O/T: Radio & Records AC chart
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9557
Printed Date: 28 October 2025 at 12:58am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: O/T: Radio & Records AC chart
Posted By: EdisonLite
Subject: O/T: Radio & Records AC chart
Date Posted: 21 February 2021 at 6:44pm
| I used to jot down Radio & Records pop & AC peaks back in the day - for songs I like. Of course, the Whitburn R&R Pop book has come out since then. I was wondering, with all the chart enthusiasts here - has anyone created a database for Radio & Records AC peaks? Or is there a website where I can find this info? |
Replies:
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 4:57am
|
Gordon, I'm not aware of any source for that particular chart info. I'd love to
research those other R&R charts some day. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 7:46am
|
Hi Paul.
Any chance Joel and you might be updating the Billboard AC & Hot AC chart book? Believe it or not, the Hot AC Chart has the most relevance to me as the broad appeal pop chart as the programmers of Hot AC stations don't seem to want to push turkeys up the chart because they seem to like records with staying power. Just my observation, of course. I also wouldn't mind a first Rhythmic Top-40 chart book! Andy |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 8:22am
|
Andy, I'm hoping that we get the Billboard AC book updated sometime this year. It's long overdue.
No plans for the Rhythmic Top 40 charts at this time. |
Posted By: kingofskiffle
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 10:53am
Yay! Can I request that the new edition includes both Writers and B-Sides? The last version had the writers and the one before the B-Sides so if possible can they both appear? The page size (if it goes to the greater size of the Rock book etc) would take it well I think. |
Paul Haney wrote:Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 1:45pm
|
Paul,
1) Is the 2010-2019 Billboard Chart book coming out, to stay consistent with the other decade books? If not, will it come out as a PDF disc? 2) Is the Top Pop Singles coming out this year covering from 1955-1989 and 1990-2020? I would think that the first book can come out anytime since those positions wont change... Thanks in advance for answering... ------------- Favorite two expressions to live by on this board: "You can't download vinyl" and "Not everything is available on CD." |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 22 February 2021 at 10:49pm
| I remember asking Paul recently about the BB decades book for the 10's and he said it would only cover 2010 to sometime in 2014. It would stop when the Hot 100 was spready out over 3 pages instead of 1. As soon as BB started doing that, I always wondered how Rec Research would handle the decade book. It's a shame we'd get less than 50% of the decade. But it also isn't effective cost-wise to cover 3 pages for 1 chart. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 23 February 2021 at 2:54am
1) We are working on the chart book for the previous decade. It will be 2 volumes. We'll start with 2010-2014 (five full years), then follow-up with 2015-2019. As Gordon mentioned, the chart eventually spread out to 3 pages, that's why we have to split it up. 2) We are working on the Top Pop 1955-1989 volume now. It's A LOT of work, but we hope to have an official announcement coming around April or so. Please keep in mind that our company is basically down to a two man operation in the office. We have to take care of every aspect of the business, not just the actual books themselves. |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 23 February 2021 at 8:32am
| What did I miss? Top Pop Singles is splitting into 2 volumes?!? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 24 February 2021 at 5:35pm
| Another AC chart related question: Besides Billboard and R&R, didn't either Cashbox or Record World have an AC chart (in the 70s and 80s)? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 24 February 2021 at 5:45pm
| Or maybe Hits Magazine had an AC chart? |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 25 February 2021 at 8:52am
Record World had one (they ceased publishing in April 1982), Cash Box did not. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 25 February 2021 at 7:37pm
| Thanks Paul. And does anyone know what years Hits Magazine had a top 40 chart? (and were there other charts?) |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 26 February 2021 at 4:54am
|
I remember when Hits magazine first came out in August 1986. I may have bought a few issues, but never really payed
much attention to their charts. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 26 February 2021 at 6:36am
Sorry for a dumb question, but it's been quite a while since I've paid much attention to the Hot 100, what do you mean by "spread out to 3 pages", and how does that affect the book? |
Posted By: cmmmbase
Date Posted: 26 February 2021 at 3:21pm
|
The hot 100 runs 3 pages long in current
issues of Billboard. |
Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 28 February 2021 at 3:15pm
I do like the idea. Plus the 1955-1989 once done does not need any updating. In a way its easier to put out the 1990-202x every few years while keeping the first book in print. As for the annual, I would love to see you do an all encompassing one from 1900-2020 the next time you publish. I know youve done the 1940-1955, but I would love official rankings of the 1900-1939 hits, which were left out of the recently redone book you did. I know you tried doing it in the century book, this would just be expanding the idea a little bit.... ------------- Favorite two expressions to live by on this board: "You can't download vinyl" and "Not everything is available on CD." |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 28 February 2021 at 6:21pm
|
Back to original topic - AC.
