Hip Hop and R&B Radio Station P1 the Super Bowl LVI’s Halftime Acts

 

Radio Gets Behind Super Bowl LVI’s Halftime Acts.

• Feb 14, 2022 - Valentines Day -

Story by Inside RadioWritten by Kevin Mazur

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Radio stations outside of Los Angeles and Cincinnati looking to tie into Super Bowl LVI took to the air with Super Block Party weekends, Super-related countdowns, and hosted Big Game viewing parties this past weekend.

With the halftime show featuring popular music acts since the 90s an obvious radio tie-in is with the artists who have been selected to perform. This year’s Super Bowl featured a halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar.

Ahead of Sunday’s game, Gray Communications President Tony Gray told Inside Radio that hip-hop stations he works with were excited about the lineup for this year’s halftime concert. Additionally, adult R&B-formatted stations have more interest than usual due to Mary J. Blige being selected as a featured performer.

“Some of our hip-hop stations have increased airplay on some of the artists who will perform Sunday and just about every urban AC in the country has Mary’s current single in at least a medium rotation,” Gray said.

Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous” is No. 2 and rising on the Mediabase urban/R&B chart for the week of Feb. 3-Feb. 10. There’s a good chance the track will take over the No. 1 position next week following her performance and an increase in airplay that will likely follow. The song is also within the Top 40 on the Mediabase urban chart.

The hip-hop acts for the most part are library material for hip-hop/R&B stations as none of the acts have currents or recurrent songs within the Top 50 of Mediabase’s urban, urban/R&B and Top 40 charts.

Hometown Artist For LA Stations

In LA, the Super Bowl is a huge deal. Not only are the Los Angeles Rams looking to win the title in their home stadium, Dre, Lamar and Snoop are all from the City of Angels.

“With how massive hip-hop has become over the decades, to have our artists perform for the halftime show is historic,” said Emmanuel “E-Man” Coquia, Director of Programming and Content at Meruelo Media rhythmic CHR “Power 106” KPWR-FM and hip-hop “93.5 K-Day” KDEY Los Angeles.

Local heroes Dre, Lamar and Snoop Dogg, along with Eminem and MJB were already in regular rotation at the stations, but leading up to, and throughout Super Bowl weekend, the airplay will be expanded.

“Both Power 106 and 93.5 K-Day have done specialty ‘mixes’ on-air showcasing their music,” Coquia said. “This will be very prevalent throughout the weekend on both Power 106 and K-Day as this will be a celebration of Los Angeles and the half-time show artists all weekend.”

With so many superstars performing at this year’s Super Bowl, it would be a coup for stations to get some face-to-face time with the artists, but that scenario is now challenged in COVID-19 times.

“I know it was suggested to some stations to set up a meet and greet with some artist a day or two before the game but due to COVID-19 concerns, most were hesitant to try to pull it off this year,” Gray noted.

First Radio Spins, Then Sales

In addition to a bump in airplay, many artists are rewarded with additional music sales and streams following their performance.

However, with multiple artists performing that increase may be somewhat muted. According to Billboard, solo acts seem to benefit more than when the halftime show features multiple performers.

Justin Timberlake and Bruce Springsteen netted the biggest wins in 2018 and 2009, respectively, Billboard says. Both artists released albums days before their performances. Timberlake saw a sales increase 890.8%, while Springsteen sales jumped 1,221%. Blige just released her 14th studio album “Good Morning Gorgeous” on Friday, Feb. 11.

The halftime show for the 2012 Super Bowl was headlined by Madonna, who was joined by Nicki Minaj, LMFAO, M.I.A. and Cee Lo Green. Madonna sales only increased by 212.7% after the performance.

Coldplay fared better in 2016, when their sales popped 347.9%, even as they were joined on field by Beyonce, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson.