What is with CHR stations playing old music?

[madmike125]

I mean I'm used to seeing a few sprinkled in, but it's getting to the point where they are taking up 30% of a playlist. At what point isn't this pop anymore?

What does this have to do with the Clear Channel layoffs?
I want current music back, not stuff that charted 5 years ago. If I wanted that, I'd listen to an HAC station.

Also: How can new songs expect adds if there is even less space available than previously?

[Minor Scratch]

Where do you live? I still get plenty of new music on my Pop.

[gin]

My station has been doing this for years.

[Marv]

Stations with spectacular 25-54 ratings (KHKS,WNCI, etc.) can do it at will, because they have plenty of listeners who were loyal listeners of the station when those 10-20+ year old songs were originally hits.

The equally spectacular resurgence of the top 40 format over the past 2 1/2 years has brought a lot of adult listeners who started bailing from the format by the millions in the late eighties back to the format, so playing many top 40 hits from the late eighties and various portions of the nineties makes good sense.

Top 40 radio really thrives when the 'soccer moms' (as well as other adults) and their kids can listen to the same radio station.

[atlantaboy]

Think it mostly depends on whether you also have a Hot AC in ur market (to cover the 90s/earlier 00s tracks)...if there's no Hot AC then the CHR can draw in tons of listeners (esp. at work, in offices etc.) durin the daytime by mixing in older tracks, but if there is a HAC (or another more adult-leaning CHR), the CHR can draw in more teens by playin nearly all tracks from the past year or two

[soundUPsceneDOWN]

May 4, 2009 10:55:33 GMT -5 Marv said:

Stations with spectacular 25-54 ratings (KHKS,WNCI, etc.) can do it at will, because they have plenty of listeners who were loyal listeners of the station when those 10-20+ year old songs were originally hits.

The equally spectacular resurgence of the top 40 format over the past 2 1/2 yeard has brought a lot of adult listeners who started bailing from the format by the millions in the late eighties back to the format, so playing many top 40 hits from the late eighties and various portions of the nineties makes good sense.

Top 40 radio really thrives when the 'soccer moms' (as well as other adults) and their kids can listen to the same radio station.

Soccer moms? Are you talking about CHR as it is now? With the dance/urban/alt-dance mix of the same 20 songs played over and over? I can't imagine soccer moms are too thrilled to listen to Britney as 30% of the playlist. I would think soccer moms are listening to AC, Hot AC or, if their kids are in the car, Radio Disney. When I walk around my office, all the people in that particular demo have their radios tuned to one of the AC stations. CHR doesn't look like it's going through a resurgence. Qualitatively, it's going through a major decline--the #1 song should not be spun more than 11K times per week. That's just ridiculous.

I think it has more to do with whether the area has a Hot AC or not. If it does, then the CHR probably won't play as many recurrents. If it doesn't, then the CHR is more apt to play older recurrents, and more of them.

[gin]

^^Maybe that's my CHR station's problem. We have multiple HAC stations in our town. But, you'd think my station would be able to pull some better recurrents out of a hat, as opposed to "Girl Fight," "Window Shopper," some Eminem song that goes "You know that you're acting like you don't know," or something like that... they've gotten a little better but it's still painful.

[Minor Scratch]

CHR doesn't appeal to any soccer moms anymore. The target demographic has shifted much younger since the 90s. When Hootie & The Blowfish, Celine Dion, and Biggie were all charting at the same time, that was the transition period. Now its strictly teens and maybe a bit older. The increase in recurrents probably has to do with trying to get the new younger demographic interested in the older songs. To them, its probably all new and sounds fresh.

[atlantaboy]

May 4, 2009 13:30:41 GMT -5 Minor Scratch said:

CHR doesn't appeal to any soccer moms anymore. The target demographic has shifted much younger since the 90s. When Hootie & The Blowfish, Celine Dion, and Biggie were all charting at the same time, that was the transition period. Now its strictly teens and maybe a bit older

Wait...completely depends on the station though - guessin about 1/3 of the CHR panel exclusively targets teens, 1/3 targets soccer moms (and daughters), and 1/3 dayparts adults durin the day and teens at night

Also tryin to remember but almost positive Hootie and Celine "My Heart Will Go On" were really popular with teens in the 90s...Most CHRs played them along with Will Smith - Biggie took longer to catch on in smaller markets, but not sure it was any different a mix of music than Daughtry followed by Flo Rida

[soundUPsceneDOWN]

We can pick apart what individual stations do, but if you look at the collected chart, it skews young, not soccer mom. There's only a very few songs doing anything right now that would be staples of Hot AC as well as CHR. Most of the songs that do well are strictly CHR songs that weren't meant for an older audience.

