Beyoncé Slowly But Surely Infiltrating Country Radio Stations Across the U.S. Via 'Texas Hold 'Em' and '16 Carriages'

As a result of her Sunday night new-music drop with the singles “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” Beyoncé effectively announced that she’d “gone country” with the material on her forthcoming new album, Renaissance: Act II. As a result, radio stations around the country that might not have previously considered playing something by Beyoncé are suddenly scrambling to play catch-up and incorporate her new music into their playlists.

Actually, maybe “scrambling” isn’t quite the right verb: the songs – “Texas Hold ‘Em” in particular – are certainly making their way onto country radio, but to say that it’s happening in rapid-fire fashion wouldn’t necessarily be accurate.

As reported by Billboard, “In the two songs’ first 24-plus hours of release (from Sunday night through the end of Monday), eight reporters to Billboard’s Country Airplay chart played ‘Texas Hold ‘Em,’ and only one, KBAY San Francisco, played it more than once (two spins), for a total of nine early plays at the format, according to Mediabase. No stations on the country chart’s panel, which includes nearly 150 stations, played ’16 Carriages’ in that span.”

What’s worth noting, however, is that Columbia – Beyoncé’s label – didn’t even officially service “Texas Hold ‘Em” to country radio until Tuesday afternoon, a move which would’ve instantly upped the number of stations willing to give the song a shot.

Also helpful: Columbia’s decision to offer a radio edit of the song.

But let’s not forget the importance of public outcry on social media, which is what led Oklahoma-based radio station KYKC to add “Texas Hold ‘Em” after a fan emailed the station to request the song and received the response, “Hi – we do not play Beyonce on KYKC as we are a country music station.”

Within a few hours, the station had posted an image of its show schedule which confirmed that the song was set to air in short order. It was accompanied by the caption, “Lots of calls coming in for Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s coming up in minutes.”

"We are a small market station,” Roger Harris, the general manager of Southern Central Oklahoma Radio Enterprises (S.C.O.R.E.), explained to The Tennessean. We're not in a position to break an artist or help it that much, so it has to chart a little bit higher for us to add it. But we love Beyoncé here. We play her on our [other top 40 and adult hits stations] but we're not playing her on our country station yet because it just came out."

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Among the stations to add “Texas Hold ‘Em” to Current Rotation is US 106.1 in Norfolk, Virgina, which gave the song its daytime premiere just after 2 pm ET today.

“I think the interesting thing about this song...is that if Shania Twain put this song out – because to me this reminds me of some of the upbeat things she put out in the '90s – people would say it's one of the best things she's ever put out, they'd say, 'Shania's back!' and they'd think it was great,” said Dave Parker, program director for country station US 106.1 in Norfolk, Virginia. “But because it's from someone who obviously has been in the R&B world for almost her entire career, I think people will judge it based off of that singer's discography and not the merit of the song. But I think it would be hard for anyone to argue that that's not something sonically that fits in the format."