Urban Top 40
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Urban Top 40, also known as Urban Contemporary Hits, is another form of the Mainstream Urban format, and it is similar to Top 40 radio. It is usually geared toward a predominantly African American audience and can include Latino, Asian and Caucasian listeners. Radio stations using this format usually play a great deal of contemporary R&B and hip hop on a regular basis and on occasion, Reggae and Reggaeton and sometimes, even contemporary dance music.
Urban Top 40 had always been around and Billboard magazine coined this phrase in the 1990s when Urban music was expanding throughout the United States. In 1993 two stations that switched from Rhythmic Top 40 to an Urban Contemporary format were Hot 97 in New York and Power 106 (KPWR) in Los Angeles, both owned by Emmis Broadcasting and also began utilizing Urban Top 40 radio as well. Today WQHT continues in this direction. KPWR on the other hand shifted back to Rhythmic Contemporary in 2005.
