“FIT” is dead. “Compatibility” is being pulled 6 feet under in FIT’s wake. There’s no better petri dish than Country Music Radio to verify these deaths.
Tomorrow, The Country Radio Seminar launches in Nashville. The lobby of The Omni in Nashville is the central nervous system of C.R.S. idea exchange. Down the atrium, the Bongo Java Coffee Shop will be abuzz with new networking friends and reconnections with old comrades. You have to wonder if anyone will be discussing how fractured the country playlists have become. Dozens of titles have creeped in with zero “FIT and Compatibility”.
“FIT and Compatibility” was manufactured in the mid-90’s by researchers to convince programmers that their core listeners would likely accept core music and artists already saturated in their playlist and reject sounds that weren’t represented in their current Music Matrix. During research sessions, a research respondent would now have the additional capability to choose whether the song “FIT” their favorite station – regardless of total positive or negative overall score. As a result, many high-testing records were often tossed in the trash can when building a fresh library – post music test.
Their theory –“provide scores that measure how well each tested song aligns with the key musical preferences of your target audience, current playlist that helps your station create a more cohesive and strategically optimized music mix.”
We’ve countered for years that “FIT and Compatibility” is a “Catch-22” (from Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel of the same name). It describes a paradoxical situation where an individual is trapped by contradictory rules or conditions. “Catch-22” describes a no-win situation where the solution is blocked by the problem itself.
Example: Job experience paradox:
You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.
In the “FIT and Compatibility” “Catch 22”, listeners will almost always reject with what they are not comfortable. However, when those same listeners HEAR the song within the orbit of favorite station’s playlist, “FIT and Compatibility” softens greatly. Therefore a song will never “FIT” until it’s on the air.
Simply play it with regularity and it will “FIT”. We’ve presented for years that listeners don’t like what they don’t hear. A short discussion of the phenomenon using The Country Charts.
Flashback back to the 2019 Country Charts – the remix of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus in duet mode delivers. The remix of “Old Town Road” was banned from The Billboard Country Charts as it didn’t have “enough elements of modern country music” according to Billboard gatekeepers. When anointed as a ‘country’ song, it topped out at #50 after Billboard granted “Old Town Road” the ‘privilege’ of occupying their list. Quickly, the tune became a researched smash. Perhaps a harbinger of was to come?
Flash-forward to late March 2024. Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” drops – going on the win The Grammy for Album of the Year AND Country Album of the Year even though most programmers help off airplay because – you know – Beyoncé. Guess it was country ‘enough’.
Track #17 on “Cowboy Carter” – “Levii’s Jeans” – featured rapper Post Malone in his first tip-toe into Country Music. Six weeks after his Beyoncé duet, Post Malone announced his next single, entitled “I Had Some Help” (featuring Morgan Wallen) – released on May 10. Country Programmers applauded. Malone earned 167 first-week adds at country radio while breaking Spotify’s single-day country streaming record with nearly 14 million streams. Suddenly non-country artists were – “FIT and Compatible”.
But wait – there’s more!
A rapper with Nigerian ancestry topped the 2024 Billboard Charts for 19 weeks, becoming the #1 Country Song of the year. Shaboozey also claimed the title of Billboard’s longest #1 title with “A Bar Song”.
Nashville-based Alternative Rapper Jelly Roll had his Country Radio breakthrough in 2022 with “Son of a Sinner” – creating strong headwinds of what was to become. Jelly’s Beautifully Broken debuted at #1 on The Billboard Top 200 album Charts in November of 2024 – with emotional storytelling about tattoos, raw lyrics, addiction and hardship.
Country Music = stories.
Clear examples of “FIT and Compatibility” roadkill outside Country Radio are plenty. Before the Kate Bush “Stranger Things” chart topper, there were dozens before her.
Lizzo into “Running Up That Hill”? Strange indeed. A 1962 chart-topper from The Contours was pushed back on the 1988 charts thanks to “Dirty Dancing”. Madonna into “Do You Love Me”? Take that – “FIT and Compatibility”
A 1990 spin around The Potter’s Wheel in “Ghost” had a 1965 Righteous Brothers hit back into the Billboard’s Top 20. Prince into “Unchained Melody”? Messy. Queen has popped into The Billboard Hot 100 nearly a 1/2 dozen times with the same song. House of Pain followed by “Bohemian Rhapsody”? It happened, shattering “FIT and Compatibility”.
Find a partial list of resurrected tunes HERE.
Chatter around Bob’s Steak House bar inside The Omni at The Country Radio Seminar bar certainly will contain discussion about new artists Remy Garrison and Ella Langley. Perhaps it should be how Country Radio scores a duet with Kendrick Lamar (having tripled streaming records on February 11th) and Blake Shelton.
“Fit and Compatibility” are indeed dead. Perhaps it never was alive.
Kevin Robinson is a passionate award-winning programmer, consultant and coach – with multi-formats success all over the country. He has advised numerous companies including Audacy (formerly Entercom Communications), Beasley Broadcast Group, Westwood One, Midwest Communications, Townsquare Media, Midwest Family Broadcasting Group, EG Media Group, Federated Media, Kensington Media, mediaBrew Communications, Starved Rock Media, and more. He specializes in strategic radio cluster alignment, building lean-forward tactics and talent coaching – legacy and entry-level – personalities.
Known largely as a trusted talent coach, Kevin is the only personality mentor who’s coached three different morning shows on three different brands in the same major market to the #1 position. His efforts have been recognized by The World Wide Radio Summit, Radio & Records, NAB’s Marconi, and he has coached CMA, ACM and Marconi Award-winning talent. He is also in The Zionsville High School Hall of Fame as part of the 2008 inaugural class. Kevin is an Indiana native – living near Zionsville with his wife of 39 years, Monica and can be reached at kevin@robinsonmedia.fm.
