Billboard Dance Music Summit 2003 - Hear Me Now (The radio panel)

"Hear Me Now," the radio panel, started with Michael Ellis of Billboard Airplay/Monitor introducing the new Dance Radio chart. Airplay from 8 major market stations will be used to compute the chart and help focus mainstream stations on the important dance records. Rhythmic crossover stations have moved towards hip-hop such that even with every dance station on the same record, it still couldn't chart. In the past year, there are finally enough major-market dance stations to do a breakout chart. He sees the radio chart as an important addition to the dance music page because though the sales chart is legitimate, the numbers are small and "club chart positions has no bearing on radio station play." The new chart will debut on October 17th in Airplay Monitor and on the 25th in Billboard. The stations making up the new panel are WKTU (New York), WQSX (Boston), WPYM (Miami), KDLD (Los Angeles), KKDL (Dallas), KPTI (San Francisco), KCJZ (San Antonio), and KNRJ (Phoenix).

Radio stations was broken down by the panel as first tier (cable and satellite) and second tier (terrestrial/traditional radio). The first tier is much more aggressive because they don't have to sell ads. Seth Neiman who programs the dance channels on Music Choice said that if a record is new to me, it's new to my audience and if it's good that they need to hear it. The second tier is more mainstream for the average civilians. Alex Santa Maria (KNRJ) found because of his location that he has to hold on to dance records longer so they impact as opposed to hip-hop records which go in and out faster with impressions. Andre Ferro (WXXP/WLIR) mentioned that it was ironic that we are relying on commercials to break dance music on radio.

The panelists were asked what they see as their next big records. Blake Lawrence (XM Satellite) mentioned Widelife "All Things (Theme from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy)" and InGrid "You Promised Me (Tu es Fouto)." Andre Ferro responded with Paul Van Dyk's new single "Time of Our Lives." Alex mentioned a local record by Big Bang "Horny All the Time" and Seth Neiman from Music Choice said he expected big things from Kurtis Mantronix "How Did You Know" record.