Quote:
Originally posted by Bentley
Did Get Ugly still go top 10 on POP though?
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Nope. It didn't even come close, peaking at #21 on AS+R and dropping out of the T100 just a couple of weeks after that.
The general rule of thumb is that if a song is getting bad callouts but is doing very well on either sales or streaming, it is unlikely that the callouts will have a big effect.
On the other hand, if a song is already not doing too great on sales/streaming and it gets bad callouts, that'll lead to a lower radio peak & much less longevity there.
It's a matter of incentive. Radio programmers have no reason to play an airplay-fueled hit if it's getting bad callouts (see: Something In The Way You Move) because the callouts serve as confirmation that there isn't much demand for the song. But if high streaming figures are showing that there is consistent demand for a song that's continuing to get bad callouts, that's because the demographics that like that song aren't well-represented in the sample of people that are being surveyed- it doesn't mean there's no demand for the song, and so programmers will continue to play it.
Programmers know that sales and streaming are far better indicators of popularity and demand than callout scores. From what I've observed, the scores seem to be used as a tool of confirmation, as no survey of ~1,000 people is ever going to be representative of the entire pop-music-listening public.
It's important to note that callouts are much more useful on a local (station) scale than on a national (panel) scale. They were originally implemented by radio stations in order to solicit feedback from local listeners to see if they should continue to play certain songs, and that's still their primary purpose today. It's just that they have proven to be a good predictor of whether a song is going to do well on radio, especially when that song is struggling on sales/streaming.
