Gold based CHRs

[TheBigA]

Compared to a decade ago they never played Tearin Up My Heart.

Z100 and KIIS are still playing their top currents over 110 times a week. The "gold-based" stations such as B96 or Kiss in Cincinnati have dropped their most played down to 80 or less.

 

[JackindaBox]

This is tedious. A format is not a living being and as such does not want to do anything. What the people who program do want is to attract the desirable audience to sell so everyone makes their money.

If the songs test well, they play. If they don’t…they don’t. It’s a business. Always has been.

I think they are still playing newer music but they are mixing older songs in with it.

 

[JackindaBox]

I remember some top 40 stations that would occasionally play a weird oldie, but it looks like this new crop of "gold based CHR's" is playing the same oldies over and over, multiple times a day, and they're usually lousy oldies.

It would make more sense to seek out new music that's better.

There are a lot of better songs than what you would hear on these stations like From The Start and Taylor Swifts vault tracks which never get AirPlay on these stations.

 

[JackindaBox]

Out of pure curiosity. Checked to see the top songs on KKRZ 100.3 in Portland, also Z100. The local IHM owned CHR.

1) Flowers - Miley Cyrus(2023)
2) Dance the Night - Dua Lipa(2023)
3) Waffle House - Jonas Brothers(2023)
4 )Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift(2019)
5) I'm Good - David Guetta(2022)
6) Late Night Talking - Harry Styles(2022)
7) Sure Thing - Miguel (2010, with 2023 release)
8) Fast Car - Luke Combs (2023)
9) Daylight - David Kushner (2023)
10) Summer Baby - Jonas Brothers (2023)
11) Stressed Out - Twenty One Pilots (2015)
12) What's My Name? - Rihanna (2010)
13) Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) - B.o.B(2010)
14) Lights - Ellie Goulding (2010)
15) Break Free - Ariana Grande(2014)
16) Hot N Cold - Katy Perry (2008)
17) Diamonds - Rihanna (2012)
18) Oops!...I Did It Again - Britney Spears (2000)
19) Low - Flo Rida (2007)
20) Rude Boy - Rihanna(2009)
21) Just the Way You Are - Bruno Mars(2010)
22) Timber - Pitbull (2013)
23) Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5(2011)
24) Right Round - Flo Rida (2009)
25) Grenade - Bruno Mars (2010)

Very CHR "Gold" heavy outside of the top 10.

KQMV has added a lot more gold from the 2010s and some from the 2000s but not as heavy as KBKS. KBKS seems to play gold from both the 2000s and 2010s but seems to mainly play rhythmic gold tracks that used to be on the CHR format probably cause KUBE is no longer around.

 

[JackindaBox]

Sean Ross wrote about this two months ago:

Is Top 40 a Thing of the Past? - RadioInsight

The dominance of throwbacks at Top 40 is not a new development. Well before COVID or the TikTok takeover, I wrote about WHTZ (Z100) New York playing “No Scrubs” by TLC in 2016. Even then, it was a commentary on the state of the available product. In 2020, with “Throwback Weekends” proliferating...

radioinsight.com

WKTU is the station that does throwback weekends basically.

 

[JackindaBox]

Trustfall still made the Top 40 even on CHR and so did Never Gonna Not Dance Again.

Temporarily of course.

 

[JackindaBox]

Sprinkling in a little gold here and there is what gives CHR depth and richness. Always has.

They always did but now it is going into the 90s even though it hasn’t for a long time throughout the 2010s.

 

[JackindaBox]

I noticed a lot of CHRs are going gold based. What will make CHR go back to playing hits of this decade? Don't get me wrong I grew up with those old hits they're playing and I like it, but it doesn't belong on CHR. I was listening to Z100 in New York (my local CHR) they played NSYNC's Tearing Up My Heart from 1997. I would probably hear that on CBS FM 101.1. I think the gold tracks started back in 2020 during the pandemic for feel good music.

I also think they overlap with Classic Hits stations sometimes with some of the same songs as their sister Classic Hits stations if they have any.

 

[DavidEduardo]

WKTU is the station that does throwback weekends basically.

Because it is a rhythmic hot AC, not CHR.

 

[NoWayNoCC]

This is starting to be like how Q-102 Cincinnati kept playing "If You Leave Me Now" all the time in 1989.

 

[Greg Goodfellow]

If new artists want radio exposure of songs that commercial radio does not feature, provide music to noncommercial stations, many of which stream. Just a thought.

 

[TexasTom]

You can't test until the average listener has heard the song five to seven times. That takes about 3 to 4 risky weeks of maybe playing a stiff.

So how do stations balance that? In the short run, it seems safer to avoid playing those potential stiffs, but if stations take that approach indefinitely they'll end up with less and less new product. I understand that AC stations mostly wait for music to become familiar from other places before they add new songs, but it doesn't seem that Top 40 stations can afford to take that approach.