Time to Rethink Music Formats?
Music formats – radio stations playing a single genre of music – are as old as radio itself. The notion that stations succeed by staying in their music “lanes” is accepted as programming gospel.
Recent research, however, raises the question whether our focus on music format purity might be outdated.
An analysis of Spotify users shows that large portions of users don’t stay in their lane. For example, nearly three-quarters of Rock listeners also stream Pop. Perhaps even more surprising, nearly half of Rock listeners also stream Hip-Hop!
Pop listeners appear somewhat more discerning, yet large numbers veer out of their lane with almost half of Pop listeners also streaming Hip-Hop (perhaps not surprising).
The Spotify data suggest that a large share of music listeners weave all over the road listening to Rock one moment, Pop another, then perhaps Indie or Country at other times.
With today’s streaming services making millions of songs from a multitude of music genres available to listeners, radio by comparison may sound stilted and too predictable. Perhaps we need to rethink “staying in our lanes” and offer listeners more variety with a surprise now and then.