CHR in Chicago?

[CHRles]

Can CHR/Pop get away with playing all of those adult artists and songs in this day and age? I would say no, things are too fragmented. For example in 1970 there was no such thing as Hot AC stations. Each market had one or two Top 40 powerhouses, they could be wide.

Today there are a ton of stations trying to get a piece of the 25-54 pie. In this fragmented landscape it makes sense for CHR to target 18-34. In fact many CHRs seem to try to dominate 18-24 females wih the intention of getting good overall 18-34 numbers, this strategy makes sense to me.. I would say CHR moved from being mass appeal to a young niche as a survival mechanism.

Bingo!
How many Bright AC, Hot AC, Adult Alternative, Modern AC, Rhythmic AC, Active Rock, Modern Rock, Middle of the road Rock, Spanish Top 40, Rhythmic/Dance stations did L.A. have back in the 60s during KHJ's heyday?...

Top 40 radio back in the 60s in some markets was actually MORE youth leaning then today's Rhythmic leaning CHRs. A LOT of adults back in the 60s were not into the British Invasion, and in the 50s weren't into Elvis or some of the great Duo Wop artists.

As for the 1980s, KIIS-FM was hardly the first CHR/Pop station to start leaning Dance/Rhythmic. Hell, nearby CHRs like Q-105 Oxnard or Q-106 San Diego were way ahead of them, as was KMEL San Francisco, Hot 105 and Y-100 Miami, 96.3 WHYT Detroit, as well as CHRs in places like New Orleans and Atlanta. And what about the sound of CHR radio in the late 70s during the Disco craze???

What happened in the early 90s was that the national Pop charts became more youth leaning again at a time when many markets got a bunch of new stations and formats, and adults had plenty of choices to switch to. Many CHRs (ie the people who prgrammed hem) didn't know how to react to this new reality. Some were successful in going more adult, Rhythmic, or Alternative leaning, while other CHRs bailed. Some of the smart CHRs were those that added more 80s Retro, leaned a bit more adult by day, and were more cautious in the records they added. That's why most CHRs hardly or never played Nirvana's teen anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit", or the big Dr. Dre hits. I think it's actually sad that a lot of the CHR audience missed out on hearing some of the biggest selling records in the country.
Several years later the pendulum started swinging back towards Pop and Dance and some of the teens of the early 90s/late 80s were now part of the 18-34 demo. That's why today, in 2007, it's MUCH MUCH easier for a CHR to play Hip Hop hits when compared to 15 years ago.
Guys like Marv L.A. who were still part of the 18-34 demo back in the early 90s, are now way out of CHR radio's target range. Then again, CHR radio's first target is 18-34 yr old females so maybe it doesn't matter either way ;D

 

[Marv-L.A.]

CHR/Radio's first target may be females/persons/adults/teens 18-34, but that is TODAY's target demo for the format; that was NOT the case in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and very early nineties.

Anyone who grew up listening to their hometown CHR/Pop station during the 60s/70s/80s knows what a MASS-APPEAL radio station soundfs like; a high school kid today has NO idea what that concept is today at the format.

 

[Marv-L.A.]

What was (or were) Chicago's dominant top 40 stations of the seventies and eighties, a la powerhouses such as KIIS-FM, WNCI & WZPL (LA, Columbus & Indianapolis?)

I don't remember when WLS dropped the format, but I'd be inclined to guess sometime in the mid-eighties.

Thanks.

 

[CHRles]

In the 70s it was WLS and WCFL from what I've read and heard.
Chicago radio as it turns out was VERY segregated in the early 80s (after the whole disco is dead fiasco with Steve Dahl) and so between 1980-83 you heard little to no black artsits on the station's Top 40 stations.
Later in the 80s you had Z-95, and of course B-96 (with the Hot Hits format). Sometime around 87 B-96 began leaning more and more Top 40/Dance. They officially went that route after WBMX 102.7 went Urban AC. WBMX was an Urban Contemporary station, but was just as much a Dance station.
Urban Contemporary Radio was very different in the 80s - Kiss FM NYC was very Dance friendly at times, and rival WBLS was pretty eclectic when Frankie Crocker was at the wheel.

 

[jojo_collins]

In the 70s it was WLS and WCFL from what I've read and heard.
Chicago radio as it turns out was VERY segregated in the early 80s (after the whole disco is dead fiasco with Steve Dahl) and so between 1980-83 you heard little to no black artsits on the station's Top 40 stations.
Later in the 80s you had Z-95, and of course B-96 (with the Hot Hits format). Sometime around 87 B-96 began leaning more and more Top 40/Dance. They officially went that route after WBMX 102.7 went Urban AC. WBMX was an Urban Contemporary station, but was just as much a Dance station.
Urban Contemporary Radio was very different in the 80s - Kiss FM NYC was very Dance friendly at times, and rival WBLS was pretty eclectic when Frankie Crocker was at the wheel.

