I could use some help....

[ksradiodude]

Hey everyone...I posted this on the college board, but haven't had much luck from anyone there, so I thought I'd try here.
I was just named General Manager and Interim Program Director for a college radio station in a small unrated market, and here's the situation.
The station is fairly heritage among the town, been around for 40 some years with the same call letters and frequency, and actually used to be the only source for Top 40 in the city. There were a couple country stations, a couple news/talk, and a couple farm stations, and you could probably pick up a few stations barely from the rated market about 60 miles away.
However, in the last decade, the station has been a mess and a joke, and the school hired me to turn it around. They want a Top 40 station to hopefully take the station back to where it was, but the college is affiliated with a church, so it can't be anything too risque.
I already know I want people to tune in and have no idea that it's a college station, but to think of it as just the CHR source in the town.
I also know that I want to lean extremely current heavy and active, due to the fact that the main listenership are college students and most of them have ADD.
I think I also have imaging and production down too.
My question for you guys and hopefully you can help, is I need help programming my golds and recurrents. I'd like to only go 7 or 8 years back at the most in my golds, but I want to make sure I don't miss any songs just because I can't think of a song. Any ideas? A list of good golds for a Top 40 anywhere or a station that I can model after?
Thanks!

 

[CHRles]

You want to do CHR even though the college is affiliated with a church? That's gonna be a tough one. I mean, one of the biggest records the format had in 2008 was Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl". It's not a gangsta Rap record, nor is it Metal, just straight up Pop...with a raunchy theme. Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" was another big CHR record. Would your school be okay with these 2 songs receiving some sort of rotation? How about a song titled "Gives You Hell" as is the case with the current single by All American Rejects.
Ask yourself which records or how many record you'd be on the fence with. Finding stations for you to look up to is the easy part.

 

[ksradiodude]

I'm not really on the fence about any of the records, per se...I would spin all of those mentioned, I just want do want to get any complaints to the college that comes down on me. Typically they leave the station alone and let us do our thing unless complaints of content start coming in, and normally those are just with what the jocks are saying...in terms of records though, I'm planning on spinning what any other CHR would probably spin.
As far as stations I could model it after just for a start, especially with golds, what are your suggestions?

 

[CHRles]

College CHRs usually tend to be both more Active on new music, and have a larger selection of golds spinnning on occasion.
Go to yes.com and type in KVI (I-91 Tacoma-Seattle), or check out the websites and streams of KOHL 89.3 FM Fremont (near San Francisco) and KBSB FM 90 over in Bemidji, MN.

As far as Golds, ask yourself what part of the country you're in, what successful CHRs are there in your state or region. Are there any large markets in your state? What Golds are they playing? Then look at the successful smaller market CHRs in your region and compare their Gold titles.

Again, go over to yes.com, and for example type in a station like Z-100 (WHTZ). Click on Top Songs and you'll see its top 100 most played songs for the week.

Stations that generally reflect national trends in terms of Golds include
97.9 WNCI Columbus
106.1 Kiss FM Dallas
107.5 Kiss FM Des Moines
101.3 KDWB Minneapolis
95.1 WAPE Jacksonville
Hot 99.5 Washington DC
FM 97 Lancaster
102.5 WFMF Baton Rouge

 

[Mid West Clubber]

Chrles you pretty much nailed what i was going to say... Without knowing your market its hard to say what golds you should or should not play.... The stations Chrles mentioned are good ones to look up to.. I personally tend to look at WBLI 106.1 Long Island,,, 104.7 WSPK Poughkeepsie, and Fun 107 in Fairhaven and 96.3 The Rose,, as well as small market Powerhits 97.5 in Junction City-Manhatten Kansas.......... and of course take a look at your nearbye comp,, either in town, or with signals that cross over yours,, for instance,, I also have to keep a close eye on WNOU 100.9 Indianapolis,,, a very Current intensive youth friendly CHR,,, as well as WZKF CCs 98.9 Kiss fm Louisville, WDJX 99.7 Louisville, and WMGI Terre Haute..... We dont all play the same songs at the same time, For instance WNOU usually adds new Hip Hop before us,, but alot of it gets recycled out within a few weeks while we look for the bigger hits with staying power.... Also,, none of our competition will take a chance on a Dance Music record,, but we will if we think our audience will grab hold of it.... As for golds, we usually only go back 2 or 3 years, and those are usually rhythmic records, but once in a great while, we may play something from late 90s,,, maybe once a day.. I hope we can help you.. But yeah.......Definately look at the College stations Chrles mentioned, and the CHRs we both mentioned for both currents and golds, but base it on your market,, if a 5 year old song never was played in your market,,, better leave it be....