Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[CTListener]

A lot of 1970s-80s hits are common to both formats though. But most oldies/classic-hits stations have dropped the pre-1964 hits and KOLA has even dropped all the '60s music, so will classic-rock stations also someday drop the '60s hits? Their playlists would dramatically shrink---and they can't survive by playing just 1970s-80s classic rock over and over and over, can they? Will they eventually add 1990s-2000s classic rock? Would fans of '60s rock still listen if classic-rock stations dropped '60s and added '90s?

Haven't most classic rockers added '90s -- Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, etc. -- already? Pretty sure WPLR New Haven has been playing them for a few years now, and the '60s tracks are down to maybe two an hour at most. (Four an hour today. They're wrapping up a "Twofer Tuesday" and have played two by the Stones and two by Hendrix in the past hour. But they've also played two by Foo Fighters and two by Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

 

[michael hagerty]

Haven't most classic rockers added '90s -- Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, etc. -- already? Pretty sure WPLR New Haven has been playing them for a few years now, and the '60s tracks are down to maybe two an hour at most. (Four an hour today. They're wrapping up a "Twofer Tuesday" and have played two by the Stones and two by Hendrix in the past hour. But they've also played two by Foo Fighters and two by Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

4PM Hour today:

KSLX, Phoenix

AC/DC: You Shook Me All Night Long
Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour
U2: Where The Streets Have No Name
BTO: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
Elton John: Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me
INXS: Need You Tonight
Doobie Brothers: Listen To The Music
J. Geils: Centerfold
Pink Floyd: Brain Damage/Eclipse

( I don't see anything newer than late 80s this afternoon, but that could be that they have a sister station that straddles active and classic rock, see below)


KDKB, Phoenix

Van Halen: Unchained
Offspring: Self Esteem
Black Crowes: Twice As Hard
Nickelback: How You Remind Me
Ozzy Osbourne: No More Tears
Green Day: American Idiot
Collective Soul: Shine


KLOS, Los Angeles (where it's Twofer Tuesday)

Scorpions: Rock You Like A Hurricane
Scorpions: Big City Nights
Police: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Police: Spirits In The Material World
Steve Miller Band: Rock N' Me
Steve Miller Band: Swingtown
Led Zeppelin: Kashmir
Led Zeppelin: Good Times Bad Times
Beatles: Help!
Beatles: Penny Lane


KSWD (The Sound), Los Angeles:

David Bowie: Space Oddity
Beatles: Here Comes The Sun
Journey: Don't Stop Believin'
Neil Young: Heart Of Gold
Black Sabbath: Paranoid
Stevie Nicks: Stand Back
Allman Brothers: Ramblin' Man
Guess Who: American Woman
Pearl Jam: Jeremy
Billy Joel: Piano Man
Heart: What About Love
Led Zeppelin: Ramble On


Three of four reinforce my gut feeling that Classic Rock stations are more conservative and skew older than Classic Hits. I think they'll roll off 60s/70s in favor of more 80s and 90s only when they see positives. The problem is that they're not likely to get that from the current audience and I don't know that the KROQ generation is moving into Classic Rock stations. We had a thread about this somewhere on the board a few months ago. There's a demo crisis coming for Classic Rock that Classic Hits seems to have avoided.

 

[CTListener]

WPLR, 9 p.m. hour:

Pink Floyd: Breathe, Hey You
Incubus: Drive, Wish You Were Here
AC/DC: Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, Big Balls
Offspring: Come Out and Play, The Kids Aren't Alright
Doors: L.A. Woman, Riders on the Storm
Tom Petty: You Don't Know How It Feels, You Got Lucky

More of a KDKB-style "straddler," I guess.

Same hour, WAQY Springfield MA:
Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer
Tom Petty: Refugee
Who: Summertime Blues
Rush: Limelight
Elton John: Tiny Dancer
Led Zeppelin: Ramble On
Rolling Stones: It's Only Rock and Roll
Styx: Renegade
Traffic: Glad

More like what you're hearing out west. It will be interesting to see if more recent music starts to creep into the mix, and how soon.

 

[michael hagerty]

WPLR, 9 p.m. hour:

Pink Floyd: Breathe, Hey You
Incubus: Drive, Wish You Were Here
AC/DC: Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, Big Balls
Offspring: Come Out and Play, The Kids Aren't Alright
Doors: L.A. Woman, Riders on the Storm
Tom Petty: You Don't Know How It Feels, You Got Lucky

More of a KDKB-style "straddler," I guess.

