Reference station · Dance UK
Airplay Live
Every play adds another real-world listener signal
Airplay Live measures whether a track is associated with more or less audience loss than the surrounding audience environment.
It reads the concurrent online listener count every five seconds and aligns tune-out data with the track on air.
Each play is evaluated within its surrounding audience environment. Most observed tune-out reflects background audience movement, which is separated before the track-linked signal is scored.
The result is a station-specific POP Score (0–100), updated after every play. Higher means stronger listener hold.
POP Score is station-specific. Cross POP is the calibrated index for comparing tracks across stations.
Preference research and observed listener hold answer different questions.
Where It Fits
Airplay monitoring shows what was played. Ratings show how many listened. Survey research measures what listeners say before a track airs. Airplay Live measures what they do while it airs.
It complements familiarity, likability and fatigue research. It cannot test unplayed tracks, measure reasons to tune in, or explain why any individual listener left.
Use it to confirm strong holders, flag rotation risks and monitor new tracks as evidence builds.
Score Stability
Early scores carry more uncertainty and settle as station-specific plays accumulate. Forecasts are available from the earliest plays.
The curve shows the extra movement of a track's first plays clearing; the vertical line marks where it has, below the 15% line. After that the score still moves at its normal resolution: settled means the early extra is gone, not that the score stands still.
Based on 11.2M observations across every station measured.
Dataset updated August 9, 2026 at 12:21 PM UTC
What It Represents
POP Score reflects the station’s online-stream audience. It is not a market rating, a demographic study or a measure of the full terrestrial audience.
It answers one operational question: When this track plays here, does it hold the online audience better or worse than its environment does?
Programming judgment remains the decision. Airplay Live adds observed behavior.
Setup requires a reliable concurrent listener count and a now-playing feed. No station-side installation, no panel, no encoding.
Live demo: www.airplaylive.com
Reference stations are shown for demonstration only. No partnership or endorsement implied.
The same measurement approach is being extended to talk segments, topics, promos and other on-air content.