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Let's watch everyone lose their minds. KRTH is playing...

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I'm surprised a format like this hasn't popped up somewhere, as I theoretically think it would be great at delivering 25-44 year olds. However, AC seems to have that lane covered, and it seems like that audience likes hearing the older tracks alongside the 5-20 year old hits, along with the few currents and recurrents AC stations play.
My eye doctor plays Mosaic from Sirius/XM. That leans slightly older.
 
Sirius/XM figured out that early 60's pop has nothing in common with late 60's "flower power" music. But they still have decade based channels instead of "feeling" based ones.
I've heard of this being done twice. One of the satellite services had something called Kool Gold which was on 610 AM in Charlotte back in the 90s. It was late 50s through the early 60s.

And 63 Big WAYS outside Charlotte, where every hour of music has a sponsor (though other advertisers might be heard) and the owner likes the music and doesn't care about being profitable (and he has a 100,000-watt classic rock leaning FM). It's mostly pre-Beatles hits. Some songs are from the late 60s but they're not the songs normally thought of as being from that era. And some of the songs are even standards by the traditional definition. But it's mostly rock and roll, doo wop and Motown.
 
Go back ten years on this very board and you’ll find several people saying exactly that about 60’s music.
The natural evolution though will be 90s start having more of a foothold in the format, though. Songs like Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind and 3 A.M. by Matchbox 20 will play alongside 80s hits like Journey, while the remaining 70s songs will be phassed out, if it follows the general trend, just as the predominantly 70s focused stations moved towards the 80s. The 90s and 80s I think pair well together, so it could sound pretty good.
 
The natural evolution though will be 90s start having more of a foothold in the format, though. Songs like Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind and 3 A.M. by Matchbox 20 will play alongside 80s hits like Journey, while the remaining 70s songs will be phassed out, =

I don't know about that. Keep in mind those 80s hits are still testing well, and the research shows the bands like Journey and Aerosmith are still attracting younger fans. So why let go of songs that the audience wants to hear just because of the calendar?
 
I don't know about that. Keep in mind those 80s hits are still testing well, and the research shows the bands like Journey and Aerosmith are still attracting younger fans. So why let go of songs that the audience wants to hear just because of the calendar?
I know that, but perhaps somevof the songs which don't test quitecas well and some of the 70s wilk eventually be replaced by some of the 90s.
 
I know that, but perhaps somevof the songs which don't test quitecas well and some of the 70s wilk eventually be replaced by some of the 90s.

They already have. I see lots of 90s songs in their playlist. Just A Girl by No Doubt. Linger from the Cranberries. No Diggity by Blackstreet. Maybe 50-60 songs from the 90s. They just don't get played as often as the 80s songs. But they're getting played, as are songs from the 2000s.
 
They already have. I see lots of 90s songs in their playlist. Just A Girl by No Doubt. Linger from the Cranberries. No Diggity by Blackstreet. Maybe 50-60 songs from the 90s. They just don't get played as often as the 80s songs. But they're getting played, as are songs from the 2000s.
What I am saying is that will continue to be the trend of most classic hits stations in the coming decade, and I think the more you go in, the more '90s and maybe early 2000s will become prevalent.
 
What I am saying is that will continue to be the trend of most classic hits stations in the coming decade, and I think the more you go in, the more '90s and maybe early 2000s will become prevalent.

Maybe. That assumes people pick their favorite songs based on the year of release. As we've seen, all it takes is for a TV show to use an obscure song from the 80s, and it instantly becomes a hit everywhere. So it's possible, with new generations being exposed to music from the 80s, that those songs may recirculate to a new audience. A couple of weeks ago a founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd died. But the band's hit Sweet Home Alabama continues to test well with young audiences, and the band continues to tour off their 40 year old songs.
 
You misread that list. Those are the Top 5 most played songs, not the most recent. The Top 15 are all from the 80s.

The most recent song is the aforementioned Uptown Funk from 2014. There are a couple dozen songs from the 2000s, including Jimmy Eat World.
Those *were* (some of) the most recently played songs on K-Earth just prior to the time of the original post - 6:43 PM PT
(late afternoon/early evening Friday 4/21/2023). Proof:

K-EARTH 101 (click on "Fri 21.04" to see 4/21/2023)

18:11 DEPECHE MODE - PERSONAL JESUS
18:07 KATRINA AND THE WAVES - WALKING ON SUNSHINE
18:02 B-52s - LOVE SHACK
17:57 ROBERT PALMER - SIMPLY IRRESISTABLE
17:53 SIMPLE MINDS - DON'T YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME)

I *do* grant you that those are some of the most played songs on KRTH as they're firmly planted in the 1980s at the moment.

Also keep in mind: K-Earth runs Friday night '80s frequently which may have been in effect at this time.
Edit: not an '80s weekend in effect 4/21-22-23/2023 as there's other decades sprinkled in.
A better time to look at a sample hour would be Mon.-Thu. afternoons.
 
