KZHT Salt Lake City was always something of a pop-leaning outlier among Clear Channel. It was the station that generally started not Hip-Hop crossovers but straight-ahead pop records. It was the station that would have, say, Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” in power by the time the rest of the country decided they had to play it.

Millcreek’s KUDD (Mix 107.9) Salt Lake City was a particularly aggressive Hot AC reporter that continued its evolution to Mainstream Top 40, where its heavy spins on mainstream pop product stuck out even more. It may be the most aggressive CHR station in a top 30 market and it has certainly made SLC the most aggressive of the top 30 markets. So this week, Salt Lake City becomes the third market examined in Radio-Info.com’s Punch Wars series. We listened to both stations just before 2 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 1.

Winning songs in each round are asterisked. If one station is in a stopset, the win goes to the station that’s playing music. The author’s opinion is effective at this writing—as you’ll see here, sometimes the difference between a winning and losing song is just hearing it for the second time in 45 minutes. No call-to-action by readers on individual titles at any other station is implied. You are invited to examine the song-by-song evidence and fervently agree or disagree below.

Let the punch wars begin:

Song 1

KUDD: Rihanna, “S.O.S.”*

KZHT: Kelly Clarkson, “Already Gone”

Clarkson still safe and strong, but a little novelty to hearing “S.O.S.”

Song 2

KUDD: Train, “Hey Soul Sister”*

KZHT: Justin Bieber, “Baby”

Bieber would beat most comers; Train is in its sweet spot now, especially on a station like this one.

Song 3

KUDD: Lady Gaga, “Paparazzi”

KZHT: Rihanna, “Hard”*

“Hard” is in between its initial excitement and becoming a confirmed smash, but has reached the point where it sounds right (and not so hard, as it happens) on the radio.

Song 4

KUDD: Owl City, “Vanilla Twilight”*

KZHT: Jay Sean, “Do You Remember”

In any other market, Jay Sean would be the more proven record, but Mix has been out front on “Twilight,” and KZHT is now playing it as well—the mark of a hit being when a record spreads within a market.

Song 5

KUDD: TLC, “No Scrubs”*

KZHT: Jay-Z f/Alicia Keys, “Empire State Of Mind”

“Empire” is burning for me, although New Yorkers had a month’s lead time on it. “Scrubs” is still a treat whenever I encounter it.

Song 6

KUDD: Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling”

KZHT: Boys Like Girls f/Taylor Swift, “Two Is Better Than One”*

“Two” has been getting the nod for me since our last punch wars column—and that was in 2009. And it was the morning after Swift won the Album of the Year Grammy.

Song 7

KUDD: Onerepublic, “All The Right Moves”*

KZHT: Britney Spears, “3”

Spears also hit fast in NYC and “3” feels more burned here than it perhaps might elsewhere. Onerepublic seems to be picking up some extra cred from Justin Sparks' co-authored “Battlefield,” which was another song that was slow to kick-in and slow to burn.

Song 8

KUDD: Jay Sean, “Do You Remember”*

KZHT: STOPSET (:18 – :23)

Song 9

KUDD: Rob Thomas, “Someday”

KZHT: Kris Allen, “Live Like We’re Dying”*

The battle of the thoughtful midtempo Modern AC records—still more excitement in Allen for the moment.

Song 10

KUDD: Beyonce, “Halo”

KZHT: Warren G & Nate Dogg, “Regulate”*

Even on a more Rhythmic station, “Regulate” would still come out of nowhere these days, and it certainly did here—a throwback to KZHT’s history as a Rhythmic Top 40.

Song 11

KUDD: STOPSET (:31 – :36)

KZHT: Orianthi, “According To You”*

KUDD Web-only stopsets are a mix of PSAs and spots for (mostly) current songs with Web-player links to purchase.

Song 12

KUDD: Owl City, “Fireflies”*

KZHT: Ne-Yo, “Closer”

Okay, I might have more than 30 minutes' artist protection on Owl City—no matter how hot both records are. But “Fireflies” still wins the gold/recurrent battle.

Song 13

KUDD: Selena Gomez, “Naturally”*

KZHT: Iyaz, “Replay”

The first time I'd actually heard Gomez on the radio and it popped for me in a way it had not out-of-context. You also hear the ‘80s synth aspect of the song in a market where '80s synth was a particularly key sound for a long time

Song 14

KUDD: The Script, “Breakeven”*

KZHT: STOPSET (:41 – :46)

“Breakeven” is starting to finally pop this week. A colleague refers to it as the great missing Sting record.

Song 15

KUDD: STOPSET (:47-:52)

KZHT: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”*

Song 16

KUDD: Jason DeRulo, “What'cha Say”

KZHT: Jesse McCartney, “Body Language”*

“Body Language” was a real hit for KZHT, 1200 spins and counting, and it’s back up in rotation there this week. At Mix, it’s down slightly this week — so far it’s at 400 spins.

Song 17

KUDD: Ke$ha, “Tik Tok”*

KZHT: Selena Gomez, “Naturally”

This one still goes to Ke$ha—not out of its No. 1 perch yet and diminished only slightly in the last two weeks by the availability of a new Ke$ha.

Song 18

KUDD: John Mayer, “Heartbreak Warfare”

KZHT: All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”*

Could've gone either way here. Rejects is the more proven record, but I haven’t quite recovered from being pounded with it last spring.

Final Total: KUDD 10 songs, KZHT 8 songs. I suspect there are more conservative graders out there who would have given some of these battles to the more proven record on ‘ZHT.

And now, your thoughts?