Figure 2

The daypart confounder before and after turnover correction

Correlation between a track's score and its overnight/daypart exposure, per station. A raw drop-based score rewards tracks scheduled into quiet hours; after turnover correction the association collapses to about zero, so a track's score no longer depends on when it is played.

Score vs overnight exposure, correlation r

raw score vs turnover-corrected score · four active stations

Raw Turnover-corrected. Source: track-level correlations over about 207,000 qualifying plays, four active stations.