Radio Is on Road to Recovery but Needs More Help From
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BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE APRIL 13, 2020 | PAGE 4 OF 19 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] Bulletin SamHunt’s Southside Rules Top Country YOURAlbu DAILYms; BrettENTERTAINMENT Young ‘Catc NEWSh UPDATE’-es Fifth AirplayMARCH 2, 2021 Page 1 of 22 Leader; Travis Denning Makes History INSIDE Radio Is On Road to Recovery But Sam Hunt’s second studio full-length, and first in over five years, Southside sales (up 21%) in the tracking week. On Country Airplay, it hops 18-15 (11.9 mil- (MCA Nashville/Universal Music Group Nashville),Needs debuts at No. 1More on Billboard’s lion Help audience impressions, From up 16%). Podcasts Top •Country SoundCloud Albums Will chart dated April 18. In its first week (ending April 9), it earnedPay 46,000 Independent equivalent album units, including 16,000 in album sales, ac- TRY TO ‘CATCH’ UP WITH YOUNG Brett Youngachieves his fifth consecutive cordingArtists to Nielsen Based Music/MRC on Data. andBY totalGLENN Country PEOPLES Airplay No. 1 as “Catch” (Big Machine Label Group) ascends SouthsideListeners, marks Not Hunt’s second No. 1 on the 2-1, increasing 13% to 36.6 million impressions. chart andStreams fourth top 10. It followsOnly freshman in a pandemic could LP a business have bound- companies hadYoung’s mixed first results on of six chart Wall entries, Street on “Sleep the With- Montevallo, which arrived at the summit in No - out You,” reached No. 2 in December 2016. He • Maestro ing optimism after losing a fifth of its reve- days following their earnings releases: iHeartMedia vember 2014 and reigned for nine weeks. To date, followed with the multiweek No. 1s “In Case You Livestreaming nue in one year. That’s radio in 2021 as companies dug shares fell 7.2% before recovering 2.6% the following Montevallo has earned 3.9 million units, with 1.4 Didn’t Know” (two weeks, June 2017), “Like I Loved Platform Raises $15M million in album sales. themselves out of a deep second-quarter hole caused day, Cumulus’sYou” share (three, price January barely moved, and Enter 2018), “Mercy” (two, August- From Sony Music, Montevallo has spent 267 weeksby store closures and on the list, tying stay-at-home orders across the com Communications’2018) and “Here shares Tonight” plummeted (two, April 23.9% 2019). one Twitch’s Kevin Lin & Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party as thecountry. sixth-longest- day and fell another“Catch” 11.1% on completes the his next — 27.4% longest journey in to total. No. 1, More running titles in the chart’s 56-yeariHeartMedia’s 2020 revenue was $2.95 history. bil- Each of thesehaving leading radio taken 46 weeks companies to reach the are apex. manag It out- - On• Interimthe all-genre Grammy Billboard 200,lion, down 20% from $3.68 Southside ar- billion in 2019, according ing expectationspaces thefor 30-weekthe future climb differently. After of “Here Tonight.” a year rivesChief at No. Harvey 5, awarding Mason Hunt his second top 10 On Hot Country Songs, “Catch” pushes 7-5 for to the company’s earningsHUNT report released ThursYOUNG- of social distancing, “pent-up consumer demand” and after theJr. ExpectsNo. 3-peaking New Montevallo. a new high. HuntRecording first released Academy the EPX2C day. That, which debuted deep loss is secondary to the improvements “an economic bounce-back” will drive iHeartMedia and peakedCEO atby No. May 5 on Top Countrymade overAlbums the inyear, August however. 2014. Although revenues forFollowing COMBS ‘DOES’ salesIT AGAIN back Luke to 2019 Combs levels’ “Does by tothe Me” end (River of 2021, president, House/Columbia Montevallo, Between the Pines: theAcoustic fourth Mixtape quarter started period covering at its No. 7 high October in Nashville),through featuringCOO Eric and Church CFO Rich, ascends Bressler said 11-8 on Country during Airplay, iHeartMe up 10%- to • Michael Gudinski, November 2015. December were 9% lower than a year earlier ($1.0324.7 million in audience.dia’s earnings The song call on is Combs’ Thursday. eighth straight career-opening MontevalloLegendary produced Australian five singles, four of which hit the pinnacle of Country top 10, following a record run of seven consecutive out-of-the-gate, properly Airplay:Independent “Leave the Music Night On,” “Takebillion compared Your Time,” “House to $936 Party” million), and “Make they were promoted an No. 1 singles.Not so fast, said Cumulus CEO Mary Berner in the You Entrepreneur,Miss Me.” “Break Dies Up in a Smallimprovement Town” peaked from the 47% at No. 2. and 29% deficits inChurch the adds hiscompany’s Thursday 15th Country Airplay earnings top 10. call. Despite the up- Hunt co-pennedat 68 all 12 songssecond on Southside and third, including quarters, “Body respectively. Like