Why is HMC's success on radio not reflected on other platforms?

[Joel Santos]

 Well, it's no secret that HMC is doing great on the radio, making solid numbers day after day. Which is great. But on the other hand, the numbers on Spotify and AM are below ground, even with all the effort by the Elton team to turn the song into the new Cold Heart in terms of streams. The question is: why is the song only standing out on the radio? Does it have to do with payola or is Britney's fanbase simply not migrating to new forms of music consumption, getting stuck in the past?

[DollyParton]

I guess payola yes, didn't they had a radio deal? The radio keeps playing it, but I guess the GP isn't eating it up..

[MissSpearsSaysSo]

Is it getting good play on Z100?.. I’ve only heard it playing on radio once, and that was at a Domoishi..  

[PokemonSpears]

because Dua Lipa is one of the hottest artists right now, or at least she was at the time Cold Heart came out.

It's not just Dua stans streaming the song, but it's just the general public, and by general public I mean the youth which are the ones that stream the most these days. It wasn't even Elton John's fans doing those numbers.

It's not just Britney fans stuck in the past, I think it's a generational thing. It's the entire generation of "general public" that grew up with Britney that is not streaming anything these days, like all the people that listened to her back in the day without necessarily being a Britney stan.

So for Hold Me Closer we have Elton and Britney which might not be too popular among the younger audiences. Britney herself hasn't released new music since 2016, there's an entire new generation of teenagers that had never heard her before. And she remains kind of anonymous with these visualizers and music video that show no signs of her. 

I don't know how much of a difference it would've made if at least one of these clips was uploaded to Britney's channel instead of Elton's for example, but still neither of them can't compete with today's artists. Maybe if it was Dua ft. Britney, we would have an entirely different story. I'm not complaining though, I never expected anything big for this collab, and in fact it's done much better so far than I would've imagined. 

 

On a smaller scale, I see the same effect with Latin pop artists from the 90s. They're selling out stadiums with their tours, but their streaming numbers are horrible. They're lucky if any of their new videos get more than 1M views, compared to the newer artists making hundreds of millions. People of a certain age just don't stream in general, or if they do, it just can't compete with what the majority of (young) listeners choose to stream these days.  

[jordeezy river red]

These #s were always inflatable and fake just like streaming #s are. 

[DiamondCircus]

I've heard the song several times on the radio, I think the B Army just isn't a streaming fan base like fans are for their faves now days is my guess.

[BritBritSpearsLove]

The streaming numbers are pretty stable which is a good sign, but yeah, it's doing better on radio, first because both Elton and Brit are older artists, and streaming is generated mainly by gen z, second because the song wasn't properly promoted especially by Britney who could make the song do great and it didn't trend in tiktok, which is a great streaming impulsor nowadays.

[Frankie8]

32 minutes ago, MissSpearsSaysSo said:

Is it getting good play on Z100?.. I’ve only heard it playing on radio once, and that was at a Domoishi..  

Z100 dropped it a couple of weeks ago. When I checked their logs, they either don't play it at all or do but overnight hours. Same thing with my station in Philadelphia.

Z100 is the top market audience in the country and so HMC is losing out on millions of audience on just one station alone.

[Fab britney]

It simply has to be very well liked amongst the masses. Our fan base and dua’s and whoever else’s who’s big right now aren’t big enough to pull billions of streams. There has to be big interest amongst the general public to listen over and over. As much as I like hold me closer it’s not as infectious as cold heart. It’s doing good on radio because we are a big enough fan base to request and there’s some payola. 

[super.nova]

some people don't even know that's britney spears on the song, and some people do not know who elton john is. the younger crowds i mean.

[Moscow]

1 hour ago, DollyParton said:

I guess payola yes, didn't they had a radio deal? The radio keeps playing it, but I guess the GP isn't eating it up..

Deal was just for one day! 

 

Also to the OP, the song is doing best on Adult AC in the US and Germany as well which tells clearly song is loved by adults people don't understand that streaming is majorly targeted towards young audience. Radio is still one the most consumed mediums because teens are a small population comparing to adults. 

Most adults listen to radio while driving to work, why would they stream on their phone? They do not have the time and that's how many songs do well on radio but not on streaming. 

[super.nova]

we also need to come to terms with the fact that Britney is a settled artist; yes maybe her songs will not sky rocket to number 1 everywhere but all of her discography gets streamed every day. she is hitting amazing numbers, we just don't see it.

[FraFromThe90's]

I think there's payola also on spotify and they didn't spend enough.. for exemple Unholy of Sam Smith was 1 on spotify from day one and that's very strange for singers like him that don't have a large fan base..

and than, yes the other big problem is that Britney has been out of the scene for too long so the new generations don't know her...sad but true.. and even if they like HMC than they go on her instagram and find someone who don't have any interest on her music (no judge but it's like this)

[Spicechinodiva]

Katy Perry, Pink,Lady Gaga,,I can continue but they do better on radio,,Gaga only got a huge hit with rain on me, cos of Ariana Grande's is a streaming fan base, I don't know how to say it,, plus when other streaming services are denied by billboard except YouTube and Spotify.

Amazon and Apple are bigger in the US, so the industry really shot themselves in the foot , cos I called it once apple music came official, every American would go to a made in The us streaming services hell my smart tv has Amazon music and tidal as their apps, that should tell you something Spotify basically lost it's footing in the US 

 

 

 

[levxy]

It‘s doing good on Spotify it was in the global top 50 for like a month which is way better than I expected.

[Naes614]

Why can’t we just appreciate a top 10 debut and a big radio success with HMC? We don’t need to analyze every damn thing. 

[andreafly1]

Hold Me Closer is definitely an organic radio hit, let me explain why!

Track is currently being played in 4 different radio formats: Mainstream (Top 40), Adult Contemporary, Hot Adult Contemporary (Adult Pop) and Dance.

Elton is crazy STRONG on AC and Hot AC formats, (Cold Heart is still Top 10 to this day on AC, by the way, plus listeners age range is usually from 25 to 44 years old), and that's the main reason why HMC is charting so well right there, becoming Britney's 1st EVER Top 10 on these formats.

Then we have the Mainstream format, on which both Elton and Britney are very well known and doing quite decent numbers there too.

Dance format is just a minor one, but HMC managed to go #1 in the Billboard Dance/Show Mix Airplay right there aswell!

Streaming and radio audiences are completely different, however it's far from free-falling or doing bad on streaming services so far: it is what we call stability, my friends!

 

 

 

[Pinky98]

Whether we like it or not Britney is a legacy artist now. I doubt she’ll have a hit again tbh 

[Slayer]

1 minute ago, Pinky98 said:

Whether we like it or not Britney is a legacy artist now. I doubt she’ll have a hit again tbh 

She literally just had one...

[Spicechinodiva]

43 minutes ago, Slayer said:

She literally just had one...

Not in their eyes, in the US it's only charting due to radio airplay,,but it's in my opinion Elton isn't doing promo or pushing it, Elton has to be blamed, I mean he announced a Disney plus concert, it happened the same day as hocus pocus 2..

 

We knew what happened,, hocus pocus 2 won the same day as a live Elton John concert