• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Hot 98.1 moves away from Rhythmic

C

carolinaradio

In the past week or so (maybe longer?), Hot 98.1 has shifted from its long running rhythmic-based CHR format to a more mainstream one. Now included is stuff like Bastille, Lorde, One Direction, Maroon 5, Anna Kendrick, A Great Big World, John Legend, OneRepublic, Avicii, etc. It's only slightly more rhythmic than B-93.7 now, and most of the hardcore rap is gone. It's very pop and dance-pop oriented. I know Summit has been making some changes, but this is pretty drastic for a station that was wall-to-wall CHUrban/hip hop/rap just a year or 2 ago.

This is really long overdue considering the changes in CHR and the decline of the Rhythmic CHR format nationwide. This pretty much leaves Jamz as the only urban game in town now.
 
Last edited:
While I agree that something had to be done to Hot with its ratings in decline, I'm not sure this is the way to go. Listening this morning, there was still some Urban/Rhythmic in the mix. But even leaning more towards mainstream CHR, it may be too little too late. Personally, I'd love to see it become a more adult-leaning CHR --- something like Channel 96.1. But it's a rough road no matter which way it goes. From what I understand, in the money demos, Hot was still beating B93.7 prior to Summit coming on board. But it's been sinking ever since. Despite Rhythmic's overall decline on CHR, maybe it was a place to go for people that didn't want the full on Urban of JAMZ, but still wanted music that leaned in that direction. I think Hot's been struggling since the switchover to Summit by a lack of definition by its new PD.

To go full on mainstream CHR may be tough to compete with the already established B93.7 (as bad as it may be). And with MY now proving successful with it's Hot AC format, even a more adult-leaning CHR may be tough. A few years ago, I would have said it would be great for B to have some real competition at CHR. Now, it may be trickier with 102.5 and the fact that many areas of the Upstate can pick up 96.1 pretty clearly.

Guess only time will tell.

It will never happen, but I still wonder if new rock/alternative would work on that signal. I know X98.5 has struggled with ratings, but it's on a horrible signal. And now with Rock 101 becoming "classic" Rock 101.1 and The Planet getting worse again by playing older songs again and, frankly, very little "new rock", that's one area that still needs to be filled IMO. Alternative is pretty hot across the country, resulting in a lot of CHR crossover. So I think an X98.1 could work. I just don't think Summit has enough confidence to give it a try.
 
Considering that B is a mainstream CHR, and MY is already playing adult CHR-type material, I don't really think an adult CHR can be in the cards. The issue Hot has, is that the type of music they've played all of these years has become more polarizing and has lost much of its crossover appeal. The "Urban-lite" format doesn't really work anymore. Rhythmic CHR tends to do best in markets that have a lot of Hispanic listeners, such as those in the Southwest.

The rhythmic hip hop Hot is playing are mostly acts that are crossovers to CHR (Eminem, Macklemore, Pitbull, Jason DeRulo, etc). The hardcore rap is mostly gone. Something I noticed, though, is that the presentation hasn't been updated, and still has a bit of a "party"/rhythmic sound - not very pleasant going in to Say Something, Pompeii, Royals/Team, etc. It's not much different than B, except it's safer. Summit has no other Rhythmic stations, so they probably wanted to streamline things. I'd actually listen to 98.1 now, and that was unthinkable a month ago.

The issue is, though, that now there's really no station that's just "urban enough" to keep another station from flipping to compete with Jamz. Jamz is now definitely the only game in town for Urban. The last GM built an "urban wall" to keep competition out. About a third of said wall has been knocked down.

For reference, here's a recently-played for Hot: http://www.quuit.com/Quu/playlist/369
 
Last edited:
Got to say looking at that playlist, it's kind of a mess -- at least the last few hours. Pitbull, Lorde and Mariah Carey on the same station? I don't know, it may be leaning more mainstream now, but that's pretty ugly.

