On air/on sale:on hold

Source: MW

5 October, 2011

by: Paul Williams

 

 

On air/on sale has been declared “dead in the water” with labels turning their back on the policy in favour of taking new releases to radio weeks before commercial release.

 

The strategy of simultaneous radio and retail dates for brand new tracks as a way of fighting online music piracy won strong industry support in January when both Universal and Sony adopted day and date.

 

But new research undertaken by Music Week reveals this backing has quickly ebbed away: only 26% of brand new singles, which entered the weekly Official Charts Company Top 40 during quarter three, were subject to on air/on sale.

 

More than 60% of these new hits were at radio at least four weeks before commercial release and included 11 of the 12 tracks that topped the chart during the three months, among them Sak Noel’s Loca People which debuted at number one last Sunday.

 

This contrasts sharply with similar research carried out by Music Week at the end of April (see 07.05.11 issue) when 54% of new Top 40 hits were available to buy as soon as stations started playing them.

 

Adopting day and date has been a crucial element for the industry to demonstrate to Government it is doing everything it can to reduce online piracy by ensuring consumers can legally buy tracks as soon as they hear them on the radio. But with labels now largely having moved away from it, supporters of on air/on sale are casting doubt on the policy being revived.

 

 

“It is dead in the water now,” suggested the Featured Artists Coalition CEO Mark Kelly whose organisation, alongside the Music Managers Forum and Entertainment Retailers Association, have been leading backers of day and date. Labels have also faced lobbying from Apple, keen to make tracks available on iTunes to buy at the same time they go to radio.

 

However, the policy has not won widespread approval in the industry, especially among some label executives and artist managers who continue to see a big advantage of having weeks of upfront exposure for their acts’ releases – so making a big initial splash on the OCC chart much more likely. It appears the more some labels have either loosened their support of the policy or not adopted it at all, the more this has encouraged others to follow suit as they see rivals’ records making high chart debuts while theirs have entered lower because of little pre-release exposure.

 

Modest Management co-founder Richard Griffiths, whose company’s acts JLS, Olly Murs and Cher Lloyd topped the chart in Q3 after weeks of pre-release airplay support, described on air/on sale as “horses for courses”.

 

“Our roster is very much pop, radio- and TV-driven, and you need to build awareness of these records and create excitement for when they are available. But there are other artists it suits,” he said.

 

Radio 1 and 1Xtra head of music George Ergatoudis suggested the decision by labels whether or not to follow day and date came down to balancing the potential sales lost to piracy from weeks of pre-release exposure and those gained because of it.

 

“It’s an industry trade-off between people who won’t wait and can easily get music for free versus the mainstream market who drive the Top 40 and are quite happy to wait and buy when a track becomes available,” he said.

 

A THING OF THE PAST? LABELS SHUN DAY AND DATE

Just a glance at the number one on the Official Charts Company’s singles countdown every week during quarter three shows how labels have almost completely given up on day and date.

 

Every one of the 12 tracks that topped the chart over the 13 weeks had at least several weeks’ exposure at radio before being commercially released, ranging from a fortnight for Dappy’s All Around The World/Island single No Regrets to nine weeks in Nielsen Music’s weekly Top 1,000 UK airplay chart for Epic act JLS’s She Makes Me Wanna (pairing with Dev) before consumers could legally acquire it.

 

The lack of support now for on air/on sale is spread across the majors with only around a fifth of Universal’s brand new singles that made the Top 40 in Q3 subject to day and date, while more than half of them had airplay windows of four or more weeks.

 

Around 17% of Sony’s new Top 40 hits had radio and retail debuts coinciding, while the remaining 83% of them had radio run-ins of at least four weeks.

 

Statistically EMI was the quarter’s biggest supporter of day and date with 60% of its new tracks cracking the Top 40 being made available in this way, but in reality this was three out of five singles. Its top new single of the quarter, Emeli Sandé’s Heaven, was at radio seven weeks before commercial release. Warner’s release policy ranged from an on air/on sale strategy for Christina Perri’s Jar Of Hearts and Delilah’s Go to five-week pre-release spins for Ed Sheeran’s You Need Me, I Don’t Need You.