Same hour, WAQY Springfield MA:
Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer
Tom Petty: Refugee
Who: Summertime Blues
Rush: Limelight
Elton John: Tiny Dancer
Led Zeppelin: Ramble On
Rolling Stones: It's Only Rock and Roll
Styx: Renegade
Traffic: Glad

More like what you're hearing out west. It will be interesting to see if more recent music starts to creep into the mix, and how soon.

I think they may be up against the same issue that damn near killed Oldies as a format...Boomers who won't let go of the old stuff and won't tolerate the new.

 

[johndavis]

A lot of 1970s-80s hits are common to both formats though. But most oldies/classic-hits stations have dropped the pre-1964 hits and KOLA has even dropped all the '60s music, so will classic-rock stations also someday drop the '60s hits? Their playlists would dramatically shrink---and they can't survive by playing just 1970s-80s classic rock over and over and over, can they? Will they eventually add 1990s-2000s classic rock? Would fans of '60s rock still listen if classic-rock stations dropped '60s and added '90s?

The two classic rock stations where I live can go for days without playing something from the 1960's. A 40 year old male was born in 1973 and came of age to Van Halen and Ozzy.

Eventually you'll see the 1990's line get crossed, but Alternative needs to let Nirvana go from its library before it becomes "classic rock."

 

[firepoint525]

It's the listeners who determine for any format the depth of the library.
The reason classic hits stations that research have around 700 to 800 songs is that this is the total number of playable songs that they find, no matter how many titles they test.
Stations that don't test due to the cost tend to use a "consensus of similar stations" approach using MediaBase or BDS to create a safe list.
Each format has a different number of total songs. Essentially, it is every song that gets a decent positive score without strong negatives and without defects in demographic subsets, such as the older portion, the younger part, men or women. Once you remove all the low scoring songs and all the defective ones, you have a core library.

The first time that I actually NOTICED a station trimming back its playlist was about 20 years ago. So here is my question: did station's get their new playlist by merely whacking the lower rotation stuff from the bottom of the list? If so, then your heavy-rotation stuff will air at an even higher level than you might want it to. That said, I find it hard to believe that you can't find 1000 songs to play, if your station is covering a 20-year period, let's say mid-'60s to mid-'80s. If your station covers a longer period than that, seems like it would be even easier to find enough tunes to play without exasperating your listeners.

 

[firepoint525]

Because there aren't that many in the classic hits format that test well enough. Add 150 and you're adding 150 time bombs that can blow off a quarter of your audience or more. Every format has a different number, that varies by time and market, of songs that there's a consensus positive on.

(apparently, we can't multiquote in this new format!)

This is sort of a continuation of what I asked David above. We can't come up with 1000 songs (over a 20-year period) that we can play? That averages out to 50 per year. Maybe some years might be better represented than other years. It still sort of feels like program directors simply whacked their medium and lighter rotation stuff from the bottom of the playlist, which resulted in the heavy rotation stuff getting even heavier rotation. And it seems like (to me) that that is what is fatiguing the listeners. I know that it is with me!

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like Jack-FM is playing some album tracks that were never singles to begin with. Of course, nowadays it is not necessary for it to be released as a single to get airplay. This may be how they are able to get away with playing a few more tracks than other formats might be able to.

 

[firepoint525]

John's statement about "not adding new releases" isn't entirely accurate. A few classic-rock stations have played new releases by their core artists---Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi, Santana, Rolling Stones and many others--and the album cuts are usually prefaced with the words "It doesn't have to be old to be classic." But do classic-rock fans want to hear these new songs? Do they like the 1960s-70s-80s artists enough to want to hear their newer songs...or do they like only the classic-rock hits from those years and don't care about the new music? (Now I wait for Michael to weigh in. He is a very reliable in-weigher.)

105.9 here in Nashville has this three-of-a-kind feature from one artist at 3:00 p.m. each day, in which they play three tunes by one artist, then have the caller tell the dj what three songs that he just played, in order to win a prize. One day, about five years ago, they did indeed play Bruce Springsteen's then-new song "Radio Nowhere" as one of the three tracks by Springsteen. Yeah, the other two were classics, but the caller was able to correctly guess all three. I knew even then that I would NOT hear "Radio Nowhere" as a regular part of their rotation, but even so, it was still cool to hear it a time or two on their frequency.

