By Carolyn Gilbert & Leigh Jacobs From nuvoodoo

Given a choice between two Country songs – one newer, one older – which would Country fans choose? And what does that say about the vintage of playlists on Country radio? That’s the mission we undertook for last week’s CRS360 webinar for the folks at Country Radio Seminar. ICYMI, you can watch the SONG WARS presentation here (complete with our cheesy nods to the Sci-Fi classic).

Decisions for the respondents were very simple. They saw screens like the one shown below where they auditioned two Country hooks and decided which they would choose to listen to if both were playing on the radio at the same time. We randomized the song pairings heard by respondents and the sequence of whether the newer title was the first song or the second song. Respondents could stop, start, and restart to audition the hooks in each pairing – as they could switch between stations before setting in to listen to one song or the other.

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As a broadcast journalism major at Penn State University, Carolyn Gilbert served as WQWK’s first female jock before moving on to Cincinnati and WWEZ, WEBN, an audio production company… and two little kids sent to hone her management skills. Her research career started when she launched Critical Mass Media in the 80’s, which she grew from 3 employees to over 700, serving every major broadcasting group. Eventually, Critical Mass became an “in house” provider of services for the 1200 Clear Channel radio stations, and Carolyn served as President. Following a stint as EVP/Research and Inside Sales for Tribune, Carolyn teamed with friends (and best in class) Mike O’Connor, Leigh Jacobs and Marc Chase to form NuVoodoo in 2010, providing innovative products that work within 2012 budgets and deliver results. “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” has become a forbidden sentence.

Leigh fell in love with radio in 8th grade, got deeply involved in his high school’s 10-watt FM station a year later and never recovered. After 20 years in the business, including 16 years as a program director, he joined Critical Mass Media as a perceptual analyst in 1999. Across nearly a decade at Critical Mass, Leigh designed and analyzed hundreds of studies for stations in all formats. He teamed with partners Carolyn Gilbert and Mike O’Connor to form NuVoodoo in 2010. He continues to look for better questions and better ways to ask them – to give radio stations and owners better insights into listeners. Reach him with your questions at [email protected].