a Back swing from a miserable second quarter, “we’re not out Road,”• which After wasSelling released in 2017.The The upward trajectory smash hit ruled Country makes Airplay sense: for just asTHAT radio TOOK QUITEof the ‘A pandemicFEW’ MONTHS woods Travis yet,” Denning she said. shatters the record for threeSpinnin’ weeks andRecords the airplay-, for streaming-companies and quickly sales-based took Hot a hit Country when the Songs economy the most sank weeks it hasBeasley taken Mediato penetrate Group the CEO Caroline Country Airplay Beasley of top 10 as “After- chart for a then-record 34 frames. It now ranks second only to Bebe Rexha and a Few” (Mercury Nashville) climbs 12-10 in its 57th week, up 4% to 21.4 mil - $100M, Eelko van in March, they have benefitted from economic expan- fered tempered optimism, saying broad vaccine dis- FloridaKooten’s Georgia New Line Focus’s “Meant to Be” (50 weeks atop the latter list in 2017-18). lion in radio reach. sion. At Cumulus, 2020 revenue fell 26.7% but fourth tribution will bring “more normalized revenue levels” “Downtown’sIs Influencers Dead,” which is also on the new set, reached Nos. 14 and 15 The song surpasses two tracks that took 50 weeks each to enter the top 10: on Hot Country Songs and Countryquarter Airplay, revenue respectively, was down in June 13.9% 2018. year “Kin over- year. EnEaston Corbin- ’slater “A Girl in theLike year. You,” which reached No. 10 in January 2018 be- folks”• T.I. led and Country Tiny Harris Airplay on Feb.tercom’s 29, becoming revenue fell 19% Hunt’s seventh in the No. fourth 1. It hit quarter, fore peaking at No.The 6 that bright February, spot and throughout Aaron Watson the past’s “Outta year Style,” has been which Hit With Defamation No. 3 on Hot Country Songs. slightly better than the 22.8% annual decline.achieved its No.podcasts’ 10 high in Decembercontinued 2017. growth, which is expected to play Latest singleLawsuit “Hard to Forget” jumps 17-9 on Hot Country Songs. It’s his “After” is Denning’s second Country Airplay entry. “David Ashley Parker Despite showing year-ending improvements, radio (continued) eighth top 10, having corralled 8.2 million U.S. streams (up 96%) and 5,000 in From Powder Springs” traveled to No. 32 in September 2018. ETHAN MICHAEL YOUNG: VIA MARTIN/NHLI GETTY HUNT: IMAGES. IMAGES MILLER/GETTY Page 3 of 22 IN BRIEF a key role in these companies’ recovery. to eMarketer — but that’s still just a frac- and are open to “smart acquisitions,” he At iHeartMedia, 99.8% growth in pod- tion of the $18 billion broadcast radio mar- said, the radio company “made our bet on casting revenue helped digital revenue ket. partnership arrangements with our talent as improve 53% in the fourth quarter. Cumu- To their credit, radio companies are fo- opposed to going out and spending a lot of lus’ 12% growth in digital sales was “led cused on building podcasting businesses money on I.P. or infrastructure.” by podcasting growth of nearly 40%” in from the ground up and making them For all their digital growth, radio compa- 2020, said Berner. Its stable of podcast- priorities, despite their relatively small fi- nies survived 2020 with old-fashioned cost- ers — including political commentators Ben nancial impact. They have not fallen into an cutting. iHeartMedia had three rounds Shapiro and Mark Levin, both in Apple’s “innovator’s dilemma” by focusing on of layoffs last year and created a plan to top 10 podcasts in January — have Cumu- their core businesses at the expense of a save $250 million through cost-cutting lus’ podcast revenue “pacing up nearly 30%” small but important product. iHeartMedia and “modernization initiatives,” such as in the first quarter of 2021, she said. has spent about $350 million to build a tech programmatic ad sales. Operating expens- For an industry needing to expand its dig- and advertising business to support its pod- es did fall $229.8 million in 2019, according ital footprint, podcasts’ double-digit casts: It will acquire Triton Digital for $230 to iHeartMedia’s financial reports. Bressler growth creates an attractive narrative for million, and previously purchased Voxnest, said $100 million of annual savings will investors. cloud-based audio platform Radiojar be permanent after the pandemic, citing In dollars and cents, however, podcasts and podcast creator Stuff Media. For its part, centralized resources, reduced hiring and are a small part of radio companies’ total Entercom spent “under $50 million” on two changes in real estate needs, among other revenue. Broadcast radio is still iHeart- podcast creators, Cadence13 and Pine- factors. Cumulus will continue the cost- Media’s cash cow, bringing in $2.2 billion, apple Street, said CEO David Field during cutting efforts that saved $90 million in or 54.5% of 2020 income. iHeartMedia’s its Wednesday earnings call.