In the midst of the first global covid lockdown, a moment of crisis turned into an opportunity for Samuel Zniber
As the research budget for the six radio brands under Samuel’s stewardship was slashed, necessity bred ingenuity and led to a new music research innovation called MusicDatak.
Aussies will remember Samuel Zniber from his years in Australia programming at the Australian Radio Network and others will know him from his 25 year international career in audience connection, music research and programming across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Teaming up with skilled developers and backed by BPI France, the French state bank for innovation, Sam set out to build a new way to do music research, because “music tastes now change instantly and your music research should too.” Music research has moved on from auditorium music tests (AMTs) and online music surveys (OMTs) and is now being conducted by Sam’s company in real time through direct data interaction with music platforms.
MusicDatak gathers music data directly from a wide range of sources, including music streaming platforms, video & music platforms, social media and competitor stations to deliver “a holistic view of audience preferences and track performance.”
One Australian network has been quietly trialling MusicDatak for its research over the past few months.
Ace Radio’s Jon Vertigan, CEO Mark Taylor and some of the Ace team have been using Musicdatak and are finding it both useful and cost effective.
Jon Vertigan tells radioinfo:
It has been both fascinating and rewarding to trial MusicDatak over the past few weeks.
My history with music research goes back to 2003, when I worked alongside Samuel Zniber during his tenure as Program Director at Mix 106.5 Sydney. As his Music Director, we relied heavily on regular music research — eagerly awaiting our quarterly auditorium results and weekly callout reports.
Now, 22 years later, it’s been a pleasure to reconnect with Sam in the world of music research.
MusicDatak takes much of the legwork out of the process: no panel recruitment, no on-air promos searching for music jurors — just real-time insights from our target audience, delivered straight to my inbox every week.
One of the most valuable elements of the trial has been the three-monthly auditorium test — or “Datakorium” — which allowed me to test our entire music universe and see exactly how each song performed. The results were eye-opening: some high-rotation tracks ranked surprisingly low, while others we weren’t playing at all scored strongly. This prompted a fresh look at our playlist and some strategic shuffling. Gut instinct still plays a role, but MusicDatak provides a powerful layer of evidence to support programming decisions.
The weekly “Station Radar” has also proven to be an excellent resource, flagging songs we’re not currently playing that resonate strongly with our target audience. It’s been an enjoyable challenge to integrate some of these into rotation while maintaining the station’s core sound.
Like many music programmers, I still get a buzz when new research data arrives — and with MusicDatak, that excitement comes on a regular basis. I look forward to continuing to work with Sam, Richard, and the team, and to seeing how this innovative approach to music research continues to evolve.
Jon in front of the Musicdatak report for this week’s playlist review. We have blurred out the song details at Jon’s request so don’t bother zooming in to take a closer look, he doesn’t want to give his competitors any strategic information 🙂
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