[Rurry]

z100 has been playing a LOT of recurrents lately, although most of them are recent. A few weeks ago, Live Your Life was #9 on their playlist and I'm Yours was #12 ??? Really weird...

[atlantaboy]

May 4, 2009 14:19:51 GMT -5 soundUPsceneDOWN said:

We can pick apart what individual stations do, but if you look at the collected chart, it skews young, not soccer mom.

Yeah "soccer mom" CHRs IMO are only about 1/3 of the panel (didn't mean to imply that most CHRs were "soccer mom"), but also gotta keep in mind that teen stations have huge power rotation numbers, sometimes almost twice as high as "soccer mom" CHRs, IMO huge reason that chart skews young

The irony...teen stations with huge power rotation numbers have less hours listened each day (which is why they play teen hits every hour etc.)

Completely agree though with what you said about the market havin a Hot AC vs. not havin one

[Marv]

The fact that the ratings for both KIIS & WHTZ have exploded over the past three years, and the fact that both stations are enjoying ratings not seen at either station in well over fifteen years is more than enough proof that the format has enjoyed a major resurgence.

Toss in excellent 25-54 numbers at those stations and tons of others, and a variety of music not seen at the format in several years as various PDs, record label execs, and consultants have gleefully cited in the current issue of R&R (it's their semi-annual CHR/Pop format special), and it's very easy to see why the format is doing very well.

Even if it's not at the level of the killer ratings most CHR/Pop stations enjoyed during the eighties before rap & hip-hop exploded, and new competition destroyed heritage top 40 stations in cities such as Indianapolis & San Antonio, the format is much healthier now than it was a decade ago, when Hot AC was thriving in tons of markets in both ratings and revenue.

Toss in the fact that Smooth Jazz is in deep trouble nationwide as four markets have lost their SJ outlets in the past six weeks (SJ is very dependent on TSL), and that's one less format for top 40 radio to have to worry about in going after adult listeners while maintaining their hammerlock on their core 12-17 and 12-24 demos.

CHR/Pop is a ridiculously friendly PPM format, and the entire industry knows it.

The recent launches of new CHR/Pop stations in LA and NYC make perfect sense given those solid ratings at KIIS & WHTZ, and there will undoubtedly be more on the way over the next 18 months.

[atlantaboy]

May 7, 2009 19:20:22 GMT -5 Marv said:

Even if it's not at the level of the killer ratings most CHR/Pop stations enjoyed during the eighties before rap & hip-hop exploded, and new competition destroyed heritage top 40 stations in cities such as Indianapolis & San Antonio

Sorry just not gettin this blamin rap and hip-hop...in the 80s CHR stations got "killer ratings" cause there was no Hot AC or Rhythmic (so really only one choice for current mainstream music) - add up the ratings of CHR, Hot AC, and Rhythmic in each market and pretty sure it's gotta equal the ratings the city's CHR (or CHRs) got in the 80s

Also WNOU didn't destroy WZPL/Indianapolis...it just caused the trade papers to reclassify it as Hot AC (while still playin the same music it did as a CHR), and for most of the past ten years ZPL'
s ratings have been higher than NOU's

[jazklash]

May 7, 2009 19:20:22 GMT -5 Marv said:

The fact that the ratings for both KIIS & WHTZ have exploded over the past three years, and the fact that both stations are enjoying ratings not seen at either station in well over fifteen years is more than enough proof that the format has enjoyed a major resurgence.

Toss in excellent 25-54 numbers at those stations and tons of others, and a variety of music not seen at the format in several years as various PDs, record label execs, and consultants have gleefully cited in the current issue of R&R (it's their semi-annual CHR/Pop format special), and it's very easy to see why the format is doing very well.

Even if it's not at the level of the killer ratings most CHR/Pop stations enjoyed during the eighties before rap & hip-hop exploded, and new competition destroyed heritage top 40 stations in cities such as Indianapolis & San Antonio, the format is much healthier now than it was a decade ago, when Hot AC was thriving in tons of markets in both ratings and revenue.

