Country listeners want what’s on the charts, and they’re far more open to crossover artists than programmers have historically given them credit for. That’s the headline finding from new research unveiled during Country Radio Broadcasters’ latest CRS360 webinar.
Strategic Solutions Research President Hal Rood built the study’s quantitative phase from 1,500 country fans ages 18 to 54 who listened to radio at least 30 minutes per day across three days a week.
The era preference data shows that across all listener segments, songs currently on the charts, newly breaking music, and tracks from the past five years ranked as the top three preferred time periods. Even listeners with 10 or more years of tenure indexed only slightly higher for 1990s and 1980s material, and both decades still ranked well below the contemporary core within that group.
That finding carries a direct programming implication. Rood advised stations to scrutinize any older gold before scheduling it. “You have to be really very careful with them and watch the edges,” he said.
Beasley Media Group Chief Content Officer Justin Chase, who moderated alongside Country Radio Broadcasters Executive Director RJ Curtis, pointed to sonic texture as a compounding factor, contrasting a current Ella Langley track with an Alabama record from 1982.
Rood’s segmentation model divided the audience into three distinct listener types. Spectrum Country fans, those who placed eras from multiple decades in their top three, accounted for seven out of 10 respondents. One in four fell into a New Country segment focused exclusively on the past five years and current charts. Classic Country fans, whose top selections skewed to the 1980s through the early 2000s, represented just 6% of the sample, a figure Rood said defines the narrow lane available to classic country flanker stations.
The research also pushed back on a longstanding industry tendency to over-index on female listeners. Men proved equally enthusiastic about the music across the sample.
Collaboration tracks produced the study’s most definitive result. Ninety-one percent of respondents expressed positive attitudes toward pairings between country and non-country artists, with longtime fans reaching 89% positive. “If you had a doubt before, you have permission from your audience to do it now,” Rood commented.
Pop artists releasing country material without a country partner drew more resistance. Overall approval dropped to 67%, with negative sentiment approaching 24 to 26% among women and fans with more than 10 years of tenure. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter project served as the study’s reference point for that category.
Rood closed with a set of programming recommendations: anchor rotation around current hits and songs from the past five to ten years; use older gold selectively, with the early 2000s serving as a stronger secondary variety play than the 90s; embrace collaborations as an audience growth tool; and deploy on-air personalities to build familiarity with newer acts, particularly for artists listeners struggle to identify by name.
The CRS360 session is available on-demand.
