Musical selections that seem out of character

[Unregistered]

Urban stations as "r&b" and not distinguishing between the different kinds of African American and Hispanic targeted stations.

Where I'm at such stations are called R&B by the general public because they play rap, hip-hop, soul, and R&B and some of the artists included are Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, Destiny's Child, Faith Evans, Snoop-Dog, Ja Rule, Usher, 2Pac. Nobody I know of goes around calling such stations Urban.

 

[Unregistered]

And some is just plain stupid, like calling CHR stations primarily teen and 18-24 stations when the bulk of the audience is among 18-49 or 18-49 women and the stations in that format research against young adult women and don't even pay attention to teens. And the ratings, going back decades and decades and thorough at least 10 different ratings companies confirm this.

I've always heard that Top-40 is targeted to young adult audiences because a lot of the music is teen-oriented - boy bands and pop princesses.

 

[Idol Girl]

referring to Urban stations as "r&b" and not distinguishing between the different kinds of African American and Hispanic targeted stations.

FYI: The only people that label stations as Urban or AC or CHR are people that work in the radio/music industry. Everyone else labels stations in layman's terms: light rock, R&B, pop, country, etc.

 

[Han Solo]

When the data contradicts every single bit of research done by Arbitron, Nielsen, Tapscan, Edison, Coleman, Jacobs Media, Bridge Research, and every other broadcast research company and proprietary studies done by stations themselves as well as the effectiveness studies done by some agency accounts, then the data is bogus.

I went to the site in question and they mention on their Radio Facts and Figures page, which is under the Broadcast Resources tab, that they compiled information from various sources: 2014 Nielsen Company, State of Media Today; Nielsen Audio Radio Today 2013, Pew State of the Media 2013, Nielsen Audio: RADAR ® 119, December 2013, GfK MRI 2013 Doublebase Radio Listening by Location: Listen Most; ©2013 RealityMine; National Telecommunications and Information Administration

In fact, Nielsen Audio is mentioned quite frequently on the site.

 

[semoochie]

When the data contradicts every single bit of research done by Arbitron, Nielsen, Tapscan, Edison, Coleman, Jacobs Media, Bridge Research, and every other broadcast research company and proprietary studies done by stations themselves as well as the effectiveness studies done by some agency accounts, then the data is bogus.

Some of the bad data is just the product of ignorance or covert racism like calling "Spanish" a format or referring to Urban stations as "r&b" and not distinguishing between the different kinds of African American and Hispanic targeted stations.

And some is just plain stupid, like calling CHR stations primarily teen and 18-24 stations when the bulk of the audience is among 18-49 or 18-49 women and the stations in that format research against young adult women and don't even pay attention to teens. And the ratings, going back decades and decades and thorough at least 10 different ratings companies confirm this.

Those format descriptions and profiles were put together without any sense of reality by PR companies trying to look knowledgeable to potential clients. They are not based on research and likely come from "best guessing" by someone on the staff with little or no broadcast experience.

Defending absolutely, totally and disgustingly inaccurate data is like believing the earth is flat, that the moonwalk was done in a TV studio and the holocaust never happened.

I must admit that I had always thought CHR was primarily 18-34 and Hot AC, 25-44. I'm particularly surprised that the latter goes down to 18. Is this fairly recent?

 

[davideduardo]

I must admit that I had always thought CHR was primarily 18-34 and Hot AC, 25-44. I'm particularly surprised that the latter goes down to 18. Is this fairly recent?

You are right about Hot AC, but with the current crop of pop music being so broadly appealing, and acceptable to both CHR and Hot AC, Hot AC has become an 18-44 format, and CHR has broadened too.

LA has a good CHR and a very good Hot AC.

KBIG: 3rd in 18-24, 3rd 18-34, 2nd 18-49, 2nd 25-49 and first in 35-44.
KIIS: 2nd in 18-24, 2nd 18-34, 1st 18-49, 1st 25-49 and third in 35-54

What we see is just a slight difference in the average age of each station, with KBIG being just a few years older.

 

[Music Lover]

Where I'm at such stations are called R&B by the general public because they play rap, hip-hop, soul, and R&B and some of the artists included are Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, Destiny's Child, Faith Evans, Snoop-Dog, Ja Rule, Usher, 2Pac. Nobody I know of goes around calling such stations Urban.

Same way in my neck of the woods too. I don't know of anyone who goes around saying "I listen to an Urban station".

 

[Music Lover]

FYI: The only people that label stations as Urban or AC or CHR are people that work in the radio/music industry. Everyone else labels stations in layman's terms: light rock, R&B, pop, country, etc.

I've heard people use layman's terms too rather than the terms the radio industry uses.

