Re: 11 Years Ago This Weekend -- American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century

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Date Posted: 16:25:42 12/03/02 Tue
Author: John Jayne
Subject: Re: 11 Years Ago This Weekend
In reply to: Tom Best 's message, "Re: 11 Years Ago This Weekend" on 13:33:57 12/03/02 Tue

>Yeah I remember when radio kept pushing that saying "more variety", I always thought it meant 5 Michael Bolton songs instead of 3. LOL When BILLBOARD installed this "actual airplay" I knew all it would reveal is how boring radio really was. The problem with AT40 using that Radio Airplay chart (192), was that it was to tilted towards big markets (Chicago, LA, and NY), that it was misleading. Songs would be played only in those areas, and no where else and would make the top 40. Examples are "What Goes Around Comes Around" by Giggles, "This Is The First Time" by Laura Enea, "Nu Nu" by Lidell Townsell, and "Too Blind To See It" by Kym Sims. Also it was weighed by impressions, which meant when harder rock songs were played on stations they would always daypart them, which would give other songs an unfair advantage, in other words some songs would be played around the clock, and others radio would only play after 5:00, This is why songs like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and "Let's Get Rocked" by Def Leppard never made the airplay top 40.

When AT40 switched to the Mainstream top 40 chart in 1993, I thought it was a major improvement, even though songs still stuck around too long. Without the Mainstream top 40, songs like "Steam" by Peter Gabriel, and "I Love You Period" by Dan Baird never would have made the top 40.

Although it ruined my hobby of following charts, what
>Billboard did 11 years ago was come up with a more
>accurate way of reporting on what was being heard on
>the radio and what was selling. There was a lot of
>singles of rap and heavy metal purchased and there was
>a lot of older, blander stuff on the radio.
>
>Top 40 Radio was already spoiled by 1991. The
>explosion of new stations in the 1980s led to
>fragmentation of formats. Top 40 was no longer that
>"catch all". It seemed that radio was clogged with
>older, familiar songs that wouldn't cause a listener
>to "punch up" another station. And its listener base
>was mainly adult females. Male listeners had long
>been siphoned off to classic rock, oldies and news
>talk. Teenagers were watching MTV (back when they
>showed videos).
>
>What AT40 did, in my opinion, was to try to preserve
>as best as they could the type of countdown formula
>that had been working for 20 years.
>
>"Variety" is a matter of opinion. A local radio
>station used to have "variety" as a slogan and
>advertised the variety of artists it played like Phil
>Collins, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. yup,
>that's variety!

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Replies:

Re: 11 Years Ago This Weekend -- Adrian Liau, 18:53:58 12/04/02 Wed
- Re: 11 Years Ago This Weekend -- Craig, 01:07:11 12/05/02 Thu