Cashbox never published an AC chart. Record World published one first from 2/4/67 to 4/1/72 under various titles such as Non-Rock and MOR. They revived the chart on 2/16/80 and it continued until the magazine ceased publication with the 4/10/82 issue. R&R published its first AC chart on 2/22/74 and Hot AC chart on 4/22/94 which both continued until R&R ended in 2009...or 2006. (To me, once Billboard took over, it was R&R in name only. The charts were Billboard's.) If/When the AC book is ever updated, I would love to see the Record World and R&R AC chart data included. (Hint to Paul!) |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 March 2021 at 2:02am
| Thanks for the info. And I like your hint to Paul. I've mentioned to him I'd like to see an R&R AC book. But I know he's working on trying to get an updated Billboard AC book out, as the last one was 15 years ago in 2006. (But it would be cool if you could combine R&R and RW AC charts, like you've done for Pop, Paul, as Jake (Scanner) suggests :) |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 01 March 2021 at 10:42am
There were no official charts prior to Billboard's first Best Selling Retail Records 7/27/40. Even though Billboard published their Record Buying Guide since 1938, it in no way resembled typical charts with definite rankings by artist and song. Merely a listing of popular tunes. The chart data found in Pop Memories 1900-1940 is a guestimate at best, fiction at worst. No way anyone can derive those exact numbers (and listing of recordings) based on undisputable sources. Edward Foote Gardner's "Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century - Volume I" creates monthly charts of top tunes (much like the Billboard Record Buying Guide) for comparison but again these are guestimates. I own both books and sometimes thumb through them for entertainment purposes. The research scholar in me knows the data is definitely not official. |
Posted By: RoknRobnLoxley
Date Posted: 02 March 2021 at 10:47am
|
The "Your Hit Parade and American Top 10 Hits" 1935-1994 chart book by Bruce Elrod (4th edition 1994) is worth something in this regard, as in pop charts, not AC charts. The charts as produced for the same named radio and TV show 1935-1958 were:
-Top 15 in Apr 1935 -Top. 7 in Nov 1936 -Top 10 in Apr 1937 -Top. 9 in Aug 1943 -Top 10 in Nov 1946 -Top. 7 in Apr 1947 -Top 10 in Nov 1948 -Top. 7 in Oct 1949 -Top. 5 in Feb 1958 Then onto the Billboard Top 10 in Jun 1958, ending in May 1994. Plus lots of year-end single and album charts across pop, AC, R&B, country. Good stuff... |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 02 March 2021 at 1:03pm
|
Very excited by the prospect of the 2010s Hot 100 Decade book, but it begs
the question: what on Earth are you going to do with all those weeks when Billboard didn't publish a chart? It only prints 19 issues a year these days. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 03 March 2021 at 4:03am
We will be printing our own custom charts for those weeks that Billboard didn't have a print issue. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 03 March 2021 at 5:56pm
|
Paul, 2 questions:
* For all the weeks that there was no published Billboard Magazine (and it's been quite a few years now), have you taken note of the chart positions - because obviously when the next printed edition would come out, there could have been peaks in the previous 1 or 2 weeks that you wouldn't know about if the song dropped off the chart. If you've kept track of the charts online each week (or have a way to retrieve all the old issues now), I guess that would solve the problem. * Also, since you're printing custom charts for those missing weeks, are you going to do the same for all the 2015-2019 charts that were in print but spread out over 3 pages? The book would be incredibly long if you used 3 pages for one chart. But since you're already doing customized 1-page Hot 100 charts for the "non-paper" issues, it seems like it would keep the book more consistent to do it for all issues (and save a lot of paper costs, and keeping the book no thicker than any of the other decade-charts books). And I'm specifically referring only to the years once they started doing the 3 page approach. Obviously, 2010 to early 2014 could be the actual chart. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 04 March 2021 at 3:43am
|
Gordon, not sure exactly what you're asking about in the first question. We treat the non-published charts just
like any of the published charts, research-wise. We will probably be able to cut the published charts down to 2 pages, by getting rid of the artist photos and sidebar stories that accompany the charts nowadays. We feel it's important to show the actual published charts (at least the actual chart part of it, anyway). |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 04 March 2021 at 10:39am
|
I'm still stunned that BB doesn't have PDF charts for the non-published week
that they can email their subscribers (for consistency.). They obviously have the templates to do so, and even have the sidebar stories (that usually accompany Chartbeat articles online.) I guess there aren't that many chart collectors out there anymore. I notice that when Billboard IS published, nowadays they only include the Hot 100, Billboard 200 and Artist 100. All the genre and radio charts have been removed (only sporadically appearing every few months). Makes me wonder why they even bother! |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 04 March 2021 at 2:08pm
| Because Billboard stopped publishing most of their genre and radio charts in their printed editions, I decided to my subscription end when it does in a couple months. It was the main reason I subscribed all these decades. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 04 March 2021 at 2:27pm
|
Billboard still publishes sporadic issues because they make money off of the ad revenue (a full page ad is VERY
expensive). However, that revenue is somewhat offset by the high cost of printing, thus we only get about 20 print issues per year. Most of their print content is "lifestyle" driven and the charts have unfortunately taken a back seat. When's the last time you've seen an advertisement for an upcoming album and/or single? It's been years. Most of their content is now online. It wouldn't surprise me if the print edition went totally extinct in the next few years. Just the way of the world. |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 04 March 2021 at 3:23pm
|
If the Billboard website were better, I'd be happier with the inevitable magazine
folding. Even online premium users have to suffer lags, constantly intrusive ad pop- ups, an almost useless chart search engine that fails more than it works and is woefully disorganize and incomplete. I mourn the passing of a publication filled with exciting single / album advertisements, terrific song reviews, and most of all - no fluff pieces! |