Is the term "Contemporary Hit Radio" meaningless anymore?

[RonM]

I have a semi-rant, but mainly a question, or a series of questions. Is there any such thing as "contemporary hit radio" anymore? Or are we stuck with hearing primarily hits from the past as well as maybe 20-25 "current" hits?

Let me explain:

As some of you know, I have ranted in the past about the CHR situation in Huntsville, Alabama. Up until Dec. 26th we had one so-called "CHR" to choose from, a station owned by Cumulus. This station follows the Cumulus playbook, namely, very conservative, almost hot-AC-ish during the daytime and going a little more CHR at night, all the while being what I would call an "Adult" Top-40. They also play a "flashback lunch hour" on weekdays, consisting of 80s/90s hits, as well as doing this on Friday mornings. Finally, on Dec. 26th, this station gets some competition from a new station run by Clear Channel. Although not being a full-power station (it is essentially a repeater of an HD-2 station of WQRV), it is playing what it calls "Contemporary Hits". However, not all of the "hits" are contemporary. Toward the end of the hour, every hour, for about 15 minutes, the station plays 3-4 hits that are anywhere from 1-15 years old. Some are recurrents, some are "gold" hits. I am assuming that this station is either running CC's Premium Choice Hits format, or is following that format very closely. Meanwhile, the hits they play are primarily hits in the top-30 of the Mediabase airplay chart, and of course they play the bigger charting songs more often than the lower charting songs. Generally, any "hit" below the top-30 is nowhere to be found. However, this new station is still MILES ahead of our legacy CHR as far as the hits they play.

As I don't travel much, and when I do we generally listen to Sirius/XM Hits 1 in my wife's van when we do travel, I have a few questions about the current state of CHR radio and how it compares to Huntsville:

1. Is the situation I described above, typical of CHR radio in the U.S. today, whereby a station plays the top 20-25 hits, a bunch of recurrents and a few gold titles going back to the mid-90s?

2. If that is the case, why? I remember in the 80s, CHR radio playing practically all of the top-40 hits as well as a few newer hits that had not yet charted in the top-40. Only a few "recurrents" (maybe 2-3 or at most 4) an hour were played, and you rarely ever heard a song that was over 10 years old played at all.

3. Are there any radio stations out there that truly play nothing but the hits, other than Sirius/XM Hits 1? Although Hits 1 plays a few recurrents as well, they largely play current hits.

4. Am I living in a total dream world wishfully thinking that such a station even exists over the airwaves? If so, or if there is an online station that I'm not aware of, I'd love to hear about it.

Any comments are appreciated, thanks.

 

[RadioFreeAtlanta]

This is funny cause I was thinking about this not too long ago.

Stations today to play older hits where in the 1980s they would only play a couple of recurrents. I remember back in the early 80s calling a radio DJ asking him to play "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer (which came out in 1979). You would have thought I was asking for the impossible. He told me there was no way he could play something that "old." Now, however, you can hear songs that are 15 years old if they slant rhythmic. I remember hearing "Creep" by TLC on a CHR recently, a song that was released in 1994.

We do have one station here in Atlanta that formats itself on the Sirius/XM Hits 1 style of radio. They only play 20 songs that are in the Top 20. They do not play any recurrents.

I think consolidation has really hurt the breaking of new artists, songs. In the 80s and 90s before consolidation, a station could easily play something that other guys were not. Nowadays, if corporate has not given the go-ahead, you won't hear it until it breaks in the Top 30, sometimes the Top 20.

While I still love CHR, the "fun" sound of it seems to be missing. We don't want to go back to the DJ screamers and pukers of the 80s but it would nice to hear those cleaver sweepers and IDs they used to do to add pop and pizzazz.

I think the term "contemporary hit radio" is still viable, albeit with an expanded definition.

 

[atlantaboy]

We do have one station here in Atlanta that formats itself on the Sirius/XM Hits 1 style of radio. They only play 20 songs that are in the Top 20. They do not play any recurrents.

