Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[semoochie]

Sometime last year, I mistakenly posted that chronologically, we were in the same place as in 2004, when all the pre-1964 songs were dropped from Oldies stations. I was thinking that since the total of 1955 songs was so small, I was starting with 1956, which throws the whole concept off by a year. With that in mind, I again bring up this topic. 1964 is the "new 1955" and if what happened in 2004 happens again, expect everything before 1973 to vanish from Classic Hits playlists and be replaced with songs through about 1990. This will probably happen sometime this year and at the very least, will exile 1964 from the radio, '65 next year and so on. There may be some exceptions to this: "Oh, Pretty Woman" was a hit again in 1990 and there are other examples. Do you think that a format spanning from 1973-90 can be compatible and attract an audience? Would it sound too much like Adult Hits? This would affect other formats as well, either directly or indirectly: AC would probably abandon the 70s and Classic Rock would stop playing the Beatles. On the other hand, is it possible that our music is truly more special than previous generations and people under the age of 55, some who weren't even born yet, will continue to enjoy it and none of this will happen?

 

[willdav713]

If you are in Austin and able to listen to Jammin 103.1 you just described such station. They even play Aaliyah's Dust your self off and Try Again from 2000, along with Night Fever by the Bee-Gees.

 

[michael hagerty]

Sometime last year, I mistakenly posted that chronologically, we were in the same place as in 2004, when all the pre-1964 songs were dropped from Oldies stations. I was thinking that since the total of 1955 songs was so small, I was starting with 1956, which throws the whole concept off by a year. With that in mind, I again bring up this topic. 1964 is the "new 1955" and if what happened in 2004 happens again, expect everything before 1973 to vanish from Classic Hits playlists and be replaced with songs through about 1990. This will probably happen sometime this year and at the very least, will exile 1964 from the radio, '65 next year and so on. There may be some exceptions to this: "Oh, Pretty Woman" was a hit again in 1990 and there are other examples. Do you think that a format spanning from 1973-90 can be compatible and attract an audience? Would it sound too much like Adult Hits? This would affect other formats as well, either directly or indirectly: AC would probably abandon the 70s and Classic Rock would stop playing the Beatles. On the other hand, is it possible that our music is truly more special than previous generations and people under the age of 55, some who weren't even born yet, will continue to enjoy it and none of this will happen?

Time marches on. The most desirable demographic to advertisers is 25-54. Has been for decades. The center of that demo is 39.5 years old. Round it up to 40. That means the targeted listener was born in 1973, graduated high school in 1991 and college in 1995. Playing music from before the mid-80s is taking a chance with that listener, much less music from 20 years before that. Classic Hits stations have done okay skewing a bit old within 25-54 and being strongest 35-64, but even there, 1964 is almost 50 years ago. It's as far back from today as 1914 was then. The roll-offs of years and decades of music will naturally happen.

 

[firepoint525]

Sometime last year, I mistakenly posted that chronologically, we were in the same place as in 2004, when all the pre-1964 songs were dropped from Oldies stations. I was thinking that since the total of 1955 songs was so small, I was starting with 1956, which throws the whole concept off by a year. With that in mind, I again bring up this topic. 1964 is the "new 1955" and if what happened in 2004 happens again, expect everything before 1973 to vanish from Classic Hits playlists and be replaced with songs through about 1990. This will probably happen sometime this year and at the very least, will exile 1964 from the radio, '65 next year and so on.

I don't see this happening. What is more likely is dropping about five years' worth of the oldest music five years from now, or maybe every five years, or whatever.

There may be some exceptions to this: "Oh, Pretty Woman" was a hit again in 1990 and there are other examples. Do you think that a format spanning from 1973-90 can be compatible and attract an audience? Would it sound too much like Adult Hits? This would affect other formats as well, either directly or indirectly: AC would probably abandon the 70s and Classic Rock would stop playing the Beatles. On the other hand, is it possible that our music is truly more special than previous generations and people under the age of 55, some who weren't even born yet, will continue to enjoy it and none of this will happen?