Toss in the fact that Smooth Jazz is in deep trouble nationwide as four markets have lost their SJ outlets in the past six weeks (SJ is very dependent on TSL), and that's one less format for top 40 radio to have to worry about in going after adult listeners while maintaining their hammerlock on their core 12-17 and 12-24 demos.

CHR/Pop is a ridiculously friendly PPM format, and the entire industry knows it.

The recent launches of new CHR/Pop stations in LA and NYC make perfect sense given those solid ratings at KIIS & WHTZ, and there will undoubtedly be more on the way over the next 18 months.

While I agree with a lot of the things here, I have to take issue with some others.
First of all, the explosion of hip-hop per se wasn't the sole factor in Mainstream Top 40's decline in the early 90's. Previously niche subgenres such as alternative rock, heavy(er) metal and country music (smooth jazz too, in places) also experienced a stiff surge in across-the-board appeal; plus edgier forms of Urban music such as gangsta rap and hip-hop-soul started to take prominence over pop-rap and new jack swing, even (or especially, more like it) among the young white suburban audience. All this lead to a highly fragmented and niche-oriented radio landscape, and a natural loss of ratings for CHR's, as people switched to their preferred specific formats. And if there is one thing I remember very well is that Top 40 radio's tactic for earning back audiences was to start playing what we all know today as Triple A music. Acts such as Collective Soul, the Dave Matthews Band, the Gin Blossoms and especially Hootie & The Blowfish got saturation airplay during the Dark Age of Top 40 (1993/1995). It wasn't until 1996 that there were the first signs of recovery, as acts like No Doubt and Alanis Morissette managed to successfully combine alt.rock traits with the kind of pop production and hooks that made them appealing to a mainstream audience. And 1997 was the year when the doors were blew open, as the triple attack of teen-pop, post-alternative pop/rock bands like matchbox twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls and Top 40 radio FINALLY starting to accept slightly harder-edged Urban music gave the format the kick up the ass it needed to go out of the slump. And while it's true that Top 40 somehow lost a bit of steam in the ratings some time after 2002, it wasn't to the depths of the early 90's.

On the other hand, while it's true that Top 40 has been making a comeback as both a mass-appeal and dominant format since around 2006, truth is those facts don't tell you the ugly truth: the hard number of people who are listening regularly to terrestrial radio (on ALL formats) is fading with each passing year, and faster than one might think, as people are either switching to either satellite or internet radio; or just plain programming their own playlists on their iPods, or using streaming services like Rhapsody or Spotify.
So frankly, if I were you, I wouldn't share that much enthusiasm.

[atlantaboy]

May 7, 2009 20:07:21 GMT -5 jazklash said:

And if there is one thing I remember very well is that Top 40 radio's tactic for earning back audiences was to start playing what we all know today as Triple A music. Acts such as Collective Soul, the Dave Matthews Band, the Gin Blossoms and especially Hootie & The Blowfish got saturation airplay during the Dark Age of Top 40 (1993/1995).

Wow...Hootie didn't come out until nearly 1995, Dave Matthews didn't release their first pop single until mid-95 - and both sold a ridiculous number of CDs - most CHRs disappeared from '91-'93, when just the opposite was happening - nothing but weak rhythmic acts like SWV, pop acts like Amy Grant, and leftover washed-up 80s acts like Richard Marx and Michael Bolton

'93-'95 might be your Dark Age of Top 40 cause there was a lot of mellow Alternative (beginning with Counting Crows), but these acts were huge, and they stayed in recurrent on CHRs through the rest of the 90s...plus Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, etc. basically led to the creation of the Hot AC format as we know it in the late 90s-2000s (Modern AC, etc.)

More CHRs were launched in '96, but pretty sure it had more to do with the resurgence of pop/dance (Real McCoy, LaBouche, then Savage Garden, etc.) to mix in with the "mellow" Alternative acts

Alanis and No Doubt were def. superstars, but they had more to do with startin up the new Hot AC format than they did creating more CHRs (or even increasing their ratings)

[jazklash]

I call it Dark Age because that was the period where the ratings were at an all-time low for the format. I'm not making any artistic judgment here, dude.

[atlantaboy]

May 7, 2009 20:26:14 GMT -5 jazklash said:

I call it Dark Age because that was the period where the ratings were at an all-time low for the format. I'm not making any artistic judgment here, dude.

