AIRPLAY LIVE · USER GUIDE
POP SCORE
Behavioral music analytics
POP Score is Airplay Live's 0–100 measure of how well a track holds listeners during actual radio broadcasts. It updates after every play.
Listeners may start listening for many different reasons, but tune-outs during a track provide a clearer signal.
Airplay Live measures those tune-outs during each play and separates the track's signal from the station's normal minute-to-minute listener movement.
POP Score answers a specific radio question: When this track plays on this station, do listeners stay or leave?
The higher the score, the better a track holds listeners. A low score on a track you play often is the clearest sign to review its rotation.
The middle of the scale is crowded, like the middle of a Top 40 chart: positions 15 to 35 trade places every week without meaning much. The top and the drop-outs tell the real story.
LIVE LISTENER TRACE · MEASURED TUNE-OUTS
POP Scores develop across both small and large online audiences. As a track airs across different dayparts and reaches different listeners, each play makes its pattern clearer and helps the score settle.
Every play becomes another real-world listener test.
POP SCORE AS MUSIC RESEARCH
POP Score provides a behavioral music research signal independent of surveys, streams and skip counts.
Measurement runs continuously, keeping the full catalog ranked with current data. New tracks enter the comparison after only a few plays.
The goal is stronger listener hold, better-informed rotation decisions, and ultimately longer listening sessions.
Streaming and skip data tell you what a listener does. POP Score tells you what happens on your station.
FROM FIRST PLAY TO ESTABLISHED READING
New tracks begin with an Early Score and become more reliable as plays accumulate.
WATCH THE FORECAST UPDATE WITH EACH PLAY. MEET ESTELLE, AIRPLAY LIVE’S FORECAST MODEL.
Scores develop fastest for the tracks receiving the most airplay, so the system learns quickest where rotation decisions matter most.
From play twelve, a track is settled for rotation decisions, and the estimate is no longer shown. Settled doesn't mean frozen: music moves with tastes, trends and exposure, and POP can move with it.
More about POP Score settling in the System overview.
POP is the score. Everything else is the math behind it.
Age limits
If a track goes unplayed:
45 daysits next plays start a fresh POP Score, reflecting how listeners respond to it now rather than months ago.
90 daysthe score dims and is marked historical, with the time since its last airing.
180 daysthe score no longer shapes the 0–100 range for tracks still in rotation. It stays on the track's own page.
Rotation overview & track detailRotation & track detail
Station & library tools
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