I don't recall this, either. Roy Orbison made a comeback in '89 (shortly after his death) with "You Got It," and with the Traveling Wilburys, and "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers returned to the charts in 1990. There was a Pretty Woman movie (with Julia Roberts) in '89 or '90, but I don't recall Roy Orbison's song of the same name making a return to the charts.

 

[semoochie]

I worded that poorly, when I used the word, "hit". I should have said "The song enjoyed renewed popularity from the 1990 movie.", putting it onto AC playlists for nearly two more decades. What I'm really looking for is some industry consensus as to whether or not 1964-72 will be purged from Classic Hits, as 1955-63 was from Oldies in 2004. Again, chronologically, we're in the same position now as we were then.

 

[landtuna]

The record industry has little to gain by publicizing Oldies over the newer crap....er, I mean songs so, like the fashion industry they will continue to push change for change sake and we will continue getting mini-talent and multi-colored hair from selected label front-artists that sound even more ridiculous than they look.

 

[semoochie]

"I don't see this happening. What is more likely is dropping about five years' worth of the oldest music five years from now, or maybe every five years, or whatever." A person turning 55 this year turned six, in 1964. All of your saleable audience is younger than that. If you wait another 5 years, your oldest saleable listener would've been less than a year old in 1964!

 

[firepoint525]

"I don't see this happening. What is more likely is dropping about five years' worth of the oldest music five years from now, or maybe every five years, or whatever." A person turning 55 this year turned six, in 1964. All of your saleable audience is younger than that. If you wait another 5 years, your oldest saleable listener would've been less than a year old in 1964!

Again, you are dropping eras at a time, not individual years. Playing 1965, but not 1964, would not make sense. You would be splitting an era, in this case the British invasion. That would not make sense, and would only confuse your listeners.

 

[firepoint525]

What I'm really looking for is some industry consensus as to whether or not 1964-72 will be purged from Classic Hits, as 1955-63 was from Oldies in 2004. Again, chronologically, we're in the same position now as we were then.

Your premise is mistaken here. Our oldies station here in Nashville was already '60s-centered by 2004. I would submit to you that the '50s were already GONE from oldies radio by 2004. (They became JACK-FM in 2005, and are still, to this day.)

I remember our then-"Arrow" station running promos mocking "doo-wop" as far back as 1994!

 

[semoochie]

I disagree. Stations had eased up on 50s titles but were still centered between 1962-66, as they had been for nearly 20 years. That all changed in 2004, when virtually everything pre-Beatles was dropped in one fell swoop!

 

[davideduardo]

"I don't see this happening. What is more likely is dropping about five years' worth of the oldest music five years from now, or maybe every five years, or whatever." A person turning 55 this year turned six, in 1964. All of your saleable audience is younger than that. If you wait another 5 years, your oldest saleable listener would've been less than a year old in 1964!

Stations in major markets do music testing. They test against a stable target demo... generally this would be 35-54 (or even 39-49 as a super-core).

Each year, people who have gone over the maximum age are not invited to the test, be they listeners or not. Each year people who just came into the demo target are now eligible, and may be invited.

Obviously, the result is that some songs that were hanging on by a thread to their place in the library may get nudged out as the audience target includes new people. So the in-flow and exit of songs is very gradual... maybe only a handful at a time on either side. Quantified, maybe 5% of the oldest songs exit each year, while another 5% make their debut appearance. But over the course of a few years, it could be 25% to 30% of the total library that has changed.

 

[michael hagerty]

I disagree. Stations had eased up on 50s titles but were still centered between 1962-66, as they had been for nearly 20 years. That all changed in 2004, when virtually everything pre-Beatles was dropped in one fell swoop!

That would suggest that they'd figured out they needed 45 year old listeners, not 45 year old records.

