Here’s an interesting chart flashback: Name the song that reached top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and Casey’s Top 40 (Radio and Records’ CHR chart) but did not chart on American Top 40 with Shadoe Stevens…
The answer is “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. The song did not reach the top 40 portion of the Hot 100 Airplay chart, the chart AT40 was using at the time. However, as noted above, it made the top 10 on the Radio and Records’ Pop (CHR) chart, which is also based on airplay. Back in 1992 Hot 100 Airplay was not the all-encompassing chart it is now. It too focused on Pop airplay, but the chart was based on the number of people listening to the song (audience impressions). The R&R chart was based on the number of times a song was played, as reported by the radio stations.
So why the discrepancy? I honestly do not have the definitive answer. Was it because the song was mainly played on stations that did not have a huge audience? Was it because pop stations inflated the number of times they actually played the song? What do you think?
By the way, the song made the top 10 on the Hot 100 due to the number of singles sold.
April 30, 2009 at 8:30 am
I don’t know if you will actually see this, but that’s alright.
A little context, then. At the time, as you said, the Hot 100 Airplay wasn’t an all-encompassing chart, as it only included data from Mainstream Top 40 and Rhythmic stations and was, indeed, based on audience impressions – as it still is. On the other hand, R&R’s CHR/Top 40 chart (which was the one used by both Casey’s Top 40 and the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40) not only used the old playlist reporting method, but their panel still used Rhythmic stations (that separation happened in full by 1995). So it might have been a case of stations over-reporting that song – that happened a lot during the pre-monitorization days. In some cases, there were even what radio industry people would call paper adds – i.e., songs that stations reported as being on their playlists, but which they didn’t actually play. That happened mainly because of label and/or independent promoters pressure.