14 Music Week 23.11.12
BUSINESS ANALYSIS RADIOAIRPLAYQ3 EDITORIAL
Old before he dies? At 38, is Robbie really too old for R1?
RADIO 1’S DECISION TO BANISH ROBBIE WILLIAMS from its playlist immediately provoked comparisons with Status Quo suffering a similar fate back in the mid-Nineties. However, what seems clear is this latest move to overlook a big act seems harder to justify. In Q3 Williams received a pathetic two plays from Radio 1
for his single Candy, while Radio 2 played it 36 times and it won heavy support from other stations around the country. As we all remember, back in 1996 when Matthew Bannister
was rapidly reinventing what was then still the nation’s favourite station, deciding not to play the Quo was a trump card in showing the world just how much the network was changing and it was aiming younger. The move not to playlist Williams comes with a similar
motive and, in controller Ben Cooper’s view, is musically a way for the network to meet a BBC Trust edict that it must bring down its average age. It is a clever trick and, just as when 16 years ago Quo decided to sue Radio 1 and its then head of production Trevor Dann for daring not to play them, has generated the required amount of publicity. But in terms of the two acts’ relevance, Quo were back then in a very different place to where Williams is now.
The three-chord wonders were
“In terms of the two acts’ relevance, Quo in 1996 were in a very different place to where Williams is now”
shown the door at Radio 1, lest we forget, for a totally uninspired cover of Fun, Fun, Fun with the Beach Boys and even then they were three decades into their careers and were no longer expecting their singles automatically to register high in the Top 10. With Williams, though, here is
an artist who remains one of the UK’s biggest draws both in terms of record sales and as a live act. This was evident when Candy debuted at No.1 and a week later his album Take The Crown did the same. We truly hope Candy was overlooked because Radio 1 either thought it was not good enough for the playlist or musically did not fit the station’s output. It would be terrible to think he had been excluded because of his age – at 38 the same as Chris Moyles – or as some lazy gesture to make a point. That would serve no one any good. The transfer of leading artists – and presenters – from
Radios 1 to 2 has been happening for decades and Williams is just the latest, but Cooper and his team will face some further big “tests” next year in terms of whether to continue to back returning superstar acts. One obvious one will be U2 whose last album in 2009 came with such blatant support across the BBC – including at Radio 1 – that it provoked an investigation, but maybe now Bono and co are no longer welcome. And what will happen when Take That deliver a new album,
as expected, next year? The group’s huge fanbase crosses the generations and includes Radio 1’s target audience, but if Robbie no longer makes the grade there it has to be questioned whether Gary, Mark, Howard and Jason still can. Paul Williams, Head of Business Analysis
Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
paul.williams@intentmedia.co.uk
www.musicweek.com
RADIO EMBRACES THE WHOLE OF MAROON
After the juggernaut that was Moves Like Jagger, follow- up Payphone saw stations get wise to the Maroon 5 vibe
UNIVERSAL FOCUS A BIGGER SLICE OF THE PLAY PIE
not have to be divested under an EC ruling then Universal’s tally goes up to 48 of the quarter’s Top 100 airplay tracks. Additions to its hand here include two tracks apiece from Katy Perry and Emeli Sandé and cuts by Lady Antebellum and Professor Green. Even without adding in the EMI tracks it is keeping
Universal’s share of the quarter’s airplay Top 100 was more than its two major rivals Sony and Warner combined. Sony claimed 20 tracks in the 100, led by Rita Ora’s How We Do (Party) and Pink’s Blow Me (One Last Kiss), while Warner’s 17 was headed by Stooshe’s Black Heart, the period’s second favourite airplay track. There were eight independent releases, half of which came from Ministry of Sound and two from XL Beggars courtesy of Adele. EMI provided 14 of the period’s Top 100, half of
UNIVERSAL’S SHARE of the biggest tracks on UK radio neared 50% following its $1.9bn (£1.2bn) acquisition of EMI. In Q3, the last period in which Universal and all EMI
assets were corporately listed separately, the Vivendi- owned major was behind 41 of the most-heard tracks, according to Nielsen Music data. These included the overall top track, Payphone by Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa, and Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen (above) in third place. However, if you add in releases from EMI which will
which will stay with Universal, while to be divested are tracks by acts including David Guetta, Conor Maynard and Coldplay, who had Q3’s fourth top radio track with their Rihanna pairing Princess Of China. Universal’s domination is even more pronounced at
some key individual stations. Forty-four of the most- played tracks on Radio 2, which had an unrivalled audience of 13.90 million in Q3, according to Rajar, were Universal releases and this share goes up to 53 if you add in EMI tracks by the likes of the Beach Boys, Sandé (right) and Lady Antebellum it will keep.
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