Another Playlist, Another Chart

7/19/1996 

In last week’s issue of Monitor, Sean Ross asked the question, “What would a Modern/Adult Top 40 chart look like?”

The first answer off the top of my head would be, “Who the hell cares?” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Monitor has decided to answer a question nobody has asked and solve a problem that doesn’t exist.  Our industry needs another chart like it needs me to dress up like a woman again and appear on the cover of Network 40.  (Okay, that’s a bad analogy.  From time to time, I do feel the need to dress up in lingerie and hang out with my “sisters” at the Queen Mary Club in West Hollywood, but that’s another story…and there’s definitely no chart attached.)

This Editorial is not meant to vilify Misters Ross and/or Michael Ellis.  It has always been Network 40’s position that trade magazines should reflect the needs of the industry…both records and radio.  In most instances, Monitor has strived to do that.  However, by proposing a “Brand New Chart” and calling it “Modern Adult,” it seems that Monitor may be creating a problem.

Tina Turner sang, “We don’t need another hero.”  Does the industry really need another chart?

Instead of creating a “Brand New Chart,” perhaps we should redefine our old ones.  In the coming weeks, Network 40 will redefine A/C and Hot A/C with a chart devoted to Adult Top 40.  This chart will be a reflection of aggressively programmed Adult Top 40 stations across the country.  The Network 40 Adult Top 40 chart will be a reflection of those stations that are aggressive in programming, promotion and music.  It will include those stations that focus on adult demographics.  What it won’t include is an attempt to “niche” stations within the broad category.  It won’t try to define stations by particular records added to playlists.

The beauty of the Top 40 format and what makes it unique, be it Mainstream or Adult, is its total lack of uniqueness.  Top 40 is now, and has always been, a format that plays the hits garnered from all the other formats.  If the Top 40 format makes no formal distinction between Pearl Jam, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton and The Fugees, other than the fact that the current records by these artists are selling, requesting and researching, why should we?

There are always variations on a theme.  No two radio stations are alike.  If most fit into a broad category, who are we to decide that a certain, chosen few need to be separated into a group of their own?

Or course, when an obvious trend occurs, as in the case of Adult Top 40, Crossover or Alternative, it is evident that format charts for these stations need to be created.  When stations within the format “niche” themselves out of the broad Top 40 boundaries, and when enough of these stations fall into the same niche, a chart devoted exclusively to a particular style of music and radio stations that play it is necessary.  Stations need to be niched based on what they “don’t” play instead of what songs appear on their playlists.

In the late 70s and early 80s, the RKO Radio chain dominated music radio like no other company before or since.  The chain had the leading Top 40 stations in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Memphis and programming control over the leading Top 40 stations in Detroit, Chicago and San Diego.  It was the strictest form of radio in history.  Every station was programmed almost exactly the same.  Every station ran the same promotions at the same time. Every radio station added the same records every week.  Records were added to the chain.  Yet even in this restricted environment, some stations added records that were unique to their market.  The James Montgomery Band (just one example of many) was added in Boston, but never made it on another RKO station because the record was unique to Boston.  The other programmers knew this. The music industry knew this.

Here’s a news flash:  The programmers and record promotion people know this today.  We don’t need another chart to figure it out.

In the first place, the number of stations Monitor is including in this “Brand New Chart” is too small.  Fourteen stations do not make a “niche.”  For the record industry (and those programmers who pay close attention to national charts), movement is all-important.  With only 14 stations, a drop by just one station could reflect a downward move on the chart.  With such a finite sample, a record’s success on this “Brand New Chart” could be jeopardized if just one or two programmers didn’t believe it fit their particular sound.  A record doing well on 90% of the stations could be stymied on this “Brand New Chart” simply because it isn’t deep enough.

Second, what is Modern record?  Is it defined by what these particular stations play?  Then Seal, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Melissa Etheridge and Los Del Rio (just name just a few) are Modern artists. These were listed on the latest playlists of some of the stations “chosen” by Monitor to represent this “new” format.

We all understand that individual stations are unique.  What works on one does not necessarily work on another.  Aren’t we smart enough to figure it out without a chart to guide us?

In the article penned by Mr. Ross, he asks (in the first paragraph) the rhetorical question: “Modern/Adult…is it a format?”

If we aren’t even sure it’s a format, should we be creating a chart?

I have much respect for Sean Ross and Michael Ellis.  Michael and I worked together at WAPP in New York.  I can say with authority that Michael is definitely passionate about music.  But even at WAPP, he took too much time working on the chart.  The boy has a thing with numbers.  I had to pull him off the computer just to teach him how to drive a car.

In the fax describing this “Brand New Chart,” Sean and Michael asked for input.  I hope this Editorial will suffice.  You may “input” it wherever you like.

We don’t need another “Brand New Chart” based on a format that doesn’t yet exist.

You guys have way too much time on your hands.