IF FRIDAYS ARE NOW TUESDAY, WHEN WILL TUESDAYS BECOME FRIDAY?

For as long as we can remember, the music business always functioned as a repetitive weekly endeavor centered around Tuesdays. New albums hit store shelves on Tuesdays. Radio stations finalized their choices for the week on Tuesdays. That was the day we got our scorecard and our report cards.

And for many years, while the international business released new product on other days, U.S. companies stuck to their guns and continued to put records out on Tuesdays. In the digital age, though, a worldwide same-day drop became imperative. The resistance came to an end on July 10, 2015, as U.S. retail, both physical and digital, aligned with the rest of the world and Friday was declared the global release date for all product.

However, U.S. radio playlists continue to be finalized on Tuesday.

This has caused a major disconnect, with radio playlist changes and adds competing against digital and retail product entering the marketplace. To provide just a few examples from a long list, big artists such as The Chainsmokers, Harry Styles and (most recently) DJ Khaled hit the marketplace at 9pm PT Thursday/midnight ET Friday and chart immediately at Spotify, Apple Music and other DSPs, making a clearly discernible impact within hours. Radio reports, meanwhile, trickle in and are finalized on Tuesday.

Thus, we have a Tuesday business at radio and a Friday business at retail and streaming accounts. Which gives us a headache all week long.

We continue to wonder why Mediabase and top radio players like Tom Poleman at iHeart, Michael Martin and Kevin Weatherly at CBS and Mike McVay at Cumulus don't simply move their choices to Friday, get in line and turn us into a weekly business that crescendos on Friday across the board.

Oh, that reminds me—what day is it today?