You are right, CHRles. Hell, when WBMX was around, they played more freestyle and house more than ANY station in the Chi. The Hot Mix 5 was formed there. Frankie Knuckles came to Chicago from NYC and showed NYC the Chi-Town flavor. During that time, if anyone wanted the variety of music in Chicago (Especially Urban, Dance & Freestyle), they either went to WBMX (with Doug Banks, Marco Spoon, LaDonna Tittle) or WGCI (with the late Bob Wall, Evan Luck, Jackie Hasselrig). WBBM, during their Mike Joseph's Hot Hits and WLS-FM/Z95/Hell 94.7 didn't really have a chance during that time. I graduated high school in the Chicago area and some of those songs BITD (Back in the day) brought back some memories!!!!

 

[Jay F]

Do you remember a song called "Fantasy" by Jesse Saunders? I love that song. I heard it on WGCI when I visited Chicago in the mid-80s. I have it on an air check.

One of the things I liked about that era of radio is there were local and regional hits. Every market had a different sound to it.

 

[Damixah3]

Where is it? KISS-FM? Are u kidding me? I just moved here from Atlanta. We have Q-100, which i think is one of the best CHR sounding stations in the nation. Of course ratings proove otherwise, but they are on the rise. In anycase, I am shocked the 3rd largest city in the country doesn't have a Z100 NY or Q100 ATL sounding station? KISS is WAY to rythmic and hardly plays any of the current rock that's starting to dominate the charts. And what's with the white boy dj's sounding ghetto?? Club KISS? Sick of the hip hop. I miss REAL mixshows. House music, remixes, and progressive. Where's that in Chicago?

Listen to 100.3 LOVE-fm's Saturday Night Dance Party....

 

[indebiz]

Not everything that is Hip-Hop is Top 40!!! Granted there is a lot more crossover, but that doesn't mean EVERY single hip-hop song is on the top 40 charts. What about artists such as: Paula Deanda, Mario Vasquez, Gym Class Heroes, etc. None of these artists are Hip-Hop artists and they are still being played on top 40 radio.

PD - Rhythmic.
MV - Rhythmc.
GCH - Rhythmic. Yes, they're a Rhythmic group, despite the guitars. Listen to their songs... sounds rappish, yes?

 

[indebiz]

CHR/Pop hasn't been a mass-appeal format since the early nineties, as numerous articles in BB & R&R have pointed out over the past fifteen years.

When CHR made its return in the late 90s, it was a mass appeal format. When WXSS in Milwaukee launched in June of 1998 you could hear anything from AC songs from artists like Celine Dion ("Its All Coming Back To My Now" was the first song I ever heard on 103.7 KISS FM), Hot AC (Blues Traveler, Smash Mouth, Goo Goo Dolls, Spin Doctors) Alternative (Smashing Pumpkins, Live, Beck, Red Hot Chili Peppers), Hip Hop/R&B (Coolio, Will Smith, Next, TLC, Monifah, Pras), Pop (Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Jennifer Paige), Dance (Dee Lite, Real McCoy, C+C Music Factory, La Bouche) and 80s music to top it off (Soft Cell, John Mellencamp, etc)

Same thing goes for most any other CHR of the time.

Ever read the article on Zapoleon and his ten year cycle of CHR?

 

[indebiz]

WKSC's current PD was quoted in last week's issue of Radio & Records as saying 'Our objective is to dominate the 18-34 demo', which is NOT the target demo of a mass-appeal CHR/Pop station.

WHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT ??? ??? ???

In whose definition? Yours? How old are you? Do you realize who is buying a vast majority of the albums being put out by Top 40 artists these days? (HINT: Gillette is dead on)

"Mass Appeal" doesn't win anymore, with a FEW exceptions in predominately Caucasian markets. There is a certain poster that I usually can't stand, but I'll borrow his line here because he's right:

You and I can take a station each. You can do "mass appeal" CHR. I'll do CHR, as defined by this generation.

I'll see you in eighteen months when you're dropping off a demo to my Programming Department.

 

[radio124]

Pardon me, but have you seen Z-100's ratings lately? They are a true mass appeal CHR. Would you consider NY a "caucasian" market? The Z goes out of their way to play songs other CHR's wouldn't touch. For example "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood made it up to number one. Another song that was huge for them was "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones a few years back despite most CHR programmers saying the song was too AC or Smooth Jazz.

 

[BJSteigner]

How about Dance in Chicago?

I would like to see a real dance station in Chicago that can compete against Kiss and Killer Bee.

 

[indebiz]

^^^ Oh boy, here we go again with the "Bring back Energy!" crap...

 

[Marv-L.A.]

WXSS was launched right in the middle of CHR's late-nineties resurgence at a time when the Hot AC format also did very well, so having a very wide playlist made lots of sense.

Ten years later (as Zapoleon did point out in R&R recently), CHR/Pop stations are getting some very good 25-54 numbers, most notably KIIS, KHKS, and Midwest powerhouses such as WNCI/Columbus and B101.

His 'ten year cycle' for CHR/Pop's resurgence is right on time again.

The format is only as good as the music, and the summer of 2007 has been a better than average one for the format, with artists as diverse from Carrie Underwood to Maroon5 to Fergie to JT leading the resurgence.