lovejamminoldies said:
I was still young then so I don't remember it much, I do remember hearing talk about B97.1 leaving the market and The New 97.1 entering. Well, the 80s have to go sometime. We are in 2010..... 25 -30 years old now
Old music isn't as widely irrelevant to many young people today as in the past. Rap sampling is a good example of the phenomenon (although even rap sampling may be getting dated now). TV commercials for new mobile devices often have music from the 60's, 70's or 80's. Ever since the Beatles (or, some might argue, Elvis Presley), many musical styles (and even specific songs) have been revivied in modified versions. Many people in their 20's today like 70's Classic Rock (even if they don't know it IS from the 70's -- look at Guitar Hero). Conversely, back in the 70's, there were precious few people in their 20's who would have been receptive to 20's or 30's music.
So while of course formats need to move-forward era-wise over time, I don't think it's as simple as "you can't play 25 year old music on a 25-44 targeted station" anymore. The answer is maybe, maybe not. It depends on the specific format and direction selected (several alternative approaches could all be viable), market, competition, fragmentation, etc. etc. And just because younger people might be receptive to older music, they may not want to hear it on certain formats that they go to to stay current. Or maybe they *would* want to hear it in selected situations -- again that's one reason both research and informed risk-taking are valuable.
Hot AC seems to go through different directions over time, from playing lots of gold to playing very little, and then back again. (And of course the styles change, from singer-songwriter to pop-rock-based, to rhythmic, to a mix of these...and then back again). Whether such a pattern continues will remain to be seen. And again, it varies a lot by market. While a heavily current-based approach predominates today, approaches that are gold-heavy still do very well in some markets, especially if they are going after a somewhat older demo for strategic and competitive reasons. As a concrete example, I think a well-done gold-heavy Hot AC could do well in Columbus, but could be a big mistake for Cincinnati and lots of other markets.
In short, while there is a lot of truth to the "move forward with the times" concept, it can't be applied in a simplistic way. BTW, in the 70's and 80's CHR's played tons of gold, but most was less than five years old, with some going back as far as ten years (which is about as far as you could go while still steering clear of the pre-Beatles mega-divide back then). Yet CHR is one format that definitely should be minimizing gold today. Again, changes in the spectrum of formats available today is a big part of the reason. With Hot AC, it's not as cut and dried.
