Want a Radio Hit? First, Lose Those Guitars . . .

“I have seen the future of rock ‘n’ roll and it’s . . . adult-contemporary radio!” a record exec joked the other day.

He was exaggerating--but not as much as you might think. In the last year, and especially in recent months, adult-contemporary (AC) radio has become pop radio’s hottest format, both in rating surveys and with exasperated record company execs, who have found it increasingly difficult to break artists on oldies-dominated radio formats. For 16 months, L.A. radio’s No. 1-ranked station has been KOST-FM, which has dominated the local market with a format of familiar pop oldies and occasional current love ballads.

“It’s not elevator music anymore,” says Al Coury, general manager of Geffen Records and one of the industry’s reigning promotion wizards. “If Cher were a new artist today, coming out with a new ballad, we’d take it to AC radio first.

“The successful AC stations have really stretched the format to its broadest limits. If you look at the radio charts, you’ll see that with the exception of hard rock, the AC Top 10 isn’t any different than the contemporary hit radio (CHR) Top 10. It’s just a softer CHR.”

In fact, if you want evidence of the graying of rock ‘n’ roll, look no further than the AC Top 10, which has embraced such aging rock idols as Rod Stewart, Sting and Don Henley. Record companies are so eager to get artists on such stations as KOST that they now regularly make special AC mixes of their current singles, editing out harsh guitar sounds, mixing down the drums and bringing up the vocals to make the songs sound as syrupy as possible.

“We’re in an era where people want comfort and familiarity,” says KOST program manager Jhani Kaye. “The audience we’re aiming at, people 25 and older, are in a settling mode. We’ve found that 95% of adults who might tune into a typical CHR station can’t identify the current music being played. They’ve fallen off the cutting edge--they just don’t have the time to keep up with what’s going on in current music.”

To say that KOST’s audience has fallen off the cutting edge is putting it mildly. Record labels give AC stations special “airbrushed” mixes for good reason--Kaye refers to songs with loud guitars or annoying snare drums as music that “violates our intensity parameters.”

But with album-oriented rock (AOR) radio dominated by dinosaur-rock oldies and CHR radio focused on anonymous dance music, AC radio is one of the few reliable outlets for mature pop artists.

“If it wasn’t for AC radio, Oleta Adams wouldn’t have a gold record already,” says Mike Bone, co-president of Mercury Records. “They fell in love with her single, ‘Get Here,’ and helped it cross over to black music and pop stations.”

KOST is so strong here that it not only dominates the daytime audience but the nighttime too--its evening numbers matched or bettered KIIS-FM, the city’s leading CHR station. According to radio insiders, AC ratings have peaked for another reason: the Persian Gulf War.

“AC stations all around the country did particularly well (in the last Arbitron ratings book) while the war was on,” says Jeff Pollack, a top radio consultant who works with more than 100 stations and radio networks worldwide. “Men still went to news stations, but a lot of women went to AC radio. It’s a very secure, warm place to be in times of uncertainty.”

KOST’s success hasn’t been lost on the rest of the radio marketplace. Pollack says many CHR stations are experimenting with “soft CHR” formats by adding more AC-style oldies. Kaye doesn’t sound too worried about any new competition. “Adult listeners aren’t as fickle as young ones,” he says. “They’re creatures of habit. And we think if we do a good job of satisfying their expectations, they’ll stay in the habit of listening to us.”