Just accept that a No. 35 "hit" is, at best, a regional hit, but most likely is a stiff that many stations either never play or play for a couple of weeks to terrible outcall response and exile it to the never-again bin. It's a legitimate US hit for the first time right now.
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NYC Metro Radio Ratings May 2022
- Thread starter pjc1961
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I wonder how it is that ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" never made it to the Top 40 and yet classic hits stations still play it 40 years later.
MTV.
That was a classic video.
Actually, I don't know if it's still being played, but it was a few years ago.
The music classic hits stations play is not based on original chart position. It's based on how the song tests now.
"ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man""
Nationally, it got a total of 673 US classic rock spins last week. That ranked it 34th on BDS in that format. 110 of 121 stations classified as that format played it.
Half the reporting classic hits stations played it, too. There, it ranked 308th.
35 of 42 Adult Hits stations played it, ranking 178th in spins.
It actually hit #30.
Some heavy rock kinda songs didnt chart well.
"back in black" peaked #37.
"you shook me all night long" peaked #35.
But look at the play they get today.
And the king of that category was Brown Eyed Girl, which was a moderately successful current, but for decades the most played gold song.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Once again, I will remind you (and others who have similar "wonderings"): Classic Hits programmers do not care at all where a song peaked on the charts as a current. We use research with today's audience to determine what songs they want to hear today. You, and others like you who post statements like that need to lose your collective fascination with the Billboard charts. Those charts have little -- if any -- relevance now.
And, until relatively recently in Billboard's 140 year history, the charts only covered retail sales. In fact, going back half a century, they reflected wholesale jobber and one-stop sales, not actual consumer purchases.
So "back then" a label might ship huge amounts of a stiff into the channels by guaranteeing no-discount returns to jobbers to get a song charted. They hoped that by charting, the song would get added airplay and turn into a hit. There was lots of those shenanigans back in the day.
For radio, those charts did not indicate what people wanted to hear. It took us two decades of Top 40 to start asking listeners what they liked instead of going by sales, requests and jukebox play and the like.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And that's why, in 1973, Bob Wilson and Robert Kardashian founded Radio & Records (known colloquially in the industry as "R&R", which eventually became the dominant part of the front page logo). Its charts were format-specific and based on radio airplay rather than the external influences David references, and during its 36 years of existence was considered exponentially more useful to programmers than Billboard.
I still refer to those as a reference -- yes, there is a Whitburn book of the R&R CHR charts -- when making decisions on marginal titles.
And in fact, to acknowledge the misguided reference earlier to American Top 40 as defining a "hit", Casey Kasem used the Radio & Records charts for his countdown shows in the latter part of his career (1989-2004).
And let's not forget that AT40 was, at first, successful because it offered strong, professional entertainment in a shift (usually Sunday morning) where medium and smaller market station usually had part-timers who were not either ready for "prime time" or perhaps never would be.
But as the show proved itself in lesser markets, it got picked up in much larger markets and even internationally.
AT40 was also the first successful case of a barter show. And we know how may others popped up in the 70's with things like the King Biscuit Flower Hour. An earlier attempt to syndicate Bill Ballance out of KGBS in LA failed, but I think clients did not want to associate with the content.
NYRadioFan22
Banned
Does anyone know the ratings for 95.5 K-Love? And in the event that their ratings fall, do you think they'll ever revive WPLJ like what WCBS-FM 101.1 did in 2007?
Ratings are irrelevant. What matters is listener financial support.
Chances of the old PLJ coming back are zero.
Thats the point everyone has a different definition of a hit.
Even radio & records called them hits.
Radio & Records Top Pop Hits 1973-2009 - Record Research
At long last, research exists for the Radio & Records charts. Get the full story on the Top 40 radio charts with all the R&R data – the only place you’ll find it! Until now, this chart information has never been compiled! Many popular album cuts that were not allowed to chart on the Billboard...
www.recordresearch.com
Not to mention the fact EMF isn’t going to air secular programming on the station.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
As I said, R&R was the most accurate resource in its day for radio programmers to predict "hits" because they were basing their charts on airplay rather than sales (and as David pointed out, Billboard was using mostly wholesale rather than retail sales, which further skewed the results).
But they didn't call them "hits" ... the late Joel Whitburn did, when titling his book.
Here's a link to the R&R Back Page (where the four main charts resided every week) for July 24, 1987. Do you see the word "hit" anywhere than in the industry term "Contemporary Hit Radio" as a format descriptor?
And no, use of an industry format descriptor doesn't mean that R&R was calling the songs on the list "hits".
Your argument is therefore flawed and your definition of a "hit" is not aligned with what the radio industry defines it as. Given that this board is about radio and not record sales, I stand by my original statement that people need to eschew the Billboard Hot 100 as a definition, because the professionals here -- and even the more knowledgeable non-professionals -- will never agree with that as justification for calling a song a "hit" when it wasn't.
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Not at all once Scott Shannon left PLJ in 2014 and they replaced with the Todd Show it went down hill. Even before then they had flush the format weekends. It was a shell of its former self in the last 10 years of its existence.
"...well, it's gonna take a miracle..." - I don't see 'PLJ doing in 2022 what WCBS-FM did in 2007 - besides which, EMF seems to consider 95.5 K-Love a "success".
(ps - even if by some strange twist of radio fate 'PLJ DID come back, it wouldn't be the SAME station - a revived 'PLJ would have to move forward with the demos just like 'CBSFM has....)
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