Have you guys tried listening to [email protected] for more than couple hours? The same songs repeated over and over all day, 24/7 - and this is supposed to be a positive thing?

 

[Slinky]

We do have one station here in Atlanta that formats itself on the Sirius/XM Hits 1 style of radio. They only play 20 songs that are in the Top 20. They do not play any recurrents.

Sirius/XM no longer has any "top-20 only" channels. Hits 1 is current-focused but has a large playlist and does play some recurrents. 20on20 is now a "Pop Music Discovery" channel which plays mostly songs that haven't charted yet.

By the time Cumulus copied the top-20 format from Sirius/XM, Sirius/XM had long since given up on it.

 

[TheBigA]

It's a good question, and my view is the concept of formats as they've been used in radio for the past 30 years is becoming mostly meaningless. But keep in mind the percentage of currents is something that is set by the charts. There is a minimum percentage of currents to qualify as a reporter for Mediabase or Billboard, and stations who are concerned about that and what that means will meet those qualifications. Some companies don't care about reporting, and they play a different ball game.

 

[RonM]

I think consolidation has really hurt the breaking of new artists, songs. In the 80s and 90s before consolidation, a station could easily play something that other guys were not. Nowadays, if corporate has not given the go-ahead, you won't hear it until it breaks in the Top 30, sometimes the Top 20.

You bring up a great point with this statement. My response/question is: if virtually all radio is corporate-owned, and they wait to play a new song until it "breaks" into the top-20/top-30, then who breaks it first? After all, all music was "new" at some point. Someone, or some station, had to be the first to play it.

Guess it's a chicken-or-egg type of argument?

 

[TheBigA]

My response/question is: if virtually all radio is corporate-owned, and they wait to play a new song until it "breaks" into the top-20/top-30, then who breaks it first?

First of all, nationally radio is only about 10% corporate owned. The percentage is obviously higher in major markets. But you never broke new music in major markets, even in the 70s. I think it puts more pressure on label promotion people to focus on better music and better promotions, making it worth radio's time to break one artist over another. There are way more artists now than in the 70s. There seems to be no A&R anymore. No gatekeepers at major labels to the huge number of artists releasing music and sending it to radio. Anyone can make a record and send it to radio. Someone has to help filter the hits from the crap.

But from what I'm seeing, the chart folks are adjusting their reporter base to ensure there is a larger number of reporters, especially from stations that play a wider group of songs, to have an impact on the Top 20, and get that music played in the larger markets.

 

[atlantaboy]

There is a minimum percentage of currents to qualify as a reporter for Mediabase or Billboard

That percentage must be pretty low, because many small market CHRs (that report to Mediabase) play far less currents than your average Hot ACs - and it's not just Cumulus stations

 

[TheBigA]

That percentage must be pretty low, because many small market CHRs (that report to Mediabase) play far less currents than your average Hot ACs - and it's not just Cumulus stations

Depending on the format...it's about 30%.

 

[atlantaboy]

That percentage must be pretty low, because many small market CHRs (that report to Mediabase) play far less currents than your average Hot ACs - and it's not just Cumulus stations

Depending on the format...it's about 30%.

Yeah, that wouldn't affect WZYP or Cumulus stations like it, because I feel like those are about 50-60% current

 

[justpassingthough]

"Contemporary Hit Radio" is only a label that people within the industry or crazy board posters like us would even be familiar with- so whether its meaningful or not- really only applies to people like us. Your average listener probably refers to CHR stations as "top 40" or "pop" stations and has never even heard of the CHR label.

They probably spend almost no time thinking about the mixture of old and new songs on their CHR station. They keep the station tuned if they like a song and turn the station if they don't. There isn't much more to that- regardless if the song is from 2013, 2003 or 1993.

