Hot AC

[spongebag7890]

Is bland. Sorry, but I don't find Nickelback, Hinder, and The Fray all that appealing.

Where's all the good music? It seems Hot AC is CHR with anything but corporate rock taken out. God it sucks to turn on my Hot AC and HAVE to expect Nickelback, The Fray, John Mayer, and Augustana exploding my poor eardums with their annoying voices or their boring mid-tempo music. :'(

Why I hate Hot AC is because it has no variety. Completely agree with sfradio. It's just all pop-rock, and most of it sucks with the occassional exceptions of U2, K.T. Tunstall, and maybe Snow Patrol. (and oddly new Avril Lavigne, how is this more successful here than CHR?) I'm not saying I hate the format as a whole, but where is Beyonce? Nelly Furtado? Gwen Stefani? Paula DeAnda? "Irreplaceable" is a good track, although not as good as earlier singles in my point of view, Beyonce has a powerhouse voice. Same goes with "Walk Away (Remember Me)". "Say It Right" should be HUGE since it's catchy and remakes Cameo's "Word Up". And don't get me started with the lack of success of Gwen Stefani. R&B and Top 40 are big success WHEN they are actually tried. Listener's are often females in their 30s and 40s, and not many males. It would be like the "cool mom" thing or the crossover (maybe unheard of on this format with the exception of Mariah Carey).

Try it! ;D

 

[spongebag7890]

Something like the popular Q102 in Cincinnati best represents this

www.wkrq.com

or for a smaller market

www.kvuu.com

 

[Beejus]

Is bland. Sorry, but I don't find Nickelback, Hinder, and The Fray all that appealing.

Where's all the good music? It seems Hot AC is CHR with anything but corporate rock taken out. God it sucks to turn on my Hot AC and HAVE to expect Nickelback, The Fray, John Mayer, and Augustana exploding my poor eardums with their annoying voices or their boring mid-tempo music. :'(

Why I hate Hot AC is because it has no variety. Completely agree with sfradio. It's just all pop-rock, and most of it sucks with the occassional exceptions of U2, K.T. Tunstall, and maybe Snow Patrol. (and oddly new Avril Lavigne, how is this more successful here than CHR?) I'm not saying I hate the format as a whole, but where is Beyonce? Nelly Furtado? Gwen Stefani? Paula DeAnda? "Irreplaceable" is a good track, although not as good as earlier singles in my point of view, Beyonce has a powerhouse voice. Same goes with "Walk Away (Remember Me)". "Say It Right" should be HUGE since it's catchy and remakes Cameo's "Word Up". And don't get me started with the lack of success of Gwen Stefani. R&B and Top 40 are big success WHEN they are actually tried. Listener's are often females in their 30s and 40s, and not many males. It would be like the "cool mom" thing or the crossover (maybe unheard of on this format with the exception of Mariah Carey).

Try it! ;D

No offense, but you don't sound like a Hot AC's main target.

Hot ACs vary from market to market. Some are borderline AC with fewer currents, some are borderline CHR with CHR like spin totals (like Q in Cincy). Some push in some Rhythmic, some rock out.

In my market, my listeners don't respond to Rhythmic music. Rihanna's "SOS" and Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl" is as Rhythmic as we've gotten over the past couple of years... yet younger bands like My Chemical Romance and Cartel have caught on pretty quickly.

Hot AC is evolving... the Lillith Fair days are over, and there are a ton of new sounds out there, plus listeners have a ton of new avenues to find new music. What has caught on right now is the sound of Nickelback, The Fray, and Augustana, all of whom are having great success with their current singles. It's what the people want... so it's what we play.

My 99.9 (KVUU) in Colorado Spings finds that throwing in some Rhythmic helps them battle their CHR competitor... but KVUU is looking good because their main competition recently disappeared from the airwaves... so ratings are up for them.

Looking back at my post, I realize I really have no direction as to where I was going with it... but I felt I had to add something.

 

[fredburg97]

Right - and you also have to factor in how your cluster operates: if you have a huge sister CHR, it doesn't do you any good to be playing 50% of their library sharing the Beyonces of the world. Augustana and Hinder may not get Top 40 airplay in your market, suddenly you're unique by playing them.

You're right, Bee, it all depends on your market and cluster.

 

[redneckriviera]

Hot AC is the closest thing we have to the CHR or Top 40 of the seventies & eighties. As such, it's the only real current-based variety format on radio. The problem we face now with Hot AC is bringing in enough music appealing to the "25 end" of the W25-44 demo. To some extent it has always been a problem--not wanting to chase the "44 end" away, but in today's music environment playing music for that young end involves rhythmic music that 40-somethings perceive as "hip-hop." If there's a trick to this, it would seem to be identifying specific songs from CHR/Pop that work. Not so much specific artists... but specific SONGS.

BTW, the guy who started this thread should realize that he's the wrong gender for this format. Guys don't get it--and that's okay. It's not meant for you.

 

[PDPete]

Hot AC is the closest thing we have to the CHR or Top 40 of the seventies & eighties. As such, it's the only real current-based variety format on radio. The problem we face now with Hot AC is bringing in enough music appealing to the "25 end" of the W25-44 demo. To some extent it has always been a problem--not wanting to chase the "44 end" away, but in today's music environment playing music for that young end involves rhythmic music that 40-somethings perceive as "hip-hop." If there's a trick to this, it would seem to be identifying specific songs from CHR/Pop that work. Not so much specific artists... but specific SONGS.

