The Bay Area has been taken by surprise over the last year by the success of CBS’ KMVQ (Now 99.7), which evolved from Rhythmic Hot AC, becoming the first true Mainstream Top 40 success story in that market in nearly 30 years. KMVQ has see-sawed with longtime Rhythmic Top 40 outlet KYLD (Wild 94.9) which held both franchises for many years. Two months ago, Wild led with a 4.9 share 6-plus. In the just -released September PPM, KMVQ had a 4.8 to Wild’s 3.8. In October, KYLD was third with a 4.6, Hip-Hop sister KMEL was up 4.2 - 4.5, and KMVQ went 4.8 - 4.4.

Tampa is the market that has gotten the attention lately. It has a traditional incumbent and challenger. But San Francisco, where both stations have evolved to their current position, may be the fiercest CHR war nationally, on the evidence of what’s heard here.

Wild 94.9 is still a Rhythmic Top 40 reporter to the trades, although as our latest round of “Top 40 Punch Wars” shows, Wild and Now are clearly direct competitors at the moment. Wild is billing itself as “The Bay’s Hit Music Station.” Now is from the same rhythmic pop camp (or KAMP) as L.A. sister Amp 97.1. And as the Rhythmic format grabs more Mainstream CHR titles, the distinction is minimal. Only one song in the hour in question here on either station could really be thought of as owned by the Rhythmic format. After a lengthy dry spell for Top 40 in San Francisco, there are now three stations (including KREV) that can be said to effectively be Mainstream Top 40.

“Punch Wars” is the ongoing Radio-Info.com series of articles that takes the same hour of two competing stations and matches them song-for-song based on who’s playing the best choice at any given moment. As programming-to-PPM takes hold and playlists shrink, our battles have only become tighter, as “bad records” become harder to find.

As we did in our last “Punch Wars,” we enlisted three judges to evaluate the 1 p.m. hour on Oct. 25. Judges weren’t told what markets or stations were involved. This time, two of our judges were CHR PDs. The third was a industry female in her mid-20s who is a core Top 40 listener, but not directly involved with a CHR station. The two PDs were asked to use their programming judgment—informed by callout and MScore, but not driven solely by research . Our third judge was asked to vote for the song that she would listen to. As it happens, half of the rounds were scored unanimously, and there was only one case where our listener differed with both PDs.

It is indicative of this old-style battle in that neither station won a round by being in music when the other was in a stopset. Now 99.7 stopped at :14 and :42. Wild stopped at :13 and :42. Because Wild’s four-minute stopset at :13 was first, it was back into music sooner than Now’s four-minutes. In the second stopset, Now had an extra minute of spots, and Wild came back a minute sooner. That said, in both cases, Wild came back with the song that took the round anyway. And because this is an old-style battle, both stations run stagers about getting back to the music faster.

The winning song in each round is asterisked. As usual, “Punch Wars” is intended for entertainment only—a chance for programmers to enjoy concentrating only on who has the best song at the moment amidst their hectic schedules. It’s not a referendum on the long-term fate of any song. And now, let the battle begin:

Song #1

Now: LMFAO, “Party Rock Anthem”*
Wild: Maroon 5 f/Christina Aguilera, “Moves Like Jagger”

The song of the summer beats the current No. 1 in the battle of the titans. Our listener, not a fan of “Jagger” is the swing vote, siding with a PD who sees the still strong LMFAO as less polarizing.

Song #2A

Now: Jason Derulo, “It Girl”
Wild: Eminem & Rihanna, “Love The Way You Lie”*

Song #2 B

Now: Chris Brown, “Yeah 3X”
Wild: Eminem & Rihanna, “Love The Way You Lie”*

The longer Eminem overlapped with most of each song on Wild and won against both of them, unanimously in the case of “It Girl.”

