A lot of music research fielded for radio stations includes a score for burn. This supposedly gives respondents a chance to express whether they are tired of hearing a song on the radio. But rarely do those researchers consider what Bluey or The Big Bang Theory can say about music.
Having seen a ludicrous amount of research over the years, I can’t begin to tell you the countless hours I’ve spent arguing with Program Directors, and in some cases, research professionals, about the value of that measurement because there are several problems with it.
For starters, we overreact to how the number is expressed. When we see a song with a burn score of 30%, we want to panic, failing to realize that means just three out of any ten people are tired of the song while the other seven are not.
But this resonates with station employees because it confirms their own bias. People working at the station hear so much of the programming that they get tired of certain songs, but their experience isn’t typical of how listeners consume the on-air product.
Top 40 is probably the format most concerned with burn, and in that case, it can be legit because sometimes new songs listeners don’t like will show up in research with a decent score but high burn. That’s a crucial piece of the puzzle. The other formats that are overly concerned are Classic Rock and Classic Hits because they play a limited library of older songs. They must be burned out. People must be tired of hearing them. Right?
The simple fact is big hits do not burn. And today, my proof comes from outside the industry.
The chart below shows the top ten most-streamed shows of last year according to Nielsen. While everyone may have been talking about Pluribus, The Pit, or Heated Rivalry, it’s not what they were streaming.
SHOW MINS (BILLIONS) EPISODES MIN/EP
| 1 | Bluey | 45.2 | 154 | 294M |
| 2 | Grey’s Anatomy | 40.92 | 455 | 90M |
| 3 | Stranger Things | 39.95 | 41 | 947M |
| 4 | NCIS | 36.94 | 497 | 74M |
| 5 | SpongeBob SquarePants | 34.35 | 323 | 106M |
| 6 | Bob’s Burgers | 34.08 | 302 | 113M |
| 7 | Family Guy | 33.37 | 455 | 73M |
| 8 | The Big Bang Theory | 32.45 | 281 | 115M |
| 9 | Law & Order: SVU | 26.76 | 583 | 46M |
| 10 | Criminal Minds | 24.15 | 359 | 67M |
Beloved Bluey comes in first, which you can dismiss as something used to pacify children, and Stranger Things’ big final season catapulted it into the top three.
Beyond that, it’s all classic shows. Not as old as Classic Rock songs, perhaps, but when police procedurals, medical dramas, and adult animation dominate the top ten, it’s a reminder that hits don’t burn, not on television and not on the radio.
This chart is also a reminder of the power of artists with deep catalogs. Beyond being comfortable, part of what keeps some of these shows in the top ten is the sheer number of episodes available for viewers, much like the number of AC/DC songs available to play on Classic Rock stations.
I’m willing to guess that there are popular episodes of shows like The Big Bang Theory that get streamed more often, along with secondary and tertiary episodes that get occasional plays to keep things fresh.
But the main point here is this: when you say burn, I say Bazinga!
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