 

Ministry of Sound has been the most consistent company, although this is because it has continued with weeks of radio build before release. It scored three number ones in Q3 with Example’s Stay Awake at radio five weeks ahead of commercial availability and DJ Fresh’s Louder and Wretch 32’s Don’t Go having six-week run-ins.

It's quite a shame really. Being held back can hurt some genuinely good and popular tracks in the long run, hence why Rihanna brought her release forward. It als let the charts be taken over by a host of crap no.1s.

This seems to suggest they've implicitly accepted a certain level of piracy, not to mention lost sales to opportunistic cover versions.

Even though it's insanely annoying and I'm disappointed that record companies have turned their back on it after not utilising it properly, you can appreciate why they do it I guess. It's much easier to market an album with a #1 single - which comes with near guaranteed increased airplay and TV play - than it is with a long running #11.

On air/on sale:on hold

 

Modest Management co-founder Richard Griffiths, whose company’s acts JLS, Olly Murs and Cher Lloyd topped the chart in Q3 after weeks of pre-release airplay support, described on air/on sale as “horses for courses”.

 

“Our roster is very much pop, radio- and TV-driven, and you need to build awareness of these records and create excitement for when they are available. But there are other artists it suits,” he said.

Or, to put it another way, "Our roster is very much pop, radio- and TV-driven. Most of our target market are so thick that they won't realise a song exists until they've had it drummed into them for weeks. Our acts rely on the quality of their pre-release publicity rather than the quality of the song."

Or, to put it another way, "Our roster is very much pop, radio- and TV-driven. Most of our target market are so thick that they won't realise a song exists until they've had it drummed into them for weeks. Our acts rely on the quality of their pre-release publicity rather than the quality of the song."

 

Well done. You've mastered the art of Idiot Speak Translation :)

Even though it's insanely annoying and I'm disappointed that record companies have turned their back on it after not utilising it properly, you can appreciate why they do it I guess. It's much easier to market an album with a #1 single - which comes with near guaranteed increased airplay and TV play - than it is with a long running #11.

But if everything were released On Air/On Sale then that wouldn't happen, because there would always have to be 5 OA/OS sale songs in the top 5 and something would always have to be number one, they wouldn't be behind songs which will sell a lot less in the long run but with higher peaks each week. It only doesn't work because there's a mis-match.

It was never really going to work properly unless every release was on air/on sale though. Some labels where ignorant enough to turn their back on it the second they pushed for on air/on sale, and started giving "exceptions" to a handful of single releases for them to be released the 'old' way.

 

It's funny how the more established artists who had more of a chance of pulling on air/on sale off didn't do it, yet the less establised artists gave it a go... but failed misrably anyway because they needed the pre-releases support.

It's funny how the more established artists who had more of a chance of pulling on air/on sale off didn't do it, yet the less establised artists gave it a go... but failed misrably anyway because they needed the pre-releases support.

 

This is the worst thing about it. JLS and Cher Lloyd probably would have débuted at #1 even if they were on air/on sale and yet their label saw fit to give them weeks of build up while Nicola Roberts and other sort-of-established-but-not-really acts did on air/on sale and promptly bombed.

 

Radio is the biggest problem however.

Radio is the biggest problem however.

 

Yes and no I think. Yes because these less established artists needed more radio support and where being took off playlists when they started bombing down the charts because of the in-existance of pre-release support due to on air/on sale. But no at the same time because if a track that had been released with pre-release support started bombing, radio wouldn't try and 'save' it like we're asking them to do with on air/on sale releases.

But we've seen that on air/ on sale can actually work really well with the correct hype before hand/ plenty of previews, ala- Price Tag and Your Song.

It's a double edged sword really, the sales they recouped would have been easily lost by the majority of these tracks being dropped off radio playlists before they got the chance to recover/stabilise. I never really liked the on air/on sale thing really. Obviously if there is HUGE demand for certain tracks then it makes sense to bring it forward but it's something that doesn't work for everyone.

I'm quite glad on air/sale has been on hold, sometimes it works really well but sometimes it can kill the run of a song...

But we've seen that on air/ on sale can actually work really well with the correct hype before hand/ plenty of previews, ala- Price Tag and Your Song.