Pretty sure the low ratings though had more to do with the lack of almost any recurrents/gold tracks to mix in than they did with the new music that was comin out durin that period...in other words, the tracks of the very early 90s were so weak that by the time '93-'94 came around PDs had almost no strong recurrents to draw from

But those first Alternative bands def. helped CHR IMO (not hurt it) cause by '96-'97 CHRs finally had huge #s of high callout recurrent/gold tracks to draw from

[jazklash]

You think so? I think the situation at the time - which I already described above - had much to do with the low ratings. After all, Top 40 radio then became, for the first time in History, a niche format. And as a niche format, they had to play a specific kind of music that fit it.
Having said that, Z-100 went through a period during late 1993-early 1997 when even White Zombie's "More Human than Human" was on their playlist - I shit you not! But then again, I think this was more of an exception than a rule.

[atlantaboy]

May 7, 2009 20:32:46 GMT -5 jazklash said:

You think so? I think the situation at the time - which I already described above - had much to do with the low ratings.

Why would huge-selling acts though like Counting Crows, Hootie & the Blowfish, Gin Blossoms, and the Dave Matthews Band hurt CHR though? Cracked Rear View (by Hootie) sold more CDs than any other in years...plus still had huge hits by Boyz II Men and Mariah - but again, nothin to play as recurrent/gold except for hits by Amy Grant, SWV, Michael Bolton, and Richard Marx

Just never seen any evidence that harder-edged acts (rap or alternative) raise CHR ratings

Not sure if there's any way to prove this though lol...and btw seems like we got thread off on major tangent

[Slinky]

Counting Crows, Hootie & the Blowfish, Gin Blossoms, and the Dave Matthews Band weren't really considered just CHR artists though, and that was a problem for CHR.

The death and rebirth of CHR can be divied up into a few phases:

1990-91: Teen-oriented rap and dance becomes popular at the format, driving adults away. At the same time, Rhythmic competitors like WQHT, WIOQ, and KPWR take a big chunk of the kids who like rap and dance.

1991-93: There's a backlash against rap and dance at CHR. A lot of CHRs, including Z100, start touting themselves as "No Rap, No Hard Stuff". Other CHRs, like KIIS, go more towards Rhythmic. Problem is that Hot AC is also gaining traction during this time and it's taking the adults away. With the kids at Rhythmic and the adults at Hot AC, this is when CHR really gets "niched" to death like jazklash said. Each station picked a rhythmic or adult niche and very few stations were playing all the hits. You mentioned Mariah and Boyz II Men, and those were definitely big acts, but they weren't just CHR acts. Hot AC and AC played the heck out of these two, and adults wanted to hear them with 80's music rather than what was coming out at CHR at the time. A lot of CHRs die because of this.

1993-96: There's a new niche: Alternative. Some stations, like Z100 in NYC and WPST in Trenton embrace this while other CHRs are still doing the adult thing and still others are Rhythmic. The pop-alternative acts may have helped CHR a little, but they also helped Hot AC and Alternative. Remember that Counting Crows, Hootie, Gin Blossoms, and DMB were all considered Alternative acts when they debuted. CHRs were still struggling because they couldn't play all the hits. They either leaned Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic, and they were losing to the stations that were actually Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic. The stations that did play all the hits sounded like a mess because they were going from DMB to Dr. Dre and didn't have any actual Pop product to bridge the gap.

1996-2001: Finally pure pop comes back and this is what allows CHR to gain on Alternative, Hot AC, and Rhythmic. Also, alternative and rhythmic mellow a bit with acts like Goo Goo Dolls and Will Smith. Instead of seguing DMB to Dr. Dre, CHR stations can go from Will Smith to Savage Garden to Goo Goo Dolls to Backstreet Boys. The resurgence of pure pop gives CHRs a type of music they can call their own, and the mellowness of the Alt. and Rhythmic acts lets them play all the hits without clashing.

[TYRONE™]

D.C only has like one freakin pop station, which is Hot 99.5....and it SUCKS. They literally play like the same 10 songs over and over, and only add like 1 new song every month. The only black female singer they will play is Beyonce, and they are obsessed with Britney Spears

[jazklash]

May 7, 2009 21:30:48 GMT -5 Slinky said:

Counting Crows, Hootie & the Blowfish, Gin Blossoms, and the Dave Matthews Band weren't really considered just CHR artists though, and that was a problem for CHR.