Regardless, it is "contemporary hit radio" and while TLC's "Creep" may not be a current hit song, it is a contemporary hit in that its from the same era of pop music as hits like Ke$ha "Die Young" or the Lumineers "Ho Hey". It may not sound new or fresh in 2013, but it has more in common musically with today's hits than it has with a song by the Supremes or the Rolling Stones or Etta James, and so on. These are not "contemporaries" to artists like TLC. While we're stretching the usage of "contemporary" here, it is still applicable.

As far as the corporate ownership and homogenization of playlists goes, there are few people on these boards that will argue its a boon for radio programming. It has, however, suited radio in that its allowed stations to remain profitable and in business, but thats a different argument entirely.

 

[TheBigA]

As far as the corporate ownership and homogenization of playlists goes, there are few people on these boards that will argue its a boon for radio programming. It has, however, suited radio in that its allowed stations to remain profitable and in business, but thats a different argument entirely.

My comment about that is we in radio have to make a choice: Do we want to be in the music business or the radio business? If we want to be in the music business, then we should go to a label, or find an artist to promote. If we want to be in radio, then we play the songs that attract an audience. It's a very basic career decision we all have to face. Anyone in radio who thinks they're in the music business is deluding themself. The real music business pros, and I know a lot of them, don't consider radio part of their business. We're classified as "users." We use their content, and in some cases, we pay for it. But that's it.

 

[atlantaboy]

They probably spend almost no time thinking about the mixture of old and new songs on their CHR station. They keep the station tuned if they like a song and turn the station if they don't.

I agree - I've never heard anyone outside of this board complain that a song was "too old", as long as it doesn't sound dated (and it's mixed in with current music)

 

[bobdavcav]

You guys are right about people not having heard of CHR. If I were programming a CHR, Here would be my playlist,
Power, 6, 7, or 8 songs.
Next, usually a 20 song list though it could be shorter depending on what songs are in the count down.
Next would be the rest of the top 40 as indicated by Mediabase.
Next would be the top 100 of the year, followed by the top 40 of the decade. Let's take KBKS for example. They have the Interactive 8 at 8 on weeknights. Those 8 songs then make up the power rotation. Then the next rotation would be the rest of the songs in the IHeart Radio Big 20 which airs twice on Sundays. Next would be the songs from the Mediabase charts not accounted for above. The rotation would be one song from each category, which in the case of KBKS, would probably come out to a 3 hour rotation instead of 2. The new music not in any of these rotations would generally be held to twice an hour and would be up to the local PD on how they used that. On my stations you will never hear more than 2 golds in a row. If even 2 happens, most likely what happened is the rotation was playing a gold then the legal hit, resulting in another gold. From my reading on automation systems, at least the one I have looked into called Radio DJ, you have to assign sweepers to songs. So if I was running that system, all songs in rotation would have sweepers assigned to them, and then I would have probably 10 songs not in rotation that I would tell the system to play the legal ID and then one of those songs at the top of the hour. Of course this might change as I look at automation systems more, but that's pretty basic. You would not hear what I did on New Years Eve on KRSQ, 3 songs in a row, the newest of which was from 2009.

 

[chriscollins]

I program my CHR with Current Hits and Recurrents. I only play Gold if I need to fill an hour out.

On another perspective, it is more difficult now to research what is a 'true' hit. Clear Channel or Cumulus can 'manipulate' the national chart, by playing an artist they are getting a favor from sometimes 90-100 spins a week (IE, Taylor Swift/We Are Never Getting Back Together).

I have ended up making a custom panel of stations I look at and then use some iTunes research, as it is truly representative of what people are buying.

I am NOT fond of Cumulus CHR's. I do, however, think Clear Channel for the most part does a good job.

 

[TheBigA]

Clear Channel or Cumulus can 'manipulate' the national chart, by playing an artist they are getting a favor from sometimes 90-100 spins a week (IE, Taylor Swift/We Are Never Getting Back Together).

Keep in mind that those campaigns are usually for one day. And while a one-day boost can affect the chart, the strength of a song is something viewed over the long haul. That means the ability to sustain that airplay over 10 weeks. AFAIC, that song would have been a hit regardless of airplay.