 

[Thomps2525]

KRTH in Los Angeles is one of those stations that dropped all the pre-1964 music...but, because there are approximately 37,000,000 Hispanics living in the Los Angeles area, KRTH still plays Ritchie Valens' La Bamba, which is now 54 years old.

 

[michael hagerty]

KRTH in Los Angeles is one of those stations that dropped all the pre-1964 music...but, because there are approximately 37,000,000 Hispanics living in the Los Angeles area, KRTH still plays Ritchie Valens' La Bamba, which is now 54 years old.

37 MILLION Hispanics in L.A., hmm?

Exaggeration aside, there is and has always been a significant Hispanic influence on L.A. music (just ask Art Laboe). But while the original record is more than 50 years old, the movie La Bamba is only 26, and propelled Los Lobos' faithful cover to #1. So it's a much newer record, based on that exposure.

 

[Thomps2525]

Okay, 27,000,000. KRTH also plays---but not very often---Selena's posthumous top-ten hit, I Could Fall In Love...from 1995. That song doesn't belong on KRTH for two reasons: the year and the musical style.

 

[michael hagerty]

Okay, 27,000,000. KRTH also plays---but not very often---Selena's posthumous top-ten hit, I Could Fall In Love...from 1995. That song doesn't belong on KRTH for two reasons: the year and the musical style.

12.8 million total population in the Los Angeles Metro. 44.8% Hispanic.

5,670,345 people of Hispanic descent, including people whose families have been in L.A. since Zorro called it home.

 

[oldies76]

Okay, 27,000,000. KRTH also plays---but not very often---Selena's posthumous top-ten hit, I Could Fall In Love...from 1995. That song doesn't belong on KRTH for two reasons: the year and the musical style.

I agree, to play ONE song from 1995, or the 90's period is odd. Of course, that number maybe TWO, since they play "Smooth" from 1999, every once in a while.

That's radio for ya.....

 

[semoochie]

That's what I would've expected to happen, David but in 2004, it all went at once, within a short time, on most Oldies stations, turning them into Classic Hits outlets or abandoning the format completely, like WCBS-FM.

 

[OldNumber7]

I worded that poorly, when I used the word, "hit". I should have said "The song enjoyed renewed popularity from the 1990 movie.", putting it onto AC playlists for nearly two more decades. What I'm really looking for is some industry consensus as to whether or not 1964-72 will be purged from Classic Hits, as 1955-63 was from Oldies in 2004. Again, chronologically, we're in the same position now as we were then.

This is already happening. I'm hearing fewer and fewer 60s tunes on WOGL in Philly -- seems like just a couple dozen. It's simple demographic math: people who are 54 now finished high school in '77. People who are 35 finished high school in '96. The center is the peak of the MTV boom -- the mid 80s. Now some of those older folks were exposed to late 60s and early 70s music as younger kids, but that's really the music of their older siblings' life. Classic hits stations will have to center their tunes around 1985-6 with a decade range of music up and down. Think Fleetwood Mac and Saturday Night Fever, through the Duran Duran/Michael Jackson era and up to Nirvana and Boys II Men. A tiny handful of timeless older songs might be worth keeping around but fewer and fewer as time goes by.

The bigger problem, demographically, for the Classic Hits format is that the youngest Baby Boomers are 49 already. After them comes the Birth Dearth generation -- a group now 30-45 with a smaller share of the total ears in the market. They will still want their own classic hits format, but the potential audience draw might make owners less interested in reaching for them. The temptation to target the more demograpically rich lower end of the 25-54 in a few years could cause a hiccup in the evolution of classic hits.

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

The dropping of most 60's already happened in Chicago last fall, when WLS (the premier oldies station in the market) threw all the Motown, girl groups, anything too R&B, and most everything else save for a few Beatles, Stones, and Pretty Woman in the garbage can.

Super depressing. It left me with nothing else but "Tom Kent'' to listen to :'(