BS was both. The other quick-rising songs all continued to increase (with the amounts they increased by varying, as The Hanging Tree petered out incredibly quickly and Take Me To Church surging to #2 in February). Thus, we can conclude that the freeze has little effect on a rising song's performance after the freeze; it depends much more on whether the song was going to become a hit in the first place. Meanwhile, TOL's good hold is due to its remarkable strength as a radio hit; we're all familiar with its excellent longevity on all metrics. The bottom line is that if a song is well on its way to becoming huge on pop radio, the freeze will do nothing to prevent it from getting there.
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Glossary of Radio Terms and Phrases
AAA - Adult Album Alternative, a format that plays alternative music (and on rare occasions, pop). Known for playing album tracks frequently, it is the smallest format in the United States. Also known as
"triple A."
Add - When a station adds a song to their playlist. The amount of adds a song gets when it goes for adds on a format is often a good indicator of how the song will do on that format.
See "send for adds."
Adds date - The day on which a song is sent for adds. Depending on the format, these are either Mondays or Tuesdays.
Monday or Tuesday?
Monday
HAC
AC
AAA
Country
Tuesday
Pop
Rhythmic
Urban
Alternative
Abbreviations - Each radio format has a (usually) three-letter abbreviation. Notable ones include:
ALT = alternative
RHY = rhythmic
COU = country
URB = urban
UAC = urban AC
Adult contemporary - A radio format that mostly plays older classics, but occasionally plays top 40 hits. This format is even more laid back than HAC, and mostly plays slower, downtempo songs instead of rap or dance. This format is almost exclusively referred to as
AC. For obvious reasons, only relatively current hits are allowed to chart on the AC chart.
Airplay-fueled - A term used to describe a song where most of the song's Hot 100 chart points are coming from airplay.
AI - Abbreviation for "audience impression."
See "impression."
AllAccess - An online website for all things airplay: radio news, charts, forums, and more can be found here. Affiliated with Mediabase, the site displays the daily Mediabase charts and is also often used to find adds dates (as these are frequently updated under the "Future Releases" section).
All Stations - All of the radio stations of a particular format, as opposed to a selected panel.
See "published."
American Top 40 - A nationally syndicated countdown radio station hosted by Ryan Seacrest that is broadcast every Sunday morning on every ClearChannel top 40 station in the United States. The published + recurrents Mediabase charts are used for the American Top 40. Songs played on the countdown will receive higher updates the following Monday because of the national exposure. It is often referred to as
AT40.
Big Four - A term that I coined and use to refer to the four biggest formats: pop, HAC, rhythmic, and urban.
Bipolar - A
bipolar song is a song that often fluctuates. It might get a positive update one day, and then a negative update the next, and then a positive update the next.
Bullet - The change in spins from 1 week ago to today. For example, if a song has 8,000 spins one week ago and 8,750 today, its bullet would be +750 (often written simply as 750). If instead it had 7,750 spins today, its bullet would be -250.
Callout scores - A term that refers to radio listeners' reception of a song. To obtain these scores, respondents (radio listeners) are contacted randomly by phone and asked to share their opinion of different songs. Online surveys (at
RateTheMusic, which make no impact on the overall Mediabase callout scores and are unrelated) are also conducted. The surveys ask if you are familiar with a song, like it (or love it), and if you are tired of it.
*Note that RateTheMusic is NOT a Mediabase service, but does influence radio stations' playlists.
CBS Radio - A branch of CBS which owns hundreds of radio stations throughout the United States, most notably the
AMP Radio network. Unlike ClearChannel stations, these stations tend to lean towards rhythmic and dance rather than pop. For example, an AMP station would likely give Rather Be and I Don't Mind more plays than its Kiss counterpart.
CHR - An abbreviation for "contemporary hit radio." Just another way to say pop radio.
See "pop."
Christmas freeze - A period of time from late December to very early January when the vast majority of songs will stall because of the addition of holiday-themed songs to radio stations' playlists as well as the playing of stations' year-end countdowns (which cause older songs that were big hits during the year to increase and current songs to stall because they are not getting played as much). Often referred to simply as
the freeze.