That said, they must be careful about what "new" stuff that they play. For instance, Paul McCartney's last album was KISSES ON THE BOTTOM, which was an album of "standards," only one of which ("My Valentine") he actually wrote, so "new" or not, it simply would not have been appropriate for classic rock airplay. Even so, the wife (who is at least as big of a McCartney fan as I am) loved it, probably more so than even me!

Rod Stewart has been doing "songbooks" for years, so he has sort of veered off into Manilow territory.

Bon Jovi (despite their inroads into country) has remained relatively relevant. My sister (RIP) liked their 2000 album which contained the hit "It's My Life," but I cannot recall ever hearing that one on classic rock radio.

 

[firepoint525]

Haven't most classic rockers added '90s -- Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, etc. -- already? Pretty sure WPLR New Haven has been playing them for a few years now, and the '60s tracks are down to maybe two an hour at most. (Four an hour today. They're wrapping up a "Twofer Tuesday" and have played two by the Stones and two by Hendrix in the past hour. But they've also played two by Foo Fighters and two by Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

Depends on the station, I suppose. We were in Bowling Green over the weekend, and their classic rock station does indeed skew younger than ours. They mentioned playing Smithereens, but I tuned in too late to hear it. Meanwhile, Nashville's CR station is playing Def Leppard, Whitesnake, GNR, Bon Jovi, but not much newer than that. They play "Hard to Handle" by the Black Crowes, which I see as sort of a "gateway" song into '90s music. But they have managed to stay classic rock for 15 years now, so they must be doing something right.

 

[PirateJohnny]

Depends on the station, I suppose. We were in Bowling Green over the weekend, and their classic rock station does indeed skew younger than ours. They mentioned playing Smithereens, but I tuned in too late to hear it. Meanwhile, Nashville's CR station is playing Def Leppard, Whitesnake, GNR, Bon Jovi, but not much newer than that. They play "Hard to Handle" by the Black Crowes, which I see as sort of a "gateway" song into '90s music. But they have managed to stay classic rock for 15 years now, so they must be doing something right.

Bowling Green's station is part of a locally owned AM-FM combo, owned by the local newspaper. One of the last such (locally owned) operations in the country. I spent a few years on the AM there. And they skew younger - I enjoy maybe half of what they play.

I heard 105.9 when they changed formats several years ago. It was completely automated with no DJs yet. I was hearing some great "deep cuts" and other "former hits" that I hadn't heard in many years. I thought to myself "I hope they don't hire DJs who muck up this great library". Well, they did and many of the songs I heard/enjoyed in their pre-DJ days disappeared. Recently a new feature was tried out, where a DJ would play "something from home", meaning a deep cut that the DJ thought we would/should enjoy. One of Proud Mary's "something from home" tracks was a song I had heard as often as two days in a row. Not quite would I would call a "deep cut".

Now back to the topic:

What/how many stations played songs as currents that should now be considered for "classic" status? For example, I listened to 60s/70sTop 40 on basically one station, and so did all the other listeners. But music really split up in the 80s/90s. So now when a "classic" station (call it D) wants to add 80s and 90s music, that one station is trying to attract listeners who used to listen to several "current" (call them A, B and C) stations. Can that really work? Will a listener listen to station D that plays "classic" songs that were current on A, B and C when that listener did not listen to stations B and C back in the day?

 

[michael hagerty]

The first time that I actually NOTICED a station trimming back its playlist was about 20 years ago. So here is my question: did station's get their new playlist by merely whacking the lower rotation stuff from the bottom of the list? If so, then your heavy-rotation stuff will air at an even higher level than you might want it to.

No, what happened is they did research, found that they were playing songs that were hurting them (some in higher rotations, some in lower), and stopped playing those songs.

Remember again, that the "excessive" repetition that gets complained about on this board puts a favorite song in the typical listener's ear no more than once every three weeks on average. So the target listener heard fewer songs they didn't like and their favorites often enough to satisfy them.