 

Price Tag wasn't on air, on sale, since it had its radio premiere all the way back in 2010. Although it did have its release date brought forward when her record label decided to do on air, on sale.

 

But it has worked for a lot of songs (e.g. Party Rock Anthem, Born This Way, Give Me Everything, Sweat and also post-album singles like S&M, Someone Like You, The Lazy Song and Beautiful People).

But wasnt Price Tag acoustic before its release?

I don't count post-album sales as on air/on sale as it's on sale even before the song aired technically.

OA/OS works either when there's a massive demand for a song ("We Found Love" being a good example) or when there's none at all (eg. "Party Rock Anthem"). Anything in between it's tricky, I think properly held back releases only yield huge sales rarely ("Grenade", "Rolling In The Deep", "On The Floor", "Changed The Way You Kissed Me") and often can cause songs to underperform slightly - I think "Louder" would have done better being OA/OS, for instance.

 

Songs from established acts can buck the trend - "All Fired Up" looks like it'll sell more than "Notorious" for instance, although that might just be because it's connected better with the public - but following the "Price Tag" model of allowing it to leak and then releasing it to download before radio play really kicks in properly would be a good compromise which would allow songs like "She Makes Me Wanna" to gain back some sales while having a similar chart run - properly frontloaded releases such as "Swagger Jagger" and "Promises" may have only peaked at #4 or lower but would have sold quite a bit more.

But wasnt Price Tag acoustic before its release?

 

No. I heard it on the radio on New Years Day. It was the same as the final version, with B.o.B's rap and everything.

 

I don't count post-album sales as on air/on sale as it's on sale even before the song aired technically.

 

It depends how you look at it I suppose. The way you look at it they're not.

 

Or you could look at it in the sense that when the song is eventually sent to radio, it's already up for download.

 

Or another way of looking at it is that the songs can't be held back for months to pent up demand for post album singles. For example, S&M had to climb to its peak of #3 and was hovering in the top 100 for months before it was released. If they held it back it could've had big first-week sales like Only Girl and went straight to #1.

Edited October 8, 201113 yr by Eric_Blob

I've said before but Price Tag was and wasn't On Air/On Sale. It wasn't because the full version was already out there, but it was because it was moved forward to co-incide with the launch of the strategy, and was released on the same week the video was first on TV and it first started making radio playlists in any kind of significant number. It was far from being a held back release, and it wasn't possible for it to be any more OA/OS.

 

I've always defended OA/OS on here, and one example people throw back at me is The Saturdays flopping with 'Notorious'. So far I'd say from the huge amount of extra promo 'All Fired Up' has had in comparison you can't call that a success either. It had a higher chart peak (solely because of pent up demand) and will probably sell more in the long run, but it would be highly embarassing if it didn't outsell 'Notorious' given how much additional promotion and coverage it's received.

 

Another example that's regularly quoted is Nicola Roberts. Neither of her singles have had any significant airplay or video play, yet one has vastly outsold the other. It's no surprise to me that the one that has sold highest is the single that's little airplay was far more spread out, where public appearances were less concentrated, as apposed to the one that was held back and had all focus in a single week. I'm not saying these are definitive proof that On Air/On Sale is a roaring success, but they're two of the most quoted examples as to why it doesn't work. But all things considered have the follow-up held back singles been any more of a success? No, not at all.

 

To me, On Air/On Sale works. It's as simple as that really. But it will only work fully if everything is released that way, otherwise there will always be someone to take advantage of a higher peak. It's been a success more times than it's been a failure, and usually when it does fail there's a good reason for it, usually either poor promotion of it (people buy what they like, they can't like something if they don't hear it), poor management or just a far inferior product to what that artist would typically release but usually a mixture of all three. Two more regularly quoted examples are Britney and Beyonce. Really? Neither of their singles were up to their usual standard and Beyonce's especially had very little mainstream appeal, and neither received any substantial backing at all.

it was the failure of britney and beyonce which scared labels the most imo, big artist like these to them should automatically hit the top 10 with ease, just goes to show that on air on sale also generally means artists have to promote better or produce better material so its a good thing!!!!