From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1964

The Bill Gavin Newsletter

By BILL GAVIN
Billboard Contributing Editor

“TOP 40 RADIO,” as we have known it for a decade, is fast becoming obsolete. “Top 40,” as a term of reference relating to a music format based on singles sales, will undoubtedly continue in our vocabulary for some time to come. In practice, however, the number of stations actually using a full 40 best selling singles is rapidly decreasing. The majority of pop format stations today have reduced their applicable lists of hits to 25 or 30 titles. The day of the playlist numbering 80 to 100 titles has passed. These days a list of 60 titles is considered long.

INTERESTINGLY enough, a good many stations decline to publicize the fact they have shortened their surveys. These stations continue to print and distribute a full top 40, or top 50, as they have done for years past. Their program directors will tell you privately that they are actually playing only a portion of the records on their charts. For some reason. not clearly understood, they are reluctant to publish a limited list of the hits they are playing, which omits some singles that are still selling better than some others that are being played. Other stations with attenuated surveys make no secret about it, they publish their top 30s with no attempt at concealment. There are two slightly different approaches now being taken to the short survey. In one case, the top survey items are simply listed according to tabulations of sales reports. The other system deletes the older hits that are dropping down rapidly, so that the resulting list of 30 may actually he a blue-penciled 40.

A few stations, accepting the principle of a smaller number of records for airplay, still cling to the mystic magic of the number 10. They continue with a full-blown survey of 40 hits but hold down their “extras” to only 10 or 15. Such playlists obviously have less room for new releases than lists of “25 plus 25.”

PEOPLE in the record business quite naturally regard these changes in radio program policies with some misgivings. The sale of single records. as everybody knows, is almost entirely controlled by airplay. Some record men express the fear that widespread curtailment of playlists will reduce the exposure of new product. A number of radio people consider such fears to be groundless. “What’s the good of 40 or 50 extras on a playlist?” asks one radio man. “Most of them never get played often enough to find out if they’re hits or not. With only 20 extras. and 30 survey records, all the new things on your list get played at least every three or four hours all day long.” Another program director puts it this way: “Every time we knock a tired old hit off our chart, it makes room for something new. With this new system we’ll not only break more new hits but we’ll also stir up lots more interest and excitement in new records, new artists and new sounds. The record people all ought to be cheering us, instead of finding fault.”

SUCH A STATEMENT of the new policy should make good sense, but apparently it does not. Judging from comments and inquiries that have been coming in to me, a good many people seem to think that a playlist is shortened by chop- ping new tunes off the bottom. This is not so in the big majority of cases. The first chopping is done on the older hits that have dropped down below 20 or 25. Then the half hits, whose sales have been fair, but which have failed to show improvement for two weeks, are dropped. This makes room for the more dynamic newcomers, either with a number on the chart or as “hot comers” standing next in line for a number next week.

AT THIS POINT, the playlist would show about 10 titles in addition to the chart – a total of 35 to 40 selections. The final 10 or 15 on the list will be about equally divided among (a) previous picks that still could be hits, (b) regional hits that were passed by the first time around, and (c) brand-new releases.

If every pop format station in the nation played only five new records a week – many will continue to play more – it would be practically certain that every worthwhile new release would get fair exposure in a number of markets, large and small.

True enough, promoters will find it more difficult to get big station picks in some cities. In others, of course, this condition has existed for quite some time and will not be a new experience.

Let’s get one point quite clear: The new trend is toward a shorter survey. It is not in the direction of drastic curtailing of airplay on newer material. The emphasis is on weeding out the weaker sides – either weak from the infirmities of old age, or weak from an inherent inability to build sales. This does not imply an impetuous haste to delete every item that has passed its sales peak. The occasional smashes, like a Dean Martin or a Louis Armstrong, continue selling in big volume for a long time after they have dropped out of the No. 1 position, and radio will keep its “umbrella” over them while they’re moving out of the rack locations. On the other hand, fast dropping items become candidates for oblivion.

What the change does imply is that radio programmers now rely less blindly on statistics. There is more evaluation of statistical data to interpret in terms of strongest possible airplay. END

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Information, credit, and news source: Billboard; September 12, 1964