 

[Music Lover]

I've always heard that Top-40 is targeted to young adult audiences because a lot of the music is teen-oriented - boy bands and pop princesses.

When I was growing up, it was the same way. Most adults considered CHR to be for teens because that was the home to teen-oriented artists such as New Kids on the Block and Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.

Most AC's in my neck of the woods at the time were Soft AC's, which many people equated as a type of easy listening station.

 

[JeffM]

FYI: The only people that label stations as Urban or AC or CHR are people that work in the radio/music industry. Everyone else labels stations in layman's terms: light rock, R&B, pop, country, etc.

I agree. Another term I never heard anyone outside the radio biz use was MOR (Middle-Of-The-Road). Top 40 and "Beautiful Music" were sometimes used by the general public back when pop stations published chart leaflets and placed them in the record shops, and "beautiful" stations used that term in their advertising.

 

[davideduardo]

I've heard people use layman's terms too rather than the terms the radio industry uses.

The industry terms are used principally for business purposes, principally sales.

Much advertising is bought from outside the local market so media buyers don't have any content guidance other than format names and ratings to help them buy the right formats and and to cover a spectrum of tastes.

Each station will position on the air in a way that sells the format to the listener, creating a recognizable brand that is associated with a kind of music or mood.

 

[davideduardo]

When I was growing up, it was the same way. Most adults considered CHR to be for teens because that was the home to teen-oriented artists such as New Kids on the Block and Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.

That's a classic case of perception by some being different from reality.

CHR (which is simply "Top 40" with a different name imposed by a trade magazine) always attracted an active teen audience, but the sales were generated by the younger (18-34) adult segment of the audience. Back in the late 50's and early 60's when some Top 40's got 30 to 40 shares of the total audience, there had to be more than just teens to get that kind of number.

In the last 50 years, we have had ratings with very granular demographic breakouts, and Top 40 stations have always been targeted at 18-34 and not principally at teens.

 

[Han Solo]

When I was growing up, it was the same way. Most adults considered CHR to be for teens because that was the home to teen-oriented artists such as New Kids on the Block and Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.

Same way with adults during my childhood.

 

[davideduardo]

I went to the site in question and they mention on their Radio Facts and Figures page, which is under the Broadcast Resources tab, that they compiled information from various sources: 2014 Nielsen Company, State of Media Today; Nielsen Audio Radio Today 2013, Pew State of the Media 2013, Nielsen Audio: RADAR ® 119, December 2013, GfK MRI 2013 Doublebase Radio Listening by Location: Listen Most; ©2013 RealityMine; National Telecommunications and Information Administration

In fact, Nielsen Audio is mentioned quite frequently on the site.

Yet they got the format characteristics and demographic targets / performance wrong on nearly every format they listed. They even got the names wrong on a number of them.

The data sources are, as you point out, the same as the ones the broadcast industry and / or media buyers use. What is faulty is the interpretation of the data as well as the addition of format descriptions and targets that obviously came from none of the attributed sources.

 

[davideduardo]

Same way with adults during my childhood.

Again, perception vs. reality.

"Adults" can be 25 years old... or 75 years old. Adults outside the scope of Top 40 / CHR will see such stations as being "for kids".

The real fact is that, since there is essentially no money spent by advertisers to reach teens on the radio, all the revenue for CHR stations came and comes from young adult listening. And that is why, for example, KIIS is the highest billing radio station in Los Angeles, the top billing US market.

 

[Music Lover]

Adults outside the scope of Top 40 / CHR will see such stations as being "for kids".

That's the ones people are referring to here. Probably like my parents, preferring to listen to oldies stations of the time.

 

[Music Lover]

About the sources, time to give that subject a break now.

 

[semoochie]

You are right about Hot AC, but with the current crop of pop music being so broadly appealing, and acceptable to both CHR and Hot AC, Hot AC has become an 18-44 format, and CHR has broadened too.

LA has a good CHR and a very good Hot AC.

KBIG: 3rd in 18-24, 3rd 18-34, 2nd 18-49, 2nd 25-49 and first in 35-44.
KIIS: 2nd in 18-24, 2nd 18-34, 1st 18-49, 1st 25-49 and third in 35-54

What we see is just a slight difference in the average age of each station, with KBIG being just a few years older.

That's surprising, given Hot AC's presentation. It seems to generally be recurrent based, with more gold than CHR and more personality. It also plays AC type songs that CHR used to play when they were new. I wouldn't think it would appeal that much to 18 year-olds. It seems like it would fall in after all the Rhythmic and Pop CHRs. By the way, what are the teen rankings for those stations you mentioned?

 

[davideduardo]

About the sources, time to give that subject a break now.

Yes, by all means, let's just use rumor, hearsay and assumptions instead of facts.

 

[Music Lover]

Enough!