The death and rebirth of CHR can be divied up into a few phases:

1990-91: Teen-oriented rap and dance becomes popular at the format, driving adults away. At the same time, Rhythmic competitors like WQHT, WIOQ, and KPWR take a big chunk of the kids who like rap and dance.

1991-93: There's a backlash against rap and dance at CHR. A lot of CHRs, including Z100, start touting themselves as "No Rap, No Hard Stuff". Other CHRs, like KIIS, go more towards Rhythmic. Problem is that Hot AC is also gaining traction during this time and it's taking the adults away. With the kids at Rhythmic and the adults at Hot AC, this is when CHR really gets "niched" to death like jazklash said. Each station picked a rhythmic or adult niche and very few stations were playing all the hits. You mentioned Mariah and Boyz II Men, and those were definitely big acts, but they weren't just CHR acts. Hot AC and AC played the heck out of these two, and adults wanted to hear them with 80's music rather than what was coming out at CHR at the time. A lot of CHRs die because of this.

1993-96: There's a new niche: Alternative. Some stations, like Z100 in NYC and WPST in Trenton embrace this while other CHRs are still doing the adult thing and still others are Rhythmic. The pop-alternative acts may have helped CHR a little, but they also helped Hot AC and Alternative. Remember that Counting Crows, Hootie, Gin Blossoms, and DMB were all considered Alternative acts when they debuted. CHRs were still struggling because they couldn't play all the hits. They either leaned Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic, and they were losing to the stations that were actually Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic. The stations that did play all the hits sounded like a mess because they were going from DMB to Dr. Dre and didn't have any actual Pop product to bridge the gap.

1996-2001: Finally pure pop comes back and this is what allows CHR to gain on Alternative, Hot AC, and Rhythmic. Also, alternative and rhythmic mellow a bit with acts like Goo Goo Dolls and Will Smith. Instead of seguing DMB to Dr. Dre, CHR stations can go from Will Smith to Savage Garden to Goo Goo Dolls to Backstreet Boys. The resurgence of pure pop gives CHRs a type of music they can call their own, and the mellowness of the Alt. and Rhythmic acts lets them play all the hits without clashing.

Save for one little insignificant detail or two, that's basically it.

I would only add these.

2002-2004: Pure pop loses steam again, causing the format to drop a bit on ratings, although not to the point of those in the early 90's. This is where CHR starts leaning heavily Rhythmic, to the point where harder-edged music that would hardly even try to enter Top 40's premises not too long ago was being greeted with open arms now - 50 Cent, Lil' Jon, Snoop Dogg and Ludacris being prime examples. R&B makes a bigger splash than ever, with solo artists like Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Usher dominating the format almost tyrannically. The rise of the post-Alanis teen-rocker chick (Avril Lavigne, Pink, Ashlee Simpson), the continued crossover success of post-grunge's second generation (Nickelback, 3 Doors Down) and Maroon 5's breakthrough do balance things a bit here and there, but not by much.

2005: White females to the rescue! Gwen Stefani "urbanizes" pure pop, Kelly Clarkson becomes American Idol's first true crossover success story by taking some cues out of Avril Lavigne's book. Natasha Bedingfield makes an impression in the US.

2006-2009: Smooth road to recovery. Rihanna trumps everything around her, while Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake herald Timbaland's return to relevancy, and Fergie steps out on her own; all of them help blur the lines between Pop and Urban even more. Emo crosses over (yes, Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, it's you I'm talking about), and Triple A hails The Fray, OneRepublic and Gavin DeGraw as the new MB20. Finally, teen-pop and Radio Disney practically become synonymous, while morphing into various directions: pop/rock (the Jonases), multimedia (Miley Cyrus), and even country music (Taylor Swift); and

And finally...

2002-2009: None of this is enough to keep people from tuning out of terrestrial radio. There are a heap of alternatives now available: subscribing to satellite, listening to Internet radio, enjoy the multitude of streaming services, or just plain programming the favorites on their iPods.

[Slinky]

Yeah I'd agree with most of that.

CHR's course in the last decade also has a lot to do with consolidation. In the early 90's, owners could own only one FM per market. This meant that if you owned the CHR, and it started to tank, you started leaning that CHR towards what was working in other markets (Hot AC, Rhythmic, etc). Now that doesn't happen. If Clear Channel owns an Urban, a Hot AC and a CHR in the same market, and the CHR starts to struggle, they're not going to turn the CHR into a Hot AC or a Rhythmic. They're going to try to find product that allows the CHR to stay out of the other stations' ways.

