Billboard Singles Radio Action research?

With the 10/20/1984 issue of Billboard, the Billboard
Singles Radio Action feature became "Hot 100 Singles
Radio Action" and "Hot 100 Singles Retail Action". With
this change came a dramatic reduction in the station-
level song detail reported - rather, the new features
rolled up the most added 3 songs per region.

Prior to this (at least back through the beginning of the
eighties), Billboard Singles Radio Action provided
station-level adds on a weekly basis. A few questions on
these lists:

1) Is it fair to say that the reporting stations here
were all CHR format/in line with the Hot 100?

2) Has anyone compiled research on songs appearing on
these lists which did not make the Hot 100/Bubbling Under
charts? (I'm primarily interested in the 80s, but curious
about any research here)

3) Were these lists redundant to lists of adds published
in other industry publications of the time such as R&R or
Gavin?

Thanks for any feedback.

westofrome wrote: 3) Were these lists redundant to lists of adds published in other industry publications of the time such as R&R or Gavin?

For the most part, yes. The adds were usually the same, but there could be some variances with what BB called
the "prime movers."

Then again, every once in a while there'd be a curveball. For example, the 11/1/80 BB showed WLS-AM (Chicago)'s
five prime movers as Kenny Rogers' "Lady," the Vapors' "Turning Japanese," Boz Scaggs' "Look What You've Done To
Me," Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," and Donna Summer's "The Wanderer." Seems reasonable, until you
look at the comparable issue of R&R (10/24/80) and find that WLS wasn't even playing the Stevie Wonder
and Donna Summer songs. (And R&R didn't even have "Lady" as one of the significant movers, although at least
WLS was playing it.) My guess is that someone at BB looked at WLS' survey that week (which listed songs that
WLS was both playing and not playing) and just took the five most significant upward movements regardless of
accuracy.

Which I guess gives new meaning to the term "paper adds."

Edited by sriv94

Oh and on a similar topic to paper adds, I've always wondered (and no one can
really answer this) how accurate a radio station's top 30 survey was, e.g. could
a song at #7 been played more than the #1 song that week, or #29 played
more than #21? Does anyone have any insight on this?

I also wonder how songs the station might be embarrassed by (e.g. Feelings,
You Light Up My Life) were represented on the local top 40 surveys. For
example, were they played like #1 hits but only charted at #9 or #10 because
they didn't want to look unhip as a radio station? Or could the reverse be true -
charted high (maybe #1) on the local chart due to national popularity but not
played nearly as much as a #1 song because they viewed the song as unhip. It
could work either way!