Katy Perry’s “Roar” single cover

Katy Perry’s new single, “Roar”, leaked online two days ahead of schedule, so the singer is doing her best to salvage the situation. Instead of waiting until the original August 12 due date for the song’s official debut, her teams has swiftly serviced “Roar” to radio and inked a deal with Clear Channel to an added boost.

When “Roar” impacts iTunes at 12am ET on August 12, it will be immediately launched into power rotation on radio stations under the Clear Channel umbrella. In fact, the song will be played at the top of every hour across participating platforms throughout the entire day.

Other artists who recently capitalised on similar arrangements include Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Adele and Mariah Carey, the last of which teamed with Clear Channel for her song “#Beautiful (Ft. Miguel)”. However, that deal only lasted for sixteen hours and still didn’t result in a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 (it opened at #24 and peaked at #15).

“Roar” will undoubtedly enter the Hot 100 this week as a result of the initial airplay surge. On the other hand, legal digital downloads will not contribute to its chart ranking until the following frame since airplay is tallied Wednesday through Tuesday of each week while sales are measured from Monday to Sunday.

Just for fun, read my article on payola here and watch the video for Perry’s “Firework” below:

Thoughts?