Airplay hits that missed the Hot 100

Aaron, I think there were a couple of factors going into those situations:

1) Several of those songs weren't commercial singles, so they got no sales points.

2) The airplay for many of those songs was limited to CHR stations (and there were fewer pure CHR stations). Since December of 1998, the Hot 100 has included all radio formats. This has been a huge benefit especially to Country songs. Basically, the Top 20 Country songs in any given week could get on the chart with zero pop radio airplay, thereby forcing other songs (like Mandy Moore) off the Hot 100.

Actually, I think my point #2 above had more to do with it than point #1. By that time, sales points were much less of a factor on the charts, but it still helped to have a commercial single to chart.

The Hot 100 dated December 5, 1998 is when the big change occurred, allowing airplay-only hits onto the chart. As I mentioned, that was also when Billboard incorporated airplay from all the radio formats into the Hot 100, so all of a sudden you had Country occupying about 20-25% of the Hot 100 every week, thus forcing some of the lesser-played CHR hits onto the Bubbling Under chart, instead of the Hot 100. The best chance those CHR hits had is if they also got played on other formats such as Hot AC, etc.

aaronk wrote: But in the Whitburn book, "In My Pocket" does not have the [AIR] indication next to it. This is the case with a few songs I checked--very low (or no) Hot 100 peak, but did get significant CHR airplay, and no [AIR] in the book.

The [AIR] symbol is for those songs that made the Hot 100 Airplay, but were ineligible for the Hot 100/Bubbling Under charts because there was no commercial single (ex: "Don't Speak" by No Doubt). As of 12/5/98, that symbol was no longer needed because airplay-only cuts were now allowed to chart.

Does Record Research or any publisher offer a book that compiles airplay data? As a former radio guy, I've always been disappointed that there isn't a book similar to the Pop Annual for either Billboard Hot 100 Airplay or Radio & Records CHR. Possibly new book for Mr. Whitburn?

Nice! If it doesn't come to fruition, I'd like to make a suggestion for future Pop Annual / Top Pop Singles books.

For songs that WERE eligible for the Hot 100 but did NOT have a commercial single, would it be possible to include a different symbol? There probably aren't too many of these songs, but it doesn't seem fair to assign a peak of #102 for a song that cracked the top 20 in airplay without any sort of explanation.

Edited by aaronk