Country Radio On Taylor Swift Single: Nothing To See Here

Taylor Swift

Unless you stared directly at the sun without those magic glasses during MONDAY's (8/21) solar eclipse, thereby permanently damaging your retina, you're probably aware of the biggest topic in all of entertainment today (8/25): TAYLOR SWIFT's new single, "Look What You Made Me Do." It's the lead song from her upcoming sixth studio album, "Reputation," Due FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10th, and -- as anticipated -- the song is 100% Pop. But, there was speculation some at Country radio might give it a token spin this morning too, given SWIFT's rich history on Country radio.

A look at the MEDIABASE Real Time chart as of 3:30p (CT) this afternoon showed a grand total of six Country stations daring enough to play the new SWIFT, for a total of seven spins: CUMULUS WNSH/NEW YORK; RUBBER CITY WQMX/AKRON; CBS RADIO KMLE/PHOENIX; EMPIRE KRTY/SAN JOSE; BINNIE WTHT/PORTLAND, ME; and PAMAL WKLI/ALBANY, NY.

WQMX PD SUE WILSON tells ALL ACCESS, "TAYLOR is a megastar, and yes, she's been in the news for other reasons, but everything she does is relevant to any audience that has 18-34 year-olds in it. And, of course, she started out in Country, so it makes sense to let our audience know what she is up to. While we don't plan on playing this song in a regular rotation, I didn't want our listeners to have to go elsewhere to hear it, so we are using this today as our big trending topic, and setting it up with every play and asking for comments. Our morning show got just a couple calls, and they weren't positive: one general 'I don't like it' and another 'don't play that again, it's not Country," which, of course, is the expected, standard comment for any Pop-leaning song we play."

KMLE MD ALANA LYNN said reactions varied, based on what social media platform the morning show used to seek feedback. "TWITTER users were split between loving it, hating it, and wondering what had just happened. FACEBOOK LIVE people hated it -- about what you would expect with both of the platforms, with FB being a bit older skewing. It's been amusing reading what everyone thinks from within the industry and out."  No big surprise here, but "Look What You Made Me Do" is the #1 song on Real Time today at Top 40, and was nearing 2,000 spins for the day by mid-afternoon.

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