'Total Popular Music' Debuts 'Super Sixty Airplay' Chart

"Total Popular Music" has quietly debuted a new "Super Sixty Airplay" chart at TotalPopularMusic.com. The new chart will also be posted at TotalPopularMusic.Blogspot.com, starting December 23, when it makes its official debut. The "Super Sixty Airplay" chart expands and replaces what had been a Top 20 Airplay listing for the TPM Mass Appeal Hit Music format, offered by Mark Harris Broadcast Consulting. Full total airplay data, for the current and prior weeks, for all songs on the main TPM chart -- "The Super Sixty" -- is available on the new offering. The "Total Popular Music" format, which debuted in 2007, bridges the CHR-Top40 and Hot Adult formats for its "mass appeal approach" and utilizes combined airplay data from the two components to establish a "total popular" formula. For now, the original chart, with its existing format (including "on demand" for each song listed), will also continue, available only at TotalPopularMusic.com's welcome page. That page also includes featured new songs, Hitbounds, and a 50-position TPM Hit Music Recurrents listing. More changes, however, are planned as airplay data increasingly is utilized to establish "credibility which cannot be challenged" for the format. MHBC notes that the introduction of the "Total Popular Music" format came before (and actually helped spur) changes in both component formats in the past three years which bring them closer together, with songs and artists more frequently crossing over from each to the other. "I said five years ago that this was the inevitable future of popular music Hit Music Radio programming in a PPM-world," says Mark Harris. "Some, who laughed at the concept in 2007 and 2008, have now adopted the concept, but not my specific format, and its exclusive programming formula which isn't published. And they are now among those who say my concept is 'in widespread use so its no longer necessary.' But the revolution in Hit Music Radio programming is not over yet. My TPM format will continue to lead the way, not react to industry changes."