BTW, the guy who started this thread should realize that he's the wrong gender for this format. Guys don't get it--and that's okay. It's not meant for you.

Well, I'm a guy, and I like the format. I find CHR/Pop too hip-hop for my taste, and am not a big fan of rock. This is also my CHR, since I don't like the extremes that format plays. I'm not a woman, but I understand this format is being programmed for the 25-44 year old woman. And I understand that the Hinder's, Rob Thomas's and Snow Patrol's of the world are what they want to hear right now. But it wouldn't hurt to insert a few rhythmic titles on a typical Hot AC playlist. I think the 25-44 female demographic would like a Christina Aguilera or Rihanna once in awhile, as long as the texture of the playlist does not become too rhythmic leaning. I think we are seeing more stations accepting rhythmic music since even the core audience is beginning to tire of the same sound all the time. Just because Hot AC core listeners like hearing Nickelback doesn't mean they aren't open to different genres of music.

 

[redneckriviera]

PDPete says "Well, I'm a guy, and I like the format."

Hey, you're allowed. There's no barbed-wire fence around the radio keeping you out. I was referring to the first poster on this thread proclaiming "Why I hate Hot AC..." Point being, unless you're of the female persuasion between age 25 and age 44, what you hate is irrelevant.

I do think successful Hot ACs are, indeed, bringing rhythmic tunes into the format. Some of those are in markets a bit under the radar--with calls you may not recognize--but it is happening. Check through all those market rankers on radioandrecords.com and look for your basic Hot ACs in the Top 3. Chances are they've been all over Rhianna & Beyonce since this time last year... and have "Say it Right" in their A rotation.

 

[spongebag7890]

I'm saying R&B would work well, like Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Paula DeAnda, and so on. Yes the females like adult rock, but it doesn't mean that's all they like.

 

[whit979]

What's one of the most important things to remember about Hot AC? It's all about familiarity. Ask any Hot AC program director, and they'll tell you this.

So, what's most likely to be familiar to a 30-something female? A slow guitar ballad by Nickelback that she can sing along with, or a "rhythmic" song -- where the lyrics may be too fast to be understood?

Granted, times are changing...but rhythmic music is not where Hot AC will get its success.

 

[spongebag7890]

What's one of the most important things to remember about Hot AC? It's all about familiarity. Ask any Hot AC program director, and they'll tell you this.

So, what's most likely to be familiar to a 30-something female? A slow guitar ballad by Nickelback that she can sing along with, or a "rhythmic" song -- where the lyrics may be too fast to be understood?

Granted, times are changing...but rhythmic music is not where Hot AC will get its success.

Uhhh...Christina, Paula, and Mariah aren't rappers. They are R&B and pop artists. And why are people bring up hip-hop, I'm talking about R&B being unsuccessful when it would defintely be if it were played.

 

[whit979]

Uhhh...Christina, Paula, and Mariah aren't rappers. They are R&B and pop artists. And why are people bring up hip-hop, I'm talking about R&B being unsuccessful when it would defintely be if it were played.

I totally agree with you...they're not rappers at all; in fact, they're are some of the better "pop" artists of the moment. Mariah and Christina have also had some success in Hot AC. However...much of the music on the CHR chart has a very short lifespan. This leads to less familiarity; and, as a result, a smaller likelihood that a Hot AC audience will buy into it.

Some Hot AC's choose to take a risk by adding these rhythmic titles...sometimes with great success. Others choose to play it safe and "go with what works." I really admire the stations and programmers who choose to take that risk. But either way, the non-rhythmic mix found on many Hot AC stations is proven to (typically) work well.

Here's some proof (to me, at least). A widely-used radio monitoring service (I'm not sure if I can say their name on this board) releases weekly national callout data to show the country's most popular songs. From their latest callout survey of women age 25-44 (the target Hot AC audience):
-Snow Patrol was #1
-Nickelback had 3 titles in the top 15
-The Fray and Blue October each had 2 titles in the top 15
-"Holiday" by Green Day was still in the top 5, with a positive rating of over 70%

One thing that all the songs in the callout data had in common: they weren't rhythmic...with the exception of ONE song. "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani was at the very bottom of the list. Another thing that stood out to me was that the top 15 songs are all male artists or male groups. But that's a whole other discussion about what's good in female-driven formats.

 

[PDPete]

What's one of the most important things to remember about Hot AC? It's all about familiarity. Ask any Hot AC program director, and they'll tell you this.

So, what's most likely to be familiar to a 30-something female? A slow guitar ballad by Nickelback that she can sing along with, or a "rhythmic" song -- where the lyrics may be too fast to be understood?

Granted, times are changing...but rhythmic music is not where Hot AC will get its success.

True, but there is no reason most 30-something females would not like "Say It Right" or "SOS". Those are two examples of rhythmic hits where the lyrics are understandable, unlike "Promiscuous" which would fall into the category of hard to understand lyrics. That's why that song only got played on the most CHR leaning Hot AC's.

Btw, don't look now, but "Say It Right" has been the second or third greatest gainer on the Mediabase Hot AC chart the last couple of weeks. Look for the song to break into the top 15 next week, with a real legitimate shot at the top 10 by the end of February. Beyonce should make it into the top 20 next week as well.

 

[whit979]

No kidding, man. Both of those artists are on our playlist too and they've been HUGE. "Say It Right" is definitely a little breath of fresh air for the Hot AC chart in early 2007.