Massive Country Music Test at CRS 2023

NuVoodoo was in Nashville last week for Country Radio Seminar 2023 – and what a great show it was. RJ Curtis and the team at CRS put together an amazing slate of sessions including solid insights that programmers could use to improve their stations, in-depth interviews with thought leaders, and lots of Country music from established and emerging artists. NuVoodoo was on hand to showcase the results of a massive library test undertaken on behalf of CRS for attendees.

We interviewed 2,817 Country music fans 18-54 to get opinions about a range of issues pertaining to Country music and Country radio. But our main goal was to get opinions about 716 Country music titles selected and vetted by current Country radio programmers and consultants that are part of the CRS Research committee. The titles were collected from current playlists and past music test lists spanning all the regions, stations, and broadcast chains. The mission and depth of this project gave us the opportunity to pick songs that are currently being played or that have had past spins and need to be health checked to see if they should be used to refresh Country libraries.

Even among those who’ve been Country fans for more than a decade, most feel today’s Country music has gotten better in recent years. Among newer Country converts, even more say Country music has improved.

As a music discovery source, broadcast radio is healthier among Country fans than radio is among fans of many other types of music. Across our sample of Country fans 18-54, broadcast radio is in a near tie with both DSPs (Digital Streaming Providers like Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and others) and YouTube as a place to discover new songs they like.

While 85% of Country fans who listen to Country on the radio say that particular Country station is their favorite, only 20% say they would be sad if the station was not available. That’s a sobering statistic. Radio needs to be working overtime to convert users to fans and fans to raving fans.

It was reassuring to see that nearly 3 in 4 among Country radio listeners say that the DJs on Country radio are a big part of why they listen – or that most of the DJs make listening more enjoyable. But it’s important to note that those numbers are stronger among men than women, suggesting that getting honest feedback from female listeners could really help stations effectively target all their listeners.

CRS attendees have access to extensive rankers showing the popularity scores for all 716 titles, broken out by gender, age, generation, region, years as a Country fan, and more. While we’re all accustomed to seeing popularity rankings for artists based on their names along, we calculated fan levels for all the artists with at least three songs in the test by averaging the scores of their songs. There are sharp differences between longtime fans and those who’ve been drawn to Country in the past decade.

Next week we’ll take a look at the reactions and suggestions of NuVoodoo’s marketing gurus to what some are calling “cookie apolcalypse.”