Eric Norberg's Weekly Commentary
A part of each issue of The Adult Contemporary MUSIC RESEARCH letter is Eric's commentary. Here's this issue's comment:
Two songs reached our "Recommended for your Mainstream AC Playlist" scoring level in our testing this week, and both are independent productions, although both are in active promotion nationally.
3 WORDS by Elliott Yamin (who had a couple of "recommended" songs in the past on a major label; he is now on "eOne Music") is about trying to end a relationship when it is clearly over.
And, quite uptempo, UH OH by Junior Doctor is fluffy pop music, and is on the Toucan Cove label. The track we tested is billed as the "AC version".
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We have tried for years to get a response from iBiquity, the developer and licensor of the U.S. "HD digital radio" technology, on our concern that although the system is increasingly robust for FM stations, the AM station version uses digital power levels (for the HD component) that are very low. It appears to us that today's AM HD receivers cannot resolve an AM HD signal of from a station whose regular AM analog signal strenght is below about 15 mv/m -- THREE TIMES the "city of license" signal strength required by the FCC in the station's "city of license"!
Thus, AM stations need massive licensed AM carrier power to have enough digital HD power embedded in it simply to cover their metro with HD, and smaller AM stations cannot even cover just their entire city of license with an HD signal. (The iBiquity signal reverts to standard analog when the HD signal cannot be resolved, for both AM and FM stations.) Given this situation, we believe AM stations should be allowed more digital HD carrier power embedded in their analog AM signal than is currently allowed by the FCC.
Our latest attempt to contact iBiquity DID draw a response from Bob Struble, President and CEO of iBuiquity. He wrote, "I share your concerns on AM. the basic issue is the band itself, and its noise issues. I am speaking of analog, but the same applies to digital when the analog signals are still around. Every time someone turns on a computer or a fluorescent light bulb, there is less AM reception. . . Unfortunately, with all the noise and AM stations out there, there is only so much we can do with digital. . . The best answer to the band is a transition to all-digital AM HD broadcasting. Here, the anlog signals would be powered down, the digital would be powered up, and we would have a beautiful pristine band -- no interference, miles and miles of coverage, crystal clear sound. In this scenario, [today's] hybrid AM HD radio is just a transition technology. Unfortunately, I think [this all-digital scenario] is a long way away."
We still think higher AM digital power is needed NOW. This would cause some adjacent-channel interference at a distance -- but if AM cannot compete within its local metro, it is doomed, and having cleaner long-range signals at a considerable distance cannot save it.
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For those wondering, we test each song from the beginning (no hooks), and keep playing the song in the testing process until the panel is ready to move on. If the test reveals that the AC core female listener doesn't want to hear a song all the way through yet, it cannot yet be "recommended", for obvious reasons. If there are no negatives to the song, though, it is scored as "borderline" -- meaning, don't play it yet -- but we will keep re-testing it for possible increased appeal with exposure. Perhaps 5% of "borderline" songs eventually move up; most don't, so it is NOT a good idea to give airplay to a song that tests below the "recommended" level.
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A new album has been released in Africa by NiaNell! Suffice it to say that the only artist in the world who can be compared with Celine Dion for the AC format -- but who also composes and produces (and owns) her own recordings, and has the highest hit percentage on all her albums than any other artist we've ever tested -- offers her fifth album, and it is probably her best. The artist is South Africa's NiaNell, and the new album is "Sand And Water". There are SIX "recommended"-testing tracks; we are going through the album recommending the strongest tracks one at a time for our subscribers. Since this album is currently completely unavailable on CD in the Western Hemisphere, we are happy to send a stereo broadcast-quality MP3 of her currently-"recommended" song to any radio station wanting to consider it for airplay (or label interested in considering releasing her in the Western Hemisphere). Just e-mail us and ask us for it. You will need to give us an e-mail account to send it to that can accept at least a 10 MB e-mail.
NiaNell e-mails us that this album is her favorite, too, of her five -- and as usual, she wrote or co-wrote all the songs on the album -- except the title track, "Sand and Water", which was "composed by my idol, Beth Nielsen Chapman". She advises that, even though Sony Africa has released her last three albums, they have simply been the distributor for them, and, she says, "I do own all my own albums, and I have all the international rights to my albums. So I simply need to find a label in North America to release them -- absolutely no strings attached to any label in South Africa. I would love to have an international release, and we could pick the best songs from my albums and release a hit album over there! I'm doing very well in South Africa -- one of my albums is Gold and three are Platinum. The Gold album will be Platinum soon. I have steady and long-lasting sales over here, because my music is timeless." We agree. We will be happy to supply her e-mail address to interested radio and music personnel.
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Publishing is not shown on the tracks we receive these days, which means we cannot warn you when a SESAC song turns up as "recommended" in our testing, most of the time.... So, stations without a SESAC license should do careful homework to make sure they play no SESAC music! SESAC is owned by lawyers, and they subscribe to station-monitoring services, and they have already won a judgement of over $1,000,000 against a station that didn't have their license for "copyright violation". The station played a few songs by Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan, relying on label notations that these songs were licensed by ASCAP. SESAC paid a million dollars each to these gentlemen late in the last century to move their ASCAP compositions over to SESAC, so even if the label on the record says their compositions are ASCAP copyrights, they no longer are. Jim Brickman's compositions are licensed by SESAC. Plus, there are a few other releases, largely in the Country field, that are licensed by SESAC too -- as well as a lot of religious music that may turn up on paid Sunday morning religious programs. A word to the wise.
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SPECIAL UNRESTRICTED DOWNLOAD
One of 2009's top AC hits, recommended as a "recurrent/oldie" to use for years to come, is "I DREAMED A DREAM" -- the astonishing live audition of an unprepossessing 47-year-old Scottish villager, Susan Boyle, for a TV program called "Britain's Got Talent". The YouTube video scored over 60 million views, and in addition to its great appeal to the AC core female listener, it was the subject of TV coverage and news reports around the world. If you're one of the few who hasn't ever seen the video, or heard its story, here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
This LIVE performance was never commerically released as a CD single, but since you'll need it in your future programming for years to come, you can download a ZIP file containing the MP3 audio of this performance by clicking HERE.
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