JUST how much do Adelaide’s radio stations overplay their most popular songs?

Plenty, according to Adelaide applications engineer Jason Millward, who has monitored and analysed radio playlists since the start of July.

Sam Smith’s Stay With Me has been played almost 400 times across SAFM, Nova 919, Mix 1023, and TripleJ in that time, based on figures on Millward’s blog — around eight times each day.

The song edges out Ed Sheeran’s Don’t, Justice Crew’s Que Sera, Ella Henderson’s Ghost and Milky Chance’s Stolen Dance, each of which have been played more than 300 times.

Mr Millward said he built a system that collects public song information from the radio stations and creates a series of charts for comparison.

He says the site took him just two hours to build.

“I wanted to find out how Nova in particular overplays its music, as I listen to it on the way to work,” he said.

“I wasn’t looking to get anything out of it, I just wanted to act on my curoisty. I just felt like sharing the graphs.”

media_camera Adelaide radio's most popular songs between July 1st and August 18th, 2014 according to the website of Jason Millward.

The most staggering insight revealed by Mr Millward’s work is just how few songs appear to be on some stations’ playlists.

Nova 919 has the smallest 6am to 7pm playlist of those stations analysed, and has not played more than 63 different songs on any one day.

On average, Triple J plays more than 150 songs each day.

The project has changed the way that Mr Millward will listen to music on his morning commute.

“I think I’ll be listening to my Mp3 player,” he said.

Below are videos of Adelaide’s most played songs as at August 18th, 2014, along with their position on the ARIA singles chart.

Sam Smith - Stay With Me (17)

Ed Sheeran - Don’t (22)

Justice Crew - Que Sera (19)

Ella Henderson - Ghost (9)

Milky Chance - Stolen Dance (29)