US radio goes chasing Coldplay's 'Waterfall': airplay news so far

After arriving on the radio on Friday (June 3), Coldplay's 'Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall' (ETIAW) blasts onto Billboard's Rock Songs airplay chart at No. 21. The song registered 3.9 million audience impressions on 58 stations, according to Nielsen BDS, despite having been released more than halfway through the May 30-June 5 chart tracking week. All according to Billboard online today.

The track concurrently launches on the Triple A adult alternative airplay chart at No. 23 and Alternative Songs at No. 28. "The reaction from our listeners has been nothing but positive," says Julie Pilat, program director of alternative KYSR (98.7)/Los Angeles, whose 24 first-week plays of "Waterfall" translated to the song's highest audience (589,000) of all BDS-monitored stations. "Fans are eager for as much Coldplay music and information as they can get their hands on. They've already started hitting us up for details on the full album and touring specifics. I expect this song to be another multi-format home run for the band," Pilat predicts.

Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, better known as BDS, is a service that tracks monitored radio, television and internet airplay of songs based on the number of spins and detections. The service, which is a subsidiary of ACNielsen provides the basis for Nielsen Media publication Billboard in the United States,

Billboard projects that "Waterfall" could open with as many as 70,000 to 90,000 downloads sold in its first week, setting up a possible top 40 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 to be released Thursday (June 9). Coldplay has scored six top 40 Hot 100 hits, including the No. 8-peaking "Speed of Sound" (2005) and No. 1 "Viva La Vida" (2008). All charts will be refreshed Thursday on Billboard.com.

ETIAW arrives ahead of Coldplay's forthcoming fifth studio album. The group's last full-length release, "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends," has sold 2.7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, swelling the band's career U.S. album sales to 15 million.

Continuing discussion on Coldplay's latest release is in the ETIAW subforum now.

Latest pictures of Coldplay at Rock am Ring festival, Germany (4th June 2011):