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Those *were* (some of) the most recently playerd songs on K-Earth just prior to the time of the original post -

The post didn't identify them as 'most recently played.' It said 'most recent.' That implies the year the songs were released, not the time when they were played. My post said there are songs being played are more recent than the 1980s. I don't look at most recently played lists because they doesn't give the full picture. I look at Mediabase. That way I see the full playlist.
 
"And the 5 most recent records on KRTH:"

I guess that's what you'd call "parsing the language" to a granular, literal meaning.
I took it to mean most recently played; BigA interprets as most recent by "age of the recording".
Oh well....

Also keep in mind that most of us schlubs here do not have access to information proprietary to the radio business,
only what is publicly available via the internet. I *wish* I had access to a Mediabase account to instantly look at a total picture rather than just a daily playlist. But that's all I have.
 
"And the 5 most recent records on KRTH:"

I guess that's what you'd call "parsing the language" to a granular, literal meaning.
I took it to mean most recently played; BigA interprets as most recent by "age of the recording".
Oh well....

Read the rest of the original post. (see below) It goes on to talk about the age of those songs, and how those songs fit with the station demos. Put in that context, it's very easy to understand how I came to my conclusion.

The average is 37 years old. I agree with Michael, on paper this music should be too old.

But, KRTH rates well among all the demos, including #1 25-54, so even though the prime consumer of this music should be in their mid 50s based on what was popular when someone that age was in HS/college, that rule of thumb really doesn't seem to apply.

Continuing with that original point, the age of songs really only matters in terms of older pop music, and it's why classic hits have shifted away from pop and more towards rock. Pop songs don't age well. Rock songs don't seem to have the same expiration date.
 
Maybe. That assumes people pick their favorite songs based on the year of release. As we've seen, all it takes is for a TV show to use an obscure song from the 80s, and it instantly becomes a hit everywhere. So it's possible, with new generations being exposed to music from the 80s, that those songs may recirculate to a new audience. A couple of weeks ago a founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd died. But the band's hit Sweet Home Alabama continues to test well with young audiences, and the band continues to tour off their 40 year old songs.
It has to do with when the upper demo first heard the songs I would think.
 
It has to do with when the upper demo first heard the songs I would think.

These stations aren't programming to the upper demos. What we're seeing is that 18-34s like these songs for the music, not for when they were released. That's why it's possible for someone in their 20s to like a song from the 1980s.
 
These stations aren't programming to the upper demos. What we're seeing is that 18-34s like these songs for the music, not for when they were released. That's why it's possible for someone in their 20s to like a song from the 1980s.
Michael's point was that it will get *much* newer quicker, though my point is it will change gradually (like the things in some CA stations) but on a more gradual and linear path. More 80s (maybe ones that don't resonate will fade and more 90s and even early 00s will start being played.
 
More 80s (maybe ones that don't resonate will fade and more 90s and even early 00s will start being played.

Looking at the 90s songs they're currently playing, I'm not sure about that. The struggle with 90s music is finding consensus songs. Keep in mind there was a time in the early 90s when CHR stations didn't play much CHR music. A lot of what they did play (Whitney Houston and that sort of thing) is still being played on AC stations now. So you will end up with classic hits conflicting with AC.
 
Looking at the 90s songs they're currently playing, I'm not sure about that. The struggle with 90s music is finding consensus songs. Keep in mind there was a time in the early 90s when CHR stations didn't play much CHR music. A lot of what they did play (Whitney Houston and that sort of thing) is still being played on AC stations now. So you will end up with classic hits conflicting with AC.
AC stations already conflict with classic hits. It will probably be a mixture of 90s and early 00s music that will be headed to classic hits at the end of the decade (who knows, maybe Uptown Funk will appear on there too, since by the end of the decade it will be close to 15 years old.)
 
AC stations already conflict with classic hits.
They don't "conflict". They just overlap in some songs.

Classic hits plays all gold. AC plays currents, recurrents and gold, with higher rotations on the newer songs.

The average PPM market listener uses 6 or so stations each week. "Favorite" stations change regularly. No single format owns 100% exclusive songs.
 
No single format owns 100% exclusive songs.

It depends. The country format is pretty exclusive right now. As we've discussed, CHR radio is staying away from most of the country songs currently in the Billboard Hot 100. The only exception is the Kane Brown duet, and that song has already peaked on country radio.
 
It depends. The country format is pretty exclusive right now. As we've discussed, CHR radio is staying away from most of the country songs currently in the Billboard Hot 100. The only exception is the Kane Brown duet, and that song has already peaked on country radio.
But, historically, all formats... even smooth jazz... have had a few songs that crossed over to at least one other format.

My point is that there are lots and lots of songs that start in one format and grow into others and end up belonging to several "radio genres".

Lat night at Coachella, Bad Bunny shared his set with a Grupo frontera. A reggaetón artist giving stage time to a norteña artist... two seemingly and totally different genres; like a hip-hop group inviting a hard core country act with fiddles and steel guitars to "play along". Additionally, Bad Bunny brought on José Feliciano, whose hits from over 50 years ago were, if classifiable, mainstram top 40 and even AC songs.
 
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