Song #3

Now: Gym Class Heroes f/Adam Levine, “Stereo Hearts”*
Wild: LMFAO, “Sexy And I Know It”

There’s excitement around the fast-breaking LMFAO, although one of our PDs had seen more positive empirical evidence on the song than the other. But even the most enthusiastic of the PDs noted that “Stereo Hearts” was the power. It won 2-1.

Song #4

Now: Katy Perry, “The One That Got Away”*
Wild: Rihanna, “Cheers (Drink To That)”

Our listener was the swing vote here. One PD felt Katy was thus far unproven. The other felt “Cheers,” pulled while it was still growing to make room for “We Found Love,” “was never a hit.” But “Cheers” is still playing on both Bay Area Top 40s.

Song #5

Now: Mike Posner, “Please Don’t Go”
Wild: Ke$ha, “Tik Tok”*

There wasn’t a ton of enthusiasm for either recurrent, although the bigger-hit-at-the-time won. “Ug-lee,” said our listener. “Almost a tie,” said one PD, who went with Ke$ha, the 2-1 winner.

Song #6

Now: David Guetta f/Usher, “Without You”*
Wild: Tyga f/Chris Brown, “Far Away”

A rhythmic hit, “Far Away” has shown surprising legs in a number of markets. It’s still the No. 2 song on Wild, although Now isn’t playing it. It may have been at a slight disadvantage here, being rated by participants who couldn’t gauge the excitement in the market. That said, “Without You” would be hard for all but a few songs to beat right now, and it won unanimously.

Song #7

Now: B.O.B., “Airplanes”
Wild: Katy Perry, “Teenage Dream”*

One PD judged this pretty much a tie between two proven smashes, but he still opted for Perry, as it turned out did all our judges.

Song #8

Now: LMFAO, “Sexy And I Know It”*
Wild: Jason Derulo, “It Girl”

In this more evenly matched battle, LMFAO wins unanimously this time against the solid but less flamboyant contender.

Song #9

Now: Adele, “Someone Like You”*
Wild: 2pac, “California Love”

PPM loves tempo and variety? Adele was the undeniable and unanimous winner, although both our listener and a PD expressed concern about its likely burn in a few weeks. That said, even though I would have voted for Adele, “California Love” was the song that I wanted to listen to (especially in an hour of hearing several songs twice), and Now plays it as well.

Song #10

Now: Maroon 5 f/Christina Aguilera, “Moves Like Jagger”*
Wild: Bruno Mars, “It Will Rain”

“This is the hardest one yet,” said one of our PDs, characterizing the match-up as a current No. 1 vs. future No. 1. Both PDs chose Maroon, the listener went with Bruno.

Song #11

Now: Pussycat Dolls, “Buttons”
Wild: Pitbull, “Give Me Everything”*

“This is the most lopsided one,” said the same PD, helping the panel vote unanimously for Pitbull. That said, it was remarked at various times that it was hard to imagine any true gold title (as opposed to say, a 15-month current like “Love The Way You Lie”) that could take on any of the recent mega-smashes.

Song #12

Now: Ke$ha, “Tik Tok”
Wild: Adele, “Someone Like You”*

“Tik Tok” was Now’s call-to-win song, but Adele was, again, unstoppable and the unanimous winner.

Song #13

Now: Rihanna, “We Found Love”
Wild: Rihanna, “We Found Love”

“We Found Love” is already a power and the most-played song on Now. Obviously, we counted this one as a tie, although if you care about those things, it started about 10 seconds sooner on Wild—or at least on its stream.

Song #14

Now, Diddy, “Coming Home”*
Wild: Usher, “Love In This Club”

“Love In This Club” has returned to Top 40 radio as Usher’s stock has rebounded over the last year, and drew an approving “hmmm” from one PD (as well as a vote). But Diddy won 2-1.

The final tally. 15 songs on Now, 14 songs on Wild. Depending on whether you count Eminem twice, Now either wins 8-5 or 8-6, because of the one song (Rihanna) that played on both simultaneously.

Do you agree with our judges? Leave a comment here.