How Adult Contemporary radio kept Taylor Swift afloat on the Hot 100

Taylor Swift stood firm on the latest TMN Hot 100 as some of the world’s pop giants crept within inches of ‘ME!’ and the #1 spot.

In remarkable circumstances, the 6x chart-topper bested Jonas Brothers’ ‘Sucker’ and Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s ‘I Don’t Care’, despite both songs outperforming Taylor across the dominant CHR format.

Keeping ‘ME!’ afloat on the chart was a strong performance across Adult Contemporary/Hot AC, a decisive point of difference in what is already shaping up to be a perennial radio battle.

“Taylor is one of those artists that easily crosses over,” said Kiri Martin, music director at Fox FM and Hit Network’s AC station 2DayFM, which counted down to the first spin of ‘ME!’ at 2pm on release day.  

“She has a broad audience which makes her accessible for both formats.”

‘ME!’ shot up to #2 on the TMN Adult Contemporary Chart. Only P!NK’s ‘Walk Me Home’ was heard more on the format in the last charting week.

Meanwhile, ‘Sucker’ (#12) and ‘I Don’t Care’ (#28) fell well short of Taylor on the chart, impacting their respective performances on the Hot 100. 

The latter will presumably gain more traction on the format with time, as has been the case with Sheeran singles on market-leading ACs like smoothfm and Mix102.3 (‘Thinking Out Loud’, ‘Happier’).

‘ME!’ will continue to impact AC/Hot AC radio long after CHR like many of Taylor’s bright and highly-polished pre-Reputation singles such as ‘Shake It Off’, ‘Love Story’ and ‘Today Was A Fairytale’. 

Martin agrees: “A Hot AC station doesn’t spin songs as hard as a CHR station, which in turn, gives the song more life [on the AC/Hot AC format]. 

“Not only is ME! a great pop song, but Taylor has proven herself in the past to produce great radio hits.”