Calling William Safire: If a Top 40 Station Plays Alternative Rock . . .

If you’re hearing alternative rock by Pearl Jam, the Cranberries and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the radio, you must be tuned in to KROQ-FM, right?

Surprise.

The groups are also being heard now in the heart of mainstream pop radio: KIIS-FM.

In the never-ending search for higher ratings, KIIS and an increasing number of other Top 40 stations around the country are turning to alternative rock to bolster their playlists, which were once dominated by disposable dance artists.

“The mainstream sales of these kind of records makes them Top 40 friendly,” says KIIS program director Jeff Wyatt. “The very definition of Top 40 is that it plays the hits of the marketplace.”

KIIS plays most of its alternative music--which Wyatt “very loosely” estimates at 18% to 20% of the station’s playlist--at night. But when a song becomes popular enough it will be played at any time of the day--even morning mainstream deejay Rick Dees is currently playing the Gin Blossoms and 10,000 Maniacs.

KIIS’ once-slumping New York counterpart Z100 has seen its alternative-music experiment pay off handsomely with a massive jump in the Arbitron ratings. Amid songs by Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, listeners can now hear liberal doses of 4 Non Blondes, Nirvana, Gin Blossoms and the Breeders as well as Pearl Jam and the Chili Peppers.

“We needed to bring back the passion (listeners) felt for stations like this in the past,” says Steve Kingston, Z100 vice president/director of operations and programming. “If pop radio stations were a little more adventurous a little sooner, they probably would be reaping the rewards Z100 has.”

Other mainstream Top 40 outlets are noticing. Stations in Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans have leaned alternative and all are watching their ratings grow.

“Top 40 stations have learned that when they are dependent on dance music it is only a song-driven format. There is no loyalty to the artist,” says Scott Wright, program director of B97 in New Orleans, which plays R.E.M., the Cranberries, Pearl Jam and other alternative staples alongside Bryan Adams, Phil Collins and Meat Loaf. “The Pearl Jams, Nirvanas and 10,000 Maniacs of the world have real fans. People like the artists.”

While members of the alternative community are happy to see their longtime favorites succeed, many are critical of the way the success has come.

“People who are into this music resent the fact that a station like KIIS-FM jumps on the bandwagon and begins playing these records. They call them posers,” says Kevin Weatherly, program director of KROQ and a former Top 40 programmer himself.

“To the young people, KIIS is a dinosaur radio station that has gone through many different variations of Top 40 in the past six years. This is just another feeble attempt at trying to capitalize on what’s successful.”