I should have mentioned Country in my previous post though (and jazklash did allude to this earlier). In the early 90's, thanks to Garth Brooks and a number of other acts that owed more to the Eagles than Merle Haggard, country music broke out of its trailer-trash stereotype. Country purists will say this ruined Country, turning it into AC with a twang, but at the same time, it made it turned suburban females in their 30's on to the format. This hurt CHR's upper demographics at a time when the format was already being attacked on all sides.

[atlantaboy]

May 8, 2009 11:00:19 GMT -5 jazklash said:

2002-2004: Pure pop loses steam again, causing the format to drop a bit on ratings, although not to the point of those in the early 90's. This is where CHR starts leaning heavily Rhythmic, to the point where harder-edged music that would hardly even try to enter Top 40's premises not too long ago was being greeted with open arms now - 50 Cent, Lil' Jon, Snoop Dogg and Ludacris being prime examples. R&B makes a bigger splash than ever, with solo artists like Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Usher dominating the format almost tyrannically. The rise of the post-Alanis teen-rocker chick (Avril Lavigne, Pink, Ashlee Simpson), the continued crossover success of post-grunge's second generation (Nickelback, 3 Doors Down) and Maroon 5's breakthrough do balance things a bit here and there, but not by much.

This is the time period when Clear Channel started buyin out a whole lot of traditional CHRs and makin their playlists lean rhythmic though...and the time when CC continued to create massive numbers of teen/rhythmic CHRs, esp. in smaller markets - def. Nelly, 50 Cent, and Eminem provided huge opportunities for big rhythmic hits, but Maroon 5, 3 Doors Down, Nickelback, etc. def. balanced things out on non-CC teen/pop stations - seems like half the CHR panel had Jason Mraz and Matchbox Twenty at the top of their playlists in '03 and the other half had Sean Paul and Missy Elliot at the top

Can't see how Alicia Keys dominated the CHR format tyranically durin this period, or how Pink or Ashlee Simpson were influenced by Alanis

Sorry really appreciate the post (and sure ur right about a lot of it )...just tryin to figure out what really went on durin this period, and esp. if Kelly Clarkson, and then Nelly Furtado, J. T., Timbo, etc. really improved CHR ratings - esp. since J. T. was popular in '03, and Nelly Furtado really only had two hits

Also think u might be confusin Triple A with Hot AC cause Triple A def. didn't touch One Republic...and 3 Doors Down def. isn't post-grunge

Somethin else IMO that boosted CHR in the early 2000s was the complete transformation of the Alternative format from DMB, Sugar Ray, and Goo Goo Dolls to Linkin Park, System Of A Down, and Limp Bizkit...in some markets 90s Alt. fans went to Hot AC, but in a lot of others they went to CHRs that were now playin How You Remind Me, Hanging By A Moment, It's Been A While, Everything You Want, Higher, Kryptonite, In The End, etc...by 2003 those rock crossovers had cooled down a bit, and Modern Hot AC started takin back a lot of CHR listeners

[atlantaboy]

May 7, 2009 21:30:48 GMT -5 Slinky said:

Counting Crows, Hootie & the Blowfish, Gin Blossoms, and the Dave Matthews Band weren't really considered just CHR artists though, and that was a problem for CHR.

The death and rebirth of CHR can be divied up into a few phases:

1990-91: Teen-oriented rap and dance becomes popular at the format, driving adults away. At the same time, Rhythmic competitors like WQHT, WIOQ, and KPWR take a big chunk of the kids who like rap and dance.

1991-93: There's a backlash against rap and dance at CHR. A lot of CHRs, including Z100, start touting themselves as "No Rap, No Hard Stuff". Other CHRs, like KIIS, go more towards Rhythmic. Problem is that Hot AC is also gaining traction during this time and it's taking the adults away. With the kids at Rhythmic and the adults at Hot AC, this is when CHR really gets "niched" to death like jazklash said. Each station picked a rhythmic or adult niche and very few stations were playing all the hits. You mentioned Mariah and Boyz II Men, and those were definitely big acts, but they weren't just CHR acts. Hot AC and AC played the heck out of these two, and adults wanted to hear them with 80's music rather than what was coming out at CHR at the time. A lot of CHRs die because of this.

