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History of Top 40 Radio in NYC
- Thread starter MVB13
- Start date
They played NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye which is now over 20 years old.Yea Biz you lost us Z100 plays ALL the hits thats why they are the best.
"Ghost" is really moving up on the mainstream top 40 chart #7 but will be top 5 next wk especially with all the songs ahead of it losing spins except for Nas.
Theyve always mixed in some older songs but you said lack of new music which as mentioned isnt the case.
--WPLJ vs. WHTZ Rivalry--
While Z100 got better ratings overall, usually at #1 in NYC, WPLJ did better among adult females. It was often #1 in the women 18-49 and women 25-54 demographics, usually trading off with Lite-FM WLTW. Program Director Larry Berger would say his sales department was doing the same or better than Z100 because adult women are the group most advertisers pursue.
As such, WPLJ usually went early on a current song by a female artist. It would hold off adding men, either rock or urban, until they had reached the top 15 or so. They got played when they achieved that distinction. So it was a true Top 40/CHR station for its top 15 songs. But its playlist leaned more adult female than Z100 for the songs below #15.
--WYNY Format--
Others have said that WYNY functioned as a Top 40 station for NYC in the years before Z100 arrived and WPLJ flipped to Top 40. WYNY had a great format, although it wasn't Top 40. Each quarter hour started with a current or recent hit, but nothing too hard rock, nothing too teen-oriented and nothing too urban.
That current/recent song was followed by a 1960s song, from a select playlist. Only about ten artists were in this category. Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Mamas & Papas, Supremes, Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Association, The Young Rascals and a few others. Pete Salant was very strict about not playing 60s artists that young people either didn't know or thought were too old. No one-hit-wonders. He wanted some older songs for spice but nothing that would turn off younger fans. And then the rest of the quarter hour was 1970s hits, however many would be needed until the next spot break.
So in effect, each hour had four current/recurrent songs and four 1960s oldies. The rest were 1970s titles. Clearly, this was not Top 40. The DJs were upbeat and happy. But not teen-oriented.
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While Z100 got better ratings overall, usually at #1 in NYC, WPLJ did better among adult females. It was often #1 in the women 18-49 and women 25-54 demographics, usually trading off with Lite-FM WLTW. Program Director Larry Berger would say his sales department was doing the same or better than Z100 because adult women are the group most advertisers pursue.
As such, WPLJ usually went early on a current song by a female artist. It would hold off adding men, either rock or urban, until they had reached the top 15 or so. They got played when they achieved that distinction. So it was a true Top 40/CHR station for its top 15 songs. But its playlist leaned more adult female than Z100 for the songs below #15.
--WYNY Format--
Others have said that WYNY functioned as a Top 40 station for NYC in the years before Z100 arrived and WPLJ flipped to Top 40. WYNY had a great format, although it wasn't Top 40. Each quarter hour started with a current or recent hit, but nothing too hard rock, nothing too teen-oriented and nothing too urban.
That current/recent song was followed by a 1960s song, from a select playlist. Only about ten artists were in this category. Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Mamas & Papas, Supremes, Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Association, The Young Rascals and a few others. Pete Salant was very strict about not playing 60s artists that young people either didn't know or thought were too old. No one-hit-wonders. He wanted some older songs for spice but nothing that would turn off younger fans. And then the rest of the quarter hour was 1970s hits, however many would be needed until the next spot break.
So in effect, each hour had four current/recurrent songs and four 1960s oldies. The rest were 1970s titles. Clearly, this was not Top 40. The DJs were upbeat and happy. But not teen-oriented.
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And most "Top 40" stations have around 20 real currents.
Clifton once said, based on many years of callout current research, that there are, on average 17 real hits at any given time. Add in four or five "unproven" new adds, and that means about 22 songs in hotter current rotation.
All the hit based formats I have researched come up with the same approximate numbers. Of course, many would count some recurrents as "light currents" but that really means songs that are over three months old that still test high, but which fall off if rotated too fast.
There are exceptions. I've seen a couple of songs last over a year, flipping back and forth from recurrent to power to current to recurrent. But the rule is a good standard that makes us question deeply any song that stays in current longer than the average.
When I first used callout around 1980, we got the same figures from the research... anything over around 20 currents means the station is playing a lot of stiffs.
Yep kinda like how "levitating" by dua lipa hit #4 then dropped & went recurrent then came back & hit #1 & was billboard #1 airplay song of the yr.
Hows that for a wild ride.
Also "heat waves" by glass animals also went recurrent then came back & hit #1 just 2 wks ago then fell to #2 now should be back at #1 this wk.
But didnt Z100 always still bill better than PLJ ??
From what i remember they were always ahead of them on the yrly billing report.
Yea YNY wasnt really a true top 40 cause there were certain top 20 songs they wouldnt play.
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All true. I sometimes listen to Z100 and also Y100. Both stations play a significant number of throwbacks that go back as far as around the year 2000.
WYNY was classified as an adult contemporary station at that time.
Perhaps once every few hours. Which is not much different from what Top 40 stations did in the 80s. I listened to an aircheck last night of Willie B. Goode on WPLJ from 1986, and in the middle of all these currents, he throws in a late 60s Beatles song! So there you have a 20 year old song amidst all of these currents.
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I don't remember ever hearing songs that old on Hartford's WKSS back then. The format was still hot current hits and a few recent recurrents, in tight rotation, just as it had been since flipping from beautiful music two years earlier. The Beatles were what the classic rock and oldies stations played, and maybe the ACs as well.
Here's the aircheck and listen at 4:25. You'll hear Twist & Shout by The Beatles.
Also listen for how long the commercial breaks were.
Interesting. What was that doowop-ish sounding song played shortly afterward in the aircheck? It didn't sound like anything I recall from 1986, at least based on that brief scoped sample.
Now it makes sense! Same phenomenon that brought songs like "Stand By Me" and "Unchained Melody" back to the radio and chart decades later -- teens and 20-somethings hearing them for the first time at the movies. I guess WKSS was one of the stations that didn't bite on the Beatles revival, probably because it was still trying to become the dominant CHR in the market against the established WTIC-FM, which wound up going in a Hot AC direction by removing most rhythmic and all rap from the playlist in the early '90s.
I guess you heard Willie B. Goode died on Wednesday.
Yes that's why I was listening to his airchecks.
No, not perhaps every few hours. At least 1 an hour.
What I was responding to was "throwbacks that go back as far as around the year 2000" and looking at the Mediabase playlist, I see less than ten songs over the course of a week that go back as far as 2000. That's how I came up with "every few hours." But yes formatically I can expect them to do a Gold at least once an hour. Gold in CHR can be as recent as 2017.
Earth Angel by New Edition - remake of the Penguins 1955 classic.
It originally appeared on the movie soundtrack "The Karate Kid Part II" and was included on New Edition's own album of doo-wop era remakes entitled "Under The Blue Moon". New Edition's single and album peaked on the Billboard charts in the Autumn of 1986.
This edition of New Edition did not include Bobby Brown as he was "voted out" of the group by that time.
Just to bow tie this "Ghost" hit #1 this wk.
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