The Radio Songs chart (previously named Hot 100 Airplay until 2014[1] and Top 40 Radio Monitor until 1991)[2] is released weekly by Billboard magazine and measures the airplay of songs being played on radio stations throughout the United States across all musical genres. It is one of the three components, along with sales (both physical and the digital) and streaming activity, that determine the chart positions of songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
Radio airplay has always been one of the component charts of the Hot 100. Prior to the establishment of the Hot 100, Billboard published a radio airplay chart, a singles sales chart and a jukebox play chart, the last of which was discontinued in 1959 as jukeboxes lost their popularity. During the 1960s and 1970s, Billboard continued to collect airplay data as a component of the Hot 100 but did not make the chart public.[3]
The airplay-only chart debuted as a 30-position chart on October 20, 1984, and was expanded to 40 positions on May 31, 1986.[4] Rankings were based on playlists received by a panel of Top 40 radio stations. On December 8, 1990, Billboard introduced the 75-position Top 40 Radio Monitor chart positions, which ranked songs measured by the number of spins each song on monitored radio stations and the ratings for those stations when the songs were being played based on Nielsen BDS technology.[5] The BDS-measured Top 40 Radio Monitor chart became the official airplay-component of the Hot 100 on November 30, 1991.[6]
Each week, the Radio Songs chart ranks the top 100 songs by most airplay points (frequently referred to as audience impressions, which is a calculation of the number of times a song is played and the audience size of the station playing the tune). A song can pick up an airplay point every time it is selected to be played on specific radio stations that Billboard monitors. Radio stations across the board are used, from Top 40 Mainstream (which plays a wide variety of music that is generally the most popular songs of the time) to more genre-specific radio stations such as urban radio and country music. Paid plays of a song or treatment as bumper music do not count as an impression.
During the early years of the chart, only airplay data from top 40 radio stations were compiled to generate the chart. Effective from issue dated July 17, 1993, adult contemporary stations were added to the panel, followed by modern rock few months later. However, beginning in December 1998, the chart profile expanded to include airplay data from radio stations of other formats such as R&B, rock and country. To preserve the notion of the former chart, the Top 40 Tracks chart (now defunct) was introduced at the same time.
The radio airplay data was previously collected on a Wednesday to Tuesday weekly cycle prior to July 2015, and on a Monday to Sunday weekly cycle from July 2015 to July 2021.[7]As of the chart dated July 17, 2021, the radio airplay data is collected on a Friday through Thursday weekly cycle, which matches that of the other Hot 100 metrics (streaming and sales).[8]
On November 30, 1991, after 21 years of using the Billboard Hot 100 as their source, American Top 40 started using this chart, which at the time was called the Top 40 Radio Monitor. This relationship ended in January 1993, as American Top 40 switched to the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. The ongoing splintering of Top 40 radio in the early 1990s led stations to lean into specific formats, meaning that practically no station would play the wide array of genres that typically composed each weekly Hot 100 chart.
@UncleBud is correct. Although the majority of the songs in our collection will be eligible to be played without restrictions, you may encounter a portion of songs that are unavailable or labeled "Radio Only" due to our current licensing restrictions. In the meantime, you can create a station that will play similar songs and artists, based on an artist or a particular song.
We are continuously working on increasing the amount of songs which can be played on stations, on-demand, or offline. Our intention is to provide enough music you enjoy to avoid any inconvenience around this.
Although the majority of the songs in our collection will be eligible to be played without restrictions, you may encounter a portion of songs that are unavailable or labeled "Radio Only" due to our current licensing restrictions. In the meantime, you can create a station that will play similar songs and artists, based on an artist or a particular song.
i thought the point of premium was so you could listen to what you want and not have to worry about licensing sounds kind of like pandora doesnt want to pay for the license at the expense of the paying customers. premium is advertised as being able to listen to whatever whenever. just wondering what i am paying for
I was going through a major review of spending and savings this week, just sitting in the living room on my laptop, with the dog snoozing on his bed because it's been much too cold to go outside. It was too quiet in the house for a tedious bout of record-keeping. I'd recently resolved an issue with my satellite radio subscription, so it was at the top of my mind, and I went to look at stations. I've learned from riding a Peloton bike that sometimes I will thrive in '80s-based music environments (I was born in 1970), so I went in that direction. One channel was called 80s Chillpill.
It didn't really matter whether I liked "Can't Fight This Feeling" or not; I listened to it over and over and over, much as people do now with their very favorite songs. Top 40 was relentless (and, you'll notice, rather white), so if that was the direction you went, as it was for me, you heard what you heard and you didn't customize the experience. And, for the record, radio was more genuinely local; this was before the entire structure changed in the 1990s.
I wonder sometimes what the current version of this kind of nostalgia is. Obviously, people who are now the age that I was then will have these pangs about something, but it can be hard to know what. It's not as if it's always Top 40 songs for me. The other week, I was singing to myself a jingle from the Van Scoy jewelry stores. It dates back to at least the early '80s, and it starts, "I'm a lucky girl, hooray, oh boy!" Because, of course, she has a diamond from Van Scoy. I always found this music extremely annoying, but now, if you sing it, I will fully belt along. (And I am not alone. I had no idea, but this delighted me.)
It's the same thing with the music from Action News in Philadelphia. "Move closer to your world, my friend! Take a little bit of tiiiiiime!" Back then, was this music important to me? Of course not; it was the theme song to the news. But now, it seems that it's one of the most beloved bits of cultural currency from people who grew up around Philly at the time.
Perhaps that's the appeal of 80s Chillpill. Perhaps because I was rarely hearing these songs by choice, they are stapled indifferently to the widest variety of memories: being sad, happy, bored, frantic, lonely, with friends, in the car, in my room, studying, reading, hanging out. Doing things that were meaningless, but doing them in good company.
Everyone who makes the decision on what songs get played on the radio has their own individual perspectives and motives for what they initally choose to play and what they don't. The same is true for how often some songs get rotation versus others. The truth on how radio stations and programs decide which songs get played actually has to do with a few factors that you might not realize.
Indie, college, and public radio are generally not keeping up with charted music (i.e. Billboard) like commercial radio is. The decision making of stations in the commercial realm lies more in what's charting than other factors. Station managers with commercial radio may give a few spins here and there to "unknown" or DIY musicians if it fits with the format and if they earn the respect of either the DJ or the station management.
Once songs begin to chart more (meaning that the music-ranking organizations like Billboard and CMJ are recording more plays nationwide), those songs will get more rotation. Much of this is based on requests and promotion dollars from the labels.
And there's also the subject of payola, which has been illegal for quite a while, yet promoters and labels on both the major labels and even some indie labels still do it (some more than others). Payola is the act of paying a broadcast outlet money or other compensation with the explicit purpose of gaining airplay, other promotional features, and consideration on commercial radio. It is, in essence, an attempt to buy media coverage. The FCC has banned this act for radio, but there are still labels and promoters who attempt to skirt the legalities of it to get artists featured. Public and independent radio aren't necessarily held to that same code legally, which is why there are indie broadcasters who are more liberal with it.
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