That said, I find it hard to believe that you can't find 1000 songs to play, if your station is covering a 20-year period, let's say mid-'60s to mid-'80s. If your station covers a longer period than that, seems like it would be even easier to find enough tunes to play without exasperating your listeners.

No, because if you go beyond a 20-year period, you're going to get more songs that your core (the middle of the 25-54 demographic) doesn't know, doesn't care about or outright doesn't like. Casting a wider net does you no good at all.

Again, stations would love to have more music to play. They would have to worry less about what to do when burn does take place on titles...they'd have a bench. But the fact of the matter is that, right now, for the audience that uses Classic Hits, the top seems to be 850-900 titles that there's enough of a consensus on that tuneout is minimized.

Frankly, it's amazing to me that there are that many.

 

[michael hagerty]

(apparently, we can't multiquote in this new format!)

This is sort of a continuation of what I asked David above. We can't come up with 1000 songs (over a 20-year period) that we can play? That averages out to 50 per year. Maybe some years might be better represented than other years. It still sort of feels like program directors simply whacked their medium and lighter rotation stuff from the bottom of the playlist, which resulted in the heavy rotation stuff getting even heavier rotation. And it seems like (to me) that that is what is fatiguing the listeners. I know that it is with me!

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like Jack-FM is playing some album tracks that were never singles to begin with. Of course, nowadays it is not necessary for it to be released as a single to get airplay. This may be how they are able to get away with playing a few more tracks than other formats might be able to.

Remember...Classic Hits right now is playing to 40-year olds (which they have to in order to win the demo). But if you had to pick a centerpoint for the music, it would still be in the mid-late 70s. Meaning the bulk of the music is from when these people were four, five, six years old. They're not thinking of it in terms of specific years, and their musical awareness was such that there would only be a handful of songs that would resonate with them. More to the point, it's about mood, feel, what they want to hear now and what they expect from "my old school button".

A lot of stations are playing album tracks now. Since iTunes, everything's a single. And, as we've exhaustively discussed, chart performance when new is irrelevant. It's not just Jack. The only Beatles song to make the Top 20 in the voting for the KRTH Top 500 Countdown this coming weekend is an LP track..."Here Comes The Sun."

 

[michael hagerty]

Now back to the topic:

What/how many stations played songs as currents that should now be considered for "classic" status? For example, I listened to 60s/70sTop 40 on basically one station, and so did all the other listeners. But music really split up in the 80s/90s. So now when a "classic" station (call it D) wants to add 80s and 90s music, that one station is trying to attract listeners who used to listen to several "current" (call them A, B and C) stations. Can that really work? Will a listener listen to station D that plays "classic" songs that were current on A, B and C when that listener did not listen to stations B and C back in the day?

Yes.

Because they didn't see music splintering they way we did as outsiders to that generation. To them, it was just variety and choice. And, through the filter of nostalgia...what they want to remember and what they don't, they'll tell us what they want to hear. It will likely be a bit from this and a bit from that, in the same way that Classic Hits stations today play quite a few things that weren't Top 40 records and some Classic Rock stations are playing songs that AOR would have thought too commercial, too pop, too wimpy.

 

[firepoint525]

Remember...Classic Hits right now is playing to 40-year olds (which they have to in order to win the demo). But if you had to pick a centerpoint for the music, it would still be in the mid-late 70s. Meaning the bulk of the music is from when these people were four, five, six years old. They're not thinking of it in terms of specific years, and their musical awareness was such that there would only be a handful of songs that would resonate with them. More to the point, it's about mood, feel, what they want to hear now and what they expect from "my old school button".
A lot of stations are playing album tracks now. Since iTunes, everything's a single. And, as we've exhaustively discussed, chart performance when new is irrelevant. It's not just Jack. The only Beatles song to make the Top 20 in the voting for the KRTH Top 500 Countdown this coming weekend is an LP track..."Here Comes The Sun."

If they are going for 40-year-olds now, then I am in heap big trouble. I hit the big 5-0 on my next birthday!

 

[landtuna]

A lot of stations are playing album tracks now. Since iTunes, everything's a single. And, as we've exhaustively discussed, chart performance when new is irrelevant. It's not just Jack. The only Beatles song to make the Top 20 in the voting for the KRTH Top 500 Countdown this coming weekend is an LP track..."Here Comes The Sun."

