Sean Ross

Olivia Rodrigo wants to have the Song of Summer 2026. She launched her new project with an uptempo single, rather than the epic ballads that had led her last two albums. She released “Drop Dead” just over a month ago, timed so that any initial buzz would carry the song through Memorial Day, although even mid-April can be a dicey proposition for any song if the initial streams disappoint.

When Radioinsight and Ross on Radio reported last month that a half-dozen iHeart Media stations, including WAXQ (Q104.3) New York, were downplaying the word “Classic Rock” in varying ways, it was one of the most-read ROR columns in recent months. It was also one of the most commented-on — both in the column itself and on Radioinsight’s Facebook page, where readers responded both to this article and to their reportage.

The first “why isn’t CHR playing ‘Choosin’ Texas’” article was written by Liveline host Mason Kelter last January, when that song was about three months old, but already phenomenal. Programmer Phil Becker weighed in six weeks ago, asking how the Top 40 PDs who had rejected that song as “not their sound” could so enthusiastically get behind Freya Skye’s “Silent Treatment,” which went top 10 as a song that CHR could own, but with a fraction of the streams.

Mason Kelter is on vacation this week. These are guest observations from Ross on Radio author/editor Sean Ross. Two years

Over the years, the concept of “live” has been just as enthusiastically attacked as “local,” and often for the same reason. It costs money. The necessity of doing radio in real time became an easy target of ridicule early on. “So let me get this straight. You’re saying I need to pay somebody to sit in the studio and read the newspaper for four hours so they can open the mic a few times an hour to say, ‘More music, better variety?’”

The layoffs are brutal. The station sales for too little money to owners who take stations out of the format mainstream are dismaying. The owners who just shut the station off and walk away from the license are particularly devastating. And, even for those not directly affected, there is additional misery in watching the disheartening moments for radio pile up on top of each other.

To look at the Classic Hits and AC charts now, you’d never know what a force R&B, dance, and early Hip-Hop had been in pop music from the mid-’80s to the early ’90s. From the moment KPWR (Power 106) Los Angeles signed on in 1986 with R&B and an increasing quotient of dance music, Top 40 sounded sterile by comparison. Within a few years, most CHR stations in any market with a significant Hispanic population was leaning “rhythmic.”

This week “Take on Me” by a-Ha, “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, and “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are among Mediabase’s top 10 most-played songs at Classic Hits radio. Those three songs usually are. They are clearly enduring hits, but they are also songs that some people in the Ross on Radio audience really hate. I’ve asked Facebook friends in the recent past to tell me the songs they found irritating. This year, I went for a stronger pejorative: “obnoxious.” I generally save that one for songs with a certain combination of elements — […]

The success stories have mounted worldwide as well. Public broadcaster RadioEins has been No. 1 in Berlin for five out of the last six ratings periods. Rad

Two years ago, Classic Hits WLS-FM Chicago brought back the signature jingle associated with the station throughout its 60-year history, including its Top 40 heyday from the ’60s to the mid-’80s. For programmers and jingle fans, it was the shotgun heard around the world. TM Studios’ Chief Creative Officer and Co-Owner Dave Bethell called it “one of the best responses for a custom package in a long time.”