If you grew up with Top 40 in the ‘60s and 70s, chances are that you don’t think of the term “Number One” without that echoed “one, one, one” that always followed. Now, the entertainment world is more focused around Number One than ever, but radio (for a variety of reasons) rarely takes advantage of it. Sean Ross and EMR president Larry Rosin look at the sway that No. 1 still holds over listeners.
Top 40 wanted more uptempo pop records from superstar artists. Pink gave them a single that seemed to fill that need, and programmers (then the audience) shrugged. Were PDs moving too fast, even by their usual standards? Or is it core artist status really harder than ever to maintain?
When London’s bright AC Heart FM pushed Capital FM out of No. 1 this summer, it was as momentous an occasion as WABC New York being beaten by WKTU. Momentous, too, because Heart FM embraced rhythmic titles in a way that have always scared American AC programmers.
For several years now, some PDs have been using callout research to get a fast read on active records, emphasizing P1 listeners in the screener and expecting results faster than ever. In doing so, programmers have disenfranchised the very listeners that callout was meant to reach. They’ve also put their stations in the hands of a very small but aware group of listeners whose tastes won’t necessarily reflect the rest of the audience, even after the passage of several weeks.
In recent years, the pre-Beatles Oldies format has proliferated on AM as operators look for something new to do with their Adult Standards AMs and as the FM oldies format moves into the ‘70s. Now, Clear Channel’s WRLL (Real Oldies 1690) brings both ‘50s oldies and morning legend Larry Lujack back to Chicago radio. An interview with PD Tommy Edwards.