Mediabase will not issue its official weekly airplay charts until Sunday evening, but the Sunday morning updates provide sufficient confirmation of first-week milestones achieved by Taylor Swift’s explosive “Shake it Off.”
Those milestones include a top ten bow on one radio format, a top fifteen debut on a second and a top twenty launch on a third.
Despite not entering the market until the evening of Monday, August 18–and thus missing a day-and-a-half of the tracking week–Swift’s new song still managed to reach the Top 10 at Hot Adult Contemporary radio. The week’s tenth-most-played song, “Shake it Off” collected a whopping 2,856 spins at the format during the August 17-23 tracking week.
Spun in high-profile markets at high-volume times, “Shake it Off” fared even better from an audience perspective. Its Hot AC impression count of 22.18 million was the format’s 8th-largest during the measured period.
Also an instant smash at the pop format, “Shake it Off” ended the tracking week in the #15 position. By the end of tracking on August 23, it had garnered 7,787 weekly spins at pop radio.
Its pop audience of 52.69 million was the week’s twelfth-largest.
While songs outside of the format’s top 10 or 12 rarely command much attention, it is worth noting that “Shake it Off” also debuted in the Top 20 (at #20) on the Adult Contemporary chart. The song earned 193 AC spins during its first week of release.
Its AC audience impression count of 1.27 million was the format’s 17th-largest.
— When combined with its massive opening week sales and streaming figures, the strong radio audience (Billboard focuses on audience, not spin count, in constructing its radio charts) likely positions “Shake it Off” for a debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