1993-96: There's a new niche: Alternative. Some stations, like Z100 in NYC and WPST in Trenton embrace this while other CHRs are still doing the adult thing and still others are Rhythmic. The pop-alternative acts may have helped CHR a little, but they also helped Hot AC and Alternative. Remember that Counting Crows, Hootie, Gin Blossoms, and DMB were all considered Alternative acts when they debuted. CHRs were still struggling because they couldn't play all the hits. They either leaned Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic, and they were losing to the stations that were actually Alternative, Hot AC, or Rhythmic. The stations that did play all the hits sounded like a mess because they were going from DMB to Dr. Dre and didn't have any actual Pop product to bridge the gap.

1996-2001: Finally pure pop comes back and this is what allows CHR to gain on Alternative, Hot AC, and Rhythmic. Also, alternative and rhythmic mellow a bit with acts like Goo Goo Dolls and Will Smith. Instead of seguing DMB to Dr. Dre, CHR stations can go from Will Smith to Savage Garden to Goo Goo Dolls to Backstreet Boys. The resurgence of pure pop gives CHRs a type of music they can call their own, and the mellowness of the Alt. and Rhythmic acts lets them play all the hits without clashing.

Yeah makes perfect sense IMO (esp. parts about CHR needing pop to differentiate themselves from Hot AC, Alternative, and Rhythmic)

[George]

I very dislike the Pop station here. They play old songs, and play them over and over again too much.

Here's their Top150 playlist songs (yeah, some songs are on their twice, and some songs are incredibly old, like B2K's "Bump Bump Bump"):

channel933.com/iplaylist/playlist.html

[gin]

May 9, 2009 15:54:09 GMT -5 George said:

I very dislike the Pop station here. They play old songs, and play them over and over again too much.

Here's their Top150 playlist songs (yeah, some songs are on their twice, and some songs are incredibly old, like B2K's "Bump Bump Bump"):

channel933.com/iplaylist/playlist.html

I took a look at the playlist. The fact that stations like that are considered "pop" stations is exactly what is causing the upheaval in the CHR world right now.

[shadster]

May 8, 2009 8:47:57 GMT -5 TYRONE™ said:

D.C only has like one freakin pop station, which is Hot 99.5....and it SUCKS. They literally play like the same 10 songs over and over, and only add like 1 new song every month. The only black female singer they will play is Beyonce, and they are obsessed with Britney Spears

I actually like the direction Hot-99.5 has taken. When Jeff Wyatt was the PD it was almost completely Rhythmic. You'd hear maybe 1 or 2 pop songs an hour, the rest was all urban or rap. After Jeff left, the station slowly leaned back an became a true CHR. Your right that they don't play a lot of recurrents, they sneak a few in here an there, an play their powers constantly but thats the CHR format!! Your powers are sopposed to be heard every 90mins. With everything else in a 2.5-3 hour time period. And I disaggree about the new music. They are adding singles more frequently than they used to, an not completely ignoring certain artists anymore. I believe they added "If you seek Amy" before even Z100 added it. And I first heard the new Kelly Clarkson song 3 weeks ago. Which just dabued on Top40 this weekend.

They are a better station IMO now than they used to be, which may only be in part becuz of the change @pd, an may also have somethin to do w/ the landscape of CHR having changed since the early '00's.

I'll always have some dislike towards WIHT just cuz they destroyed the best station in DC (Z104), but its our only choice for CHR right now and I am liking what they are doing. (There are some rim shot CHR's: 98.3 KissFM Winchester, Hot103.7 Hagerstown/chambersburg, Vibe-99.3 Fredricksburg<--they are Rhythmic though). OOops, Hot103.7 is no longer CHR! But it appears Wild 96.7 is filling the void; I swear they were Rhythmic though but their new billing is "The 4 states #1 Hit music station". I'll hafta listen to em an see.....

[atlantaboy]

^Yeah haven't been followin DC radio for a while but thought that WIHT became much more mainstream CHR when Z104 failed as a Modern Hot AC (before that DC had two Hot ACs, one current and one less current, so WIHT could lean Rhythmic)

WRXQ has always been one of the weakest Hot ACs when it comes to new music rotation, and DC101 has become harder-edged, so pretty sure that's affected WIHT leanin more towards the center