I do agree that an adult leaning CHR is probably out of the question. But the playlist looked like CHR, Urban and even AC rolled into one. That isn't likely to improve things. I can kind of see where some think the station is not focused and going downhill.

It may be a little more listenable to those who didn't like the rhythmic lean, but I'm not sure what audience they're really after.
 
Last edited:
I'd hope these are just growing pains. The power/current rotation is extremely tight, and the playlist is extremely repetitive even for a CHR. Counting Stars and Dark Horse every 60 minutes is crazy, even for a CHR.

Many Rhythmic CHR stations transitioned to CHR several years ago. They started by turning the music in a more mainstream direction, then some updated the image/brand later on. Channel 96.1 is a good case of this as they started adding the BIG mainstream hits in to the rhythmic format as 96.1 The Beat, then followed it up with the Channel re-brand. We could see something similar happen at 98.1, but Hot isn't really limiting like Beat. Most of these stations haven't become format or market leaders, but they are in a better position than as rhythmic. You need to be straight up CHR or Hip Hop these days. There's no inbetween like there used to be.
 
Yeah, could be growing pains but hope they straighten out quickly. I did see what you mean about the power rotation. Lorde's Team had been played once an hour I'm the stretch I looked at.
 
A lot of the "dance" or "rhythmic" stuff they're playing, looking at that list (Ellie Goulding, Katy Perry, Swedish House Mafia, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Zedd, Miley Cyrus, Capital Cities, John Newman, etc) are actually more mainstream CHR hits that have a rhythmic sound, as opposed to straight rhythmic - not that rhythmic wouldn't play them, but there are plenty of Rhythmic-only hits that they're now avoiding. I just don't understand why they'd want to jump in to the ring with B and even MY when they can't even protect 107.3 anymore. I saw a couple of Facebook comments complaining that they weren't playing enough rap anymore.

My guess is still that they're transitioning and want to keep it pretty tight until they settle in to the sound they (hopefully?) have in mind.
 
I was looking at the full playlists for both B and Hot and they're still pretty far apart, especially with the gold tracks. To me that is making things like OneRepublic and Lorde stick out like a sore thumb. But whatever they're doing...if they do want to transitiion to more mainstream CHR, I think it's a lost cause. Already losing the listeners they had (like those complaining on Facebook) and can't see too many people jumping over from B and/or MY. Not sure what their long term plan is with B and MY already taking the CHR / adult-CHRish Hot AC pie.

Speaking of playlists, and off topic, but The Planet seems to be digging even deeper into the hard rock trenches (aside from the old stuff they shouldn't be playing to begin with). I thought maybe they would try to lighten things up a bit. But they appear to be doing the exact opposite. Trash I tell ya ;)
 
B has a deeper variety of gold and recurrent tracks. If Hot went in a full mainstream direction, I'd probably choose them over B. No Hawk and Tom, and no Ryan Seacrest. I don't think a second CHR is impossible (many markets have second-place CHR's that manage to stay on the air and do well), but this approach isn't viable long-term. It's not rhythmic enough to keep the old listeners and it lacks the variety to get B listeners.
 
carolinaradio said:
B has a deeper variety of gold and recurrent tracks. If Hot went in a full mainstream direction, I'd probably choose them over B. No Hawk and Tom, and no Ryan Seacrest. I don't think a second CHR is impossible (many markets have second-place CHR's that manage to stay on the air and do well), but this approach isn't viable long-term. It's not rhythmic enough to keep the old listeners and it lacks the variety to get B listeners.
Click to expand...
Both Kiss 95.1 and Channel 96.1 coexist in the same market, and both are similar mainstream CHR. There was speculation that Kiss might flip after Channel began to overtake in the ratings, but they seem to be holding their own for now.
 
Phil Harmonic said:
WoW.... Hot is #1 18-34 in the Jamuary trend... not bad!
Click to expand...

Very surprising. But I have heard through the grapevine that that it's the very lower end of that demo that's keeping those numbers up. Not sure about the real money demos. It'll be interesting to see where Hot goes from here with its programming.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom