Site TOPHIT.RU promulgates data about most popular hits and artists of 2008

The site TOPHIT.RU has tallied up the musical radio results of the year 2008.

On January 20 the seven summary annual radio-charts, which reflected the basic tendencies, set in the radio airs of Moscow, Russia, the CIS countries and the Baltic States throughout the last year, were published.

Super-performers and super-hits of year. Who beat whom to the punch in 2008?    

Dima Bilan, who about 2 years or so ago had been the leader of all the radio-rotations, has been gradually disappearing out of airs in 2008. But, to be frank, the speed of his honking out differed in the regions and Moscow. If last year Dima had taken rather a worthy 6^th place in the Tophit Singers 50 list and been left behind only by MakSim, the bands “Band’eros” and “Vintazh”, this year Bilan could hardly hold any position, taking the last but one, pitiful for the Eurovision winner 49^th place.

The artists, who didn’t leave the ranks of the performance ratings, are the participators of the project “Band’eros” (3^rd place – on the general list, 8^th one – in the Moscow chart), Stas Pjekha (10^th place – in Tophit Singers 50 and 19^th one – in Moscow Tophit Singers 50) and “Serebro” (11^th place – in Tophit Singers 50 and 31^st – Moscow Tophit Singers 50).

As for the tracks, which were the most frequently rotated in the Moscow radio airs, this big picture can be variously interpreted. The first six positions of the Moscow annual radio chart Moscow Tophit 200 are held by foreign singles.

And the 1^st place on the Russian radio hits’ list (and 7^th one – in the general overview) is taken by the single “Moscow Never Sleeps”, written by the participators of the project DJ Smash feat. Fast Food. Namely this track has become an absolute leader of Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 (RUS). It’s noteworthy that the regions didn’t especially welcomed the track, in which it’s sang “ya lyublyu tebya Moskva (I love you, Moscow)”.

The second most frequently rotated in Moscow track among the other ones became the composition “Ya nazovu planetu”, performed by Sofia Rotaru.   

 “Manhattan” of the band “Band’eros” took the 3^rd place of Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 (RUS) as well as of Airplay Detection Tophit 200 (RUS).

In the regions such artists as Irakli, Sogdiana and Dmitry Koldun were constantly rotated. The Moscow radios frequently broadcast the songs, performed by Leonid Agutin, Sergey Trofimov, Alla Pugacheva and the band “Gorod 312”.

The stars Sergey Lazarev, Valerij Miladze, “ViaGra”, “Chaj vdvoem” and Christina Orbakajte” slightly waned last year. Yliya Savicheva, Dmitry Malikov, “Blestyashie”, Philipp Kirkorov, “Hi-Fi”, “Fabrika”, “Korni” and “Zveri” have exchanged the first one for the second performance “fifty”.   

And the top positions of the hit-parades are occupied by the new-comers. Who are they, the artists, who pressed the eminent stars in the radio airs? We’ll enumerate some of them.

First of all, it’s the project of the composer, poet and performer Aleksey Romanov “Vintazh” (5^th place – in the general performance list and 20^th one – in the Moscow chart).

Secondly, it’s DJ Smash with the compositions “Moscow Never Sleeps” and “Volna” in its multiple variations and reincarnations. It wasn’t especially often broadcast in the regions, but, on Moscow performance list, otherwise, it took the 9^th place of honour.

One can also mention here the band “T9” (17^th place – in Tophit Singers 50).

Then comes the project “Infinity & D.I.P. Project”, which nursed the public thanks to the single “Gde ty?” and the Moscow radio station DFM. A bit later, the track drew attention of other broadcasters, and, as a result, “Infinity & D.I.P. Project” became the 32^nd on the list of the most rotated throughout the last year artists.     

The list of the new-comers, obviously, wouldn’t be full, if not mention the effective duet “BiS” (24^th place – in Tophit Singers 50). The leavers of the Stars’ Factory n.a. Konstantin Meladze easily managed to move their more distinguished colleagues.

One more surprise of the season became Tanya. Just Tanya. Thanks to the superhuman rotation efforts, particularly, of the Moscow “Europe plus”, the ex-dancer of “Hi-Fi” took the 24^th place in the general radio airplay and the 30^th one – on the list of the most rotated on the Moscow air artists. And the track “Oblomki chuvstv”, in which Tanya raises awareness about the fact, that “chernyj yashik … peredast”, takes the 4^th place in Airplay Detection Tophit 200 (RUS) and the 2^nd one (!) in Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 (RUS).

To make the scale of the event more realizable, we’d mark that Tanya was broadcast much more cheerfully than Kristina Orbakajte, Valeriya and Alla Pugacheva, not to speak of Kylie Minogue, who is the alien to the Russian nature.           

And the artist, who beat everyone to the punch, appeared to be Marina Maksimova, known as MakSim to the world. As it happened last 2007 year, she took the top places in the general Russian radio airs (2^nd position in Tophit Singers 50, and 1^st one – foreign performer – Morandi), the Moscow radio airs, and particular ones (the 7^th place in Moscow Tophit Singers 50).

The three hits of hers were the most frequently rotated – “Moj raj”, “Luchshaya pesnya” and “Nauchus letat”. The last single mentioned sounded on the air of the radio-stations, partners of www.tophit.ru, more than 400.000 times, and the total number of the three tracks’ broadcast exceeded 770.000 times!

And, though the track “Vdokh-vydokh” of the band “T9” was rotated a bit more often than “Nauchus letat”, according to the total number of the three tracks’ rotation, Maksim turned out to be an absolute leader of 2008.

One more noteworthy thing is connected with the fact, that on the Moscow list of the most frequently rotated artists MakSim gave one higher position to Sofia Rotaru (6^th place in Moscow Tophit Singers 50 with 12 (!) hits rotated). Exactly thanks to this circumstance, one can confidently speak about an absolute “rotation” victory of Sofia Mikhajlovna in 2008, having in mind the group of the artists, who embarked upon the showbiz career yet in the times of the blessed standstill. But the details of it will be further said, when it comes to the radio-air tendencies.

It’s time we should tally up the results and enumerate the winners of 2008. Let’s enumerate in brief the best performers and radio-singles and also the winners of some less formal nominations:       

The most frequently rotated artist – Morandi (3 singles, over 950.000 airs)

The Russian most frequently rotated artist – MakSim (4 singles, over 770.000 airs)

The most frequently rotated single – “Angels” Morandi (over 570.000 airs)

The Russian most frequently rotated single – “Vdokh-vydokh (Oda nashey lyubvi)”, the project T9 (over 440 airs)

The most frequently rotated singer in Moscow – Morandi

The Russian most frequently rotated artist in Moscow – Sofia Rotaru

The most frequently rotated single in Moscow – “Angels” Morandi

The Russian most frequently rotated single in Moscow – “Ya nazovu planetu”, Sofia Rotaru

The most frequently rotated new artist of 2008 – DJ Smash (Singles “Moscow never sleeps”, “Volna”)               

The most long-rotated single – “Uletai”, the band “Mashina vremeni” (throughout 24 months since January 2007)

The greatest number of singles rotated – Alla Pugacheva (21 singles)

The disappointed hope of 2008 – Voron

We’d like to underline that all the above mentioned “marks” can be deemed fair in the frames of the year 2008, since January till December inclusive. The terms of the new songs’ rotations can rarely coincide with the calendar seasons, should one shift the time frames even for a month, the situation for many artists can change better or worse.

One more important fact is that, if the performer’s status changes on the radio-air, it doesn’t mean immediate change of his/her “value” in the rest parts of the music market (i.e. concerts, physical carriers, etc.). However, the evolution of the artist’s radio status changes can allow to exactly forecast his/her possible future for 2-3 years head.

Nevertheless, there’re some performers, whose compositions do not fade over time. This case is strongly exemplified with the band “Mashina vremeni”. In January 2009 the single “Uletaj”, performed by “Mahsina vremeni” celebrated 2 years of active radio-rotation!   

Came under notice tendencies. Is radio “getting older”?   

All-in-all, the charts Moscow Airplay Tophit 200, Moscow Tophit Singers 50 and Tophit Singers 50 time and again prove that the Moscow network radio-stations (surely except for the Russian Radio) remain the major promoters of the foreign music in Moscow and Russia.

On the Moscow radio air the coverage percentage of the performing Russian artists is constantly getting lower many years running. As a result, only 19 Russian performers out of 50 are present in Moscow Tophit Singers 50 Yearly! The rest 30 plus singers of the Moscow top 50 perform their compositions in foreign languages and, particularly, in English.

This presents one of the sharpest contradictions, appeared in the Moscow radio-air in 2008. The foreign artists arouse the most interest of the young listeners. But the youth doesn’t listen to the radio much, and is heavily oriented to the Inet, mobile technologies and other means of musical content delivery.

On the whole, taking into account the radio-stations, tophit.ru partners, the Russian and foreign singers are equally present in TOP 50. The same picture could be observed earlier – in 2007.    

Obviously, maintaining such a balance against the presence of a great part of the foreign performers in the Moscow radio-air became possible thanks to growing rotation of the Russian music in the regions.

Another evident conclusion is that the radio-air is mostly programmed for adults, if not to say the elderly persons. In this sense, Sofia Rotaru’s victory in the Moscow radio-space is very demonstrative.

Despite of the fact, that the number of new compositions grows year by year, and, consequently, it’s getting much more difficult to put a track of a new performer into the Moscow, for instance, broadcast. Many radio-stations don’t have any exact ether-policy, and the keystone of music editors and program directors is “nothing needs to be changed, if we’re still listened to”. 

As a result, many new talented artists leave for the other mass media and, particularly, the Inet, and the part of the young listeners is lessening, and the radio-audience is getting older on the whole.

If such a tendency keeps on developing in several years to come, one can expect significant decrease of the broadcasting radio-stations’ audience percent and of advertisers’ interest in radio, and, consequently, falling incomes of broadcasters.

The last thing left to hope for is that this pessimistic forecast won’t come true and, in reality, 2009 will bring better results.

However, one can keep analyzing and comparing the radio-charts data on and on, but the only clear thing about it is that the ably performed composition, brought on time to www.tophit.ru for its following distribution to radio-stations, has a fair chance to join the lists of the summary radio-charts in the end of the year!

And again TOPHIT.RU team congratulate all those, who have read the final overview up to the end, with the New 2009 RadioYear!

The detailed information about the charts, the data of which was used for making up the final review, is present below.

 MOSCOW TOPHIT SINGERS 50 (category “Special charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_artists_msk.shtml

Moscow Tophit is published on the basis of the data of the 29 Moscow radio-stations and the audience-information of each of these stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, in Moscow in 2008. The performers are present in Moscow Tophit Singers 50 Yearly regardless of whether their compositions were distributed through www.tophit.ru or not.  

TOPHIT SINGERS 50 (category “Special charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_artists.shtml

Tophit Singers 50 Yearly is published on the basis of the data of the 420 radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, and includes data about 50 performers, which turned out to be the most frequently rotated throughout 2008. Tophit Singers 50 Yearly consists only of those artists, whose songs were got by the radio-stations through www.tophit.ru in 2008.  

MOSCOW AIRPLAY TOPHIT 200 YEARLY (category “Moscow charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_year_msk.shtml

This radio chart includes 200 tracks, which in 2008 had the greatest audience quantity, according to the results of rotation in the Moscow radio-air. Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 is published on the basis of the data of the 29 Moscow radio-stations and the audience information of each of these stations, TOPHIT.RU partners. The tracks are present in Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 Yearly regardless of whether they were distributed through www.tophit.ru or not. 

MOSCOW AIRPLAY TOPHIT 100 YEARLY (RUS) (category “Moscow charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_year_msk_rus.shtml

It’s the hit parade of 100 most popular Russian songs, which throughout 2008 had the greatest audience quantity, according to the results of rotation in the Moscow radio-air. This chart is a sampling out of Moscow Airplay Tophit 200 Yearly and published on the basis of the data of the 29 Moscow radio-stations and the audience information of each of these stations, TOPHIT.RU partners. The tracks are present in Moscow Airplay Tophit 100 Yearly regardless of whether they were distributed through www.tophit.ru or not. 

AIRPLAY DETECTION TOPHIT 200 YEARLY (category “Common charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_year.shtml 

It’s a consolidated radio chart of 200 most popular compositions in 2008. Namely these 200 tracks were most frequently broadcast by the 420 radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, in more than 700 cities and towns of Russia, the CIS countries and the Baltic States as well as abroad. Airplay Detection Tophit 200 Yearly present only those tracks, which were got by the radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, through www.tophit.ru in 2008.

AIRPLAY DETECTION TOPHIT 200 YEARLY (RUS) (category “Common charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_year_rus.shtml

It’s a consolidated radio-chart of 200 most popular Russian songs in 2008. These 200 hits were most frequently broadcast by 420 radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, in more than 700 cities and towns of Russia, the CIS countries and the Baltic States as well as abroad. Only those tracks participate in Airplay Detection Tophit 200 Yearly (Rus), which were distributed to the radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, through www.tophit.ru in 2008.

AUDIENCE CHOICE TOPHIT 200 YEARLY (category “Special charts”)http://www.tophit.ru/airplay_orders_year.shtml

This consolidated radio-chart, consists of 200 songs, which most frequently sounded in radio-air thanks to listeners requests in 2008. The chart is published on the basis of the data of 380 radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners (except for the Moscow and the Kiev ones). Audience Choice Tophit 200 Yearly include only those tracks, which were distributed to the radio-stations, TOPHIT.RU partners, through www.tophit.ru in 2008.