Active rock
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Active rock is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations across the United States and Canada. Active rock plays alternative rock and current rock artists with a mix of songs common in the mainstream rock format.
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Format background [edit]
Sean Ross, editor of Billboard Airplay Monitor, described active rock in the late 1990s as album-oriented rock (AOR) "with a greater emphasis on the harder end of the spectrum".[1]
An active rock station may include songs by "Mainstream" artists in its playlist such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, The Melvins, Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, Kyuss and Stone Temple Pilots whereas a modern rock station would not. Conversely, unlike classic rock stations, an active rock station also plays music by popular current and new rock artists such as Three Days Grace, Staind, Trapt, Puddle of Mudd, Stone Sour, Seether, Shinedown, Disturbed, Chevelle, Godsmack, Hinder, Crossfade, Saving Abel, System of a Down, 10 Years, Submersed, Hed PE, Mudvayne, Korn, Bullet for My Valentine, Alter Bridge, Slipknot, Tool, Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold, P.O.D., Deftones, Sevendust and Limp Bizkit. They are also known for playing New Hard Rock such as Cavo, Adelitas Way, The Veer Union, Art of Dying, Pop Evil, Rev Theory, Redlight King, Egypt Central, Evans Blue, Volbeat, Hurt and Young Guns.
Similar to active rock stations, Mainstream Rock stations play current rock music, but emphasize Classic Hard Rock music over current rock songs.
A pioneering station of this format in the late 1980s was WIYY "98Rock" in Baltimore, Maryland. Other early adopters of this format by the beginning of the 1990s include stations KISS "99.5 KISS Rocks" in San Antonio, TX, WAAF in Boston, Massachusetts, WXTB "98Rock" in Tampa, Florida, WGIR (FM) "Rock 101" in Manchester, New Hampshire, KEGL "97.1 The Eagle", in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, and WJJO "Solid Rock 94.1 JJO" Madison Wisconsin. Satellite radio channels include Sirius XM Radio's Octane, and the gold-based Ozzy's Boneyard channel, also on Sirius XM Radio. Former counterparts prior to the November 12, 2008 Sirius/XM channel merger were XM's Squizz and Sirius's BuzzSaw. Australian radio network Triple M Network also uses this format. A later Internet radio station, Frogbox Radio, also began playing an Active rock format.
Active rock stations in Canada also include CFPL-FM in London, Ontario, CKQB-FM in Ottawa, Ontario, CJAY 92 in Calgary, Alberta, CFBR-FM in Edmonton, Alberta, CHTZ-FM in St. Catharines, Ontario, CJKR-FM in Winnipeg, Manitoba and CFXY-FM in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Active Rock chart [edit]
Active Rock is a chart published by Billboard that compiles the current hits on active rock radio stations and is used as a component for the Mainstream Rock chart. It is a forty-position chart and solely based on radio airplay. 59 active rock radio stations are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. Songs are ranked by a calculation of the total number of spins per week with its "audience impression", which is based upon exact times of airplay and each station's Arbitron listener data.
Songs receiving the greatest growth will receive a "bullet", although there are tracks that will also get bullets if the loss in detections doesn't exceed the percentage of downtime from a monitored station. "Airpower" awards are issued to songs that appear on the top 20 of both the airplay and audience chart for the first time, while the "greatest gainer" award is given to song with the largest increase in detections. A song with six or more spins in its first week is awarded an "airplay add". If a song is tied for the most spins in the same week, the one with the biggest increase that previous week will rank higher, but if both songs show the same amount of spins regardless of detection the song that is being played at more stations is ranked higher. Songs that fall below the top 20 and have been on the chart after 20 weeks are removed and go to recurrent status.
See also [edit]
- Classic rock - contributes to classic rock format, but more so than modern rock.
- Mainstream rock - like active rock, a mix of classic rock and modern rock, though trending closer to classic rock.
- Modern rock - contributes to modern rock format, but more so than classic rock.
References [edit]
- ^ Toby Eddings, "Active rock finds an Asylum at 93.5," The Sun News, Feb. 7, 1999.
External links [edit]
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