Album or single - it is irrelevant. In the 50's pop songs were all singles. Albums came into their own in the 60's but stations played cuts from both. Now we're back to singles.

 

[firepoint525]

No, what happened is they did research, found that they were playing songs that were hurting them (some in higher rotations, some in lower), and stopped playing those songs.
Remember again, that the "excessive" repetition that gets complained about on this board puts a favorite song in the typical listener's ear no more than once every three weeks on average. So the target listener heard fewer songs they didn't like and their favorites often enough to satisfy them.

That station was then (in 1993 or so) known as the Fox. When they returned (after a week or so off the air), they returned as "the Arrow," an acronym for "all rock and roll oldies." Seems like the Arrow format was the go-to format at that time. Memphis briefly had one, too. As for the Arrow here, I remember that the alternative weekly paper (The Nashville Scene) ran an article accompanied by an old photo of the Bellamy Brothers. The caption was "the Bellamy Brothers have taken over 104.5." Arrow was playing "Let Your Love Flow" quite a bit, something that I don't recall Fox ever playing. The accompanying article commented on how much airplay that CCR was getting on Arrow. So it wasn't just "us" noticing. (No complaints about "Let Your Love Flow" from me. It was, and still is, a fave of mine, but indeed unusual to hear that one on what had been a classic rocker.)

No, because if you go beyond a 20-year period, you're going to get more songs that your core (the middle of the 25-54 demographic) doesn't know, doesn't care about or outright doesn't like. Casting a wider net does you no good at all.
Again, stations would love to have more music to play. They would have to worry less about what to do when burn does take place on titles...they'd have a bench. But the fact of the matter is that, right now, for the audience that uses Classic Hits, the top seems to be 850-900 titles that there's enough of a consensus on that tuneout is minimized.
Frankly, it's amazing to me that there are that many.

While I would agree that anything wider than about 20 years is a bit too much (that is about one generation), it still seems to me that the current playlist is still a bit too narrow. I would like to see the same titles come up a bit LESS frequently. And I am sure that I am not the only one. Maybe more specialty programs on the weekend? Anything to slow down the rotation, and reduce repetition. (And please, no college football on Saturday afternoon, although that would indeed slow down the rotation.)

Star 97 here in Nashville, when they were "all '80s" back in the early 2000s, played about 15 years' worth of music, 1978 to about 1993. Even that apparently was not enough, as they eventually expanded to 1975 to 1993. Heard "Holding On To Yesterday" (from 1975) there. But they left quite a bit of '80s music unplayed. No Julian Lennon? Indeed, their slogan was "the best '80s and more," so the "more" could have been the late '70s and early '90s that they were adding into the rotation.

 

[michael hagerty]

... it still seems to me that the current playlist is still a bit too narrow. I would like to see the same titles come up a bit LESS frequently. And I am sure that I am not the only one. Maybe more specialty programs on the weekend? Anything to slow down the rotation, and reduce repetition. (And please, no college football on Saturday afternoon, although that would indeed slow down the rotation.)

I'm sure you're not the only one, but if you're not in the majority, it's not going to matter. The key to winning in the ratings is to do what works for the biggest block of listeners within the target demographic. As we've said before, slowing down the rotation means the typical listener may not feel she/he is hearing their favorite songs often enough, given that they're at most usually hearing them only once every three weeks or longer.

 

[michael hagerty]

Right. A station aiming 25-54 isn't putting any energy into people in those final five years of the demo.

I've said it probably 10 times on this forum...I'll say it again:

It's like archery. Want to win the demo? Aim for the center of the target. You'll do well five years either side of it. And dead center of 25-54 is 39.5.

 

[davideduardo]

Right. A station aiming 25-54 isn't putting any energy into people in those final five years of the demo.

.

Since aiming at the high end is not practical, you usually find situations where a station might target 35-54, but only research 35-49. They will get the 50-54's anyway, so it is more important to look carefully at the "entry years" where people will mature into listeners to the format.

Nobody is worrying about what a 54 year old is going to be listening to next year.

 

[oldies76]

Frankly, it's amazing to me that there are that many.

So, you'd rather have a station run like Jay Coffey would, with far fewer songs in rotation and only the highly rated tested songs airing?? 900 is a good number, 1200 to 1500 would be much more thorough, 2000+ would be fabulous!! But we'll settle for 800+ for now.