Earlier this week, Headline Planet drew attention to a tight race for #1 on the Mediabase pop radio airplay chart. Would Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” extend its reign to four weeks or would Selena Gomez’ “Same Old Love” score an inaugural week on top.
After the tracking week’s first two days, “Same Old Love” seemed to have the advantage. While it trailed by 80 spins, its rate of growth would have allowed it to overtake a fading “Sorry” before the end of the January 3-9 tracking period.
The “Same Old Love” growth rate slowed in the subsequent two days, which tipped the scale in favor of “Sorry.” After the tracking week’s third day, “Sorry” was up by 116 spins. After the fourth day, its lead had improved to 122.
On Thursday, the fifth day of the tracking week, “Same Old Love” recaptured its momentum. With 13,236 spins after that period (up 3.3% from the same time last week), Gomez’ tune trailed Bieber’s song (13,245 spins, -1.5%) by only 9 spins.
Pop radio trajectories are not perfectly linear — and thus not perfectly predictable. That especially holds true when countdown and request shows impact Saturday airplay.
But “Same Old Love” is clearly still in the hunt — and, in fact, as close as it has ever been to reaching #1.
Measuring pop radio airplay for the period between January 3-9, the official Mediabase pop chart will be issued Sunday.
