One week ago, hardly any Michael Jackson was played on US radio. Today, he is the hottest act in the land.
Nielsen BDS, the company that detects the number of songs played on the radio in America has reported a jump from 350 spins per day a week ago to over 20,000 spins on the day after Jackson’s death.The news of Jackson’s passing generated more than 50,000 plays of Jackson songs on US radio in the 3 ?? days following the announcement.
On Friday June 26, the day after his death, radio in the USA played Jackson 19,328 times. By Sunday, the singer was still registering more than 6,000 plays a day.
The most played song has been ‘Billie Jean’. It has been played 4,500 times.
Second was ‘Thriller’ (3,600), then ‘Rock With You’ (3,500), ‘Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough’ (3,100) and ‘P.Y.T.’ (3,000).
Nielsen BDS records the number of times a song or an artist is played on radio. For example, if 10 stations play 20 Michael Jackson songs 5 times each then that counts as 1000 plays.