ClearChannel/iHeartCommunications, Inc. - An American advertising and marketing company that owns hundreds of radio stations throughout the United States, most notably the
Kiss network. Also the owners of iHeartRadio. In September 2014, ClearChannel changed its name to iHeartCommunications, Inc., and CC Media Holdings, the holding company of iHeartCommunications, changed its name to iHeartMedia, Inc.
Crossover - To chart on multiple formats. A
crossover hit or
multiformat hit is a song that does well on multiple formats.
Deal - A
radio deal is when a song receives guaranteed spins on certain radio stations. The agreement is negotiated by the record label and a radio company that owns stations (ClearChannel, for example)
Freefall - When a song that has already peaked begins to fall down a chart at a rapid pace.
Format - A type of radio station. For example, Pop and Urban are both formats, and they play mostly pop and urban music, respectively. Each format has its own chart, and each format is a different size (has a different number of stations).
Gold - A special type of recurrent on Mediabase airplay charts, achieved when a song has spent a certain amount of time on a format (depending on the format, this length of time can be anywhere between two and three years). When a song achieves Gold status on a format, it is purged permanently from that format's chart. Perhaps the most prominent example of a Gold song is Miguel's
Adorn on Urban AC.
Hot adult contemporary - A format that mixes current pop hits with older hits. This format will almost never play rap or EDM songs, as it is meant to be "easy listening." This format is abbreviated as and is almost exclusively referred to as
HAC.
iHeartMedia, Inc. - See
ClearChannel.
iHeartRadio On The Verge - A common, sometimes effective radio deal that gets new artists' songs played frequently on many iHeartCommunications (ClearChannel) stations. Songs that have benefited from this deal include Ed Sheeran's
Sing and Aloe Blacc's
The Man.
Incomplete list of 2014/2015/2016 songs that received On The Verge deals
Aloe Blacc - The Man
Iggy Azalea - Fancy f/Charli XCX
Rixton - Me And My Broken Heart
Ed Sheeran - Sing
Tove Lo - Habits (Stay High)
Katy Tiz - The Big Bang
Nick Jonas - Jealous
Ella Henderson - Ghost
Hoodie Allen - All About It f/Ed Sheeran
Prince Royce - Stuck On A Feeling
Natalie La Rose - Somebody f/Jeremih
Tori Kelly - Nobody Love
Nate Ruess - Nothing Without Love
Kaya Stewart - In Love With A Boy
Conrad Sewell - Hold Me Up
James Bay - Let It Go
Kent Jones - Don't Mind
Lukas Graham - 7 Years
ZAYN - Like I Would
Hailee Steinfeld - Love Myself
Impression - When a song is heard on a radio station. An impression does not have to be unique to count towards a song's total. For example, 5 million impressions for a song could actually be 1 million people each hearing it 5 times.
Inflation - When audience impression figures are higher than they likely really are.
Mediabase - A music stats company that compiles radio charts. All Kworb and American Top 40 charts are made using Mediabase data.
Mix network - A group of HAC stations owned by CBS Radio.
Nielsen - A music stats company that compiles radio charts. Nielsen overall AI data is used for the Hot 100. It is generally lower than Mediabase AI numbers.
Overall - Cumulative across all formats a song is charting on. For example, if a song has 50M AI on pop and 20M on rhythmic, its overall AI is 70M.
Panel adjustment - When a format's panel of radio stations undergoes a change. This could be anything from new stations joining the panel to AI numbers for the panel being adjusted for accuracy.
Payola - The suspicion that an artist or record label is paying stations to play a song. This word usually carries a negative and accusatory connotation.
See "deal."
Peak - A song's best mark in any category. For example, Royals' spin peak is 19,009 spins.
Pop - The largest and most important radio format, playing top 40 music.
Published panel - A panel of radio stations that have been selected as stations that best represent a certain format. Each format has a published chart as well as an all stations chart, and the published chart only uses data from stations on the published panel.
See "all stations."
Recurrent - A song that is removed from a format's chart due to it spending a large amount of time on that chart.
Recurrent charts include recurrents, and therefore do not remove any songs from their charts.
Rhythmic - A format that generally plays a mix of pop, rap, and R&B music.
Rolling effect - When a song has a very large first-day update on radio, seven days later it will likely receive a very large negative update on all formats. This is because a song's spins are measured in 7-day periods, so when that first day does not count anymore the total spins will drastically decrease. The rolling effect is almost never harmful to the overall performance of a song.
The glossary is continued below.