Today Network to replace The Bump with Shazam Top 20
London and O’Loughlin
Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) have announced they are replacing its national official music countdown show The Bump to launch a new partnership with music identification service Shazam, called the Shazam Top 20.
The program will still be be hosted by Angus O’Loughlin, who hosted The Bump however, he will now be joined by Ash London as cohost of a program which will count down Australia’s most Shazamed songs based on a daily chart of songs Shazamed from consumer’s mobile device.
“This is the first radio show powered by Shazam technology which is used by over eight milion people.” Dave Cameron, head of Today Network at Southern Cross Austereo told Mumbrella.
“It pushes the boundaries of combing in radio and digital content to create new experiences for our fans”. What an interesting way to describe a Top 20 countdown.
Smart!
Honestly, I don’t believe this will work. Personally, I use “Shazam” to find the name of songs that I have never heard before, not the songs I want to listen to. This may cause a countdown of songs that the population just want to know the name of, not necessarily listen to again. The Bump Show’s concept was brilliant and in my opinion was the best show in the nightly slot. There is also the face value. I believe the younger audience that the show is targeted at will not find the switch attractive. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Progressive programmers have been using Shazam as a source for new additions to playlists in this country and a few years and it has played a large role in breaking a lot of the big tracks in the last 2 years. Good initiative by SCA and a natural development from the itunes countdowns we’ve seen for the past decade.
I don’t think this format will work. It will end up with a playlist with multiple songs from the same artist. A Top 20 with 7 Justin Bieber songs for example, might be fine for Bieber fans but a turn off for everyone else.
I think this is a great partnership which makes sense. Interesting to see whether the kids jump on board.
Position statement: All the songs from the Shazam charts; apart from the songs we don’t think work for our brand.
This sounds like a cool idea if it works – it might end up being flooded by ‘unsigned’ artists with obsessively dedicated fans.
That concept in itself has pros and cons as it might make it easier for unsigned artists to get their stuff on the radio, but… As someone above said, might have an unknown band with 8 songs in the top 20 which could be great if people love it, but… Could have negative repercussions on listeners too.