I'm just wondering if someone could answer this question....
What is the difference between Active, Mainstream Rock and Alternative? Taking a glance at the 7 day report they look almost 100% the same. If someone could please clear this mess up?
I'm just sayin'......

The first time that I heard the term "active rock" used was circa 1999-2000. "Alternative," on the other hand was in use in the early 1990s. In its heyday, "alternative," which was soon re-branded "modern rock," was a somewhat eclectic collection of hit music that avoided R&B-ish dance music and rap. Nirvana, James, Rusted Root, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Alanis Morrisette, et al. would have fit under the umbrella of alternative/modern rock. The old KNRK played this format.

Active rock had a harder, more focused sound that avoids the more eclectic elements of modern rock. Active rock also incorporates some established hard rock bands, such as AC/DC, that would not generally have been played on alternative/modern rock stations. KUFO plays the active rock format.

These descriptions are in no way authoritative, and I am not involved with the marketing of these radio formats. In other words, please feel free to correct me.

From my point of view:
Active rock plays hard rock, heavy on "90's to now" but with a selection of classic hard rock bands (Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, GnR, Crue, etc.)

Mainstream rock is similar, but heavier on the classic rock than the newer stuff.

Alternative... well... I almost think there should be an Alternative format, and a "New Rock" format. To me, Alternative is very much what KNRK plays... less mainstream, rock from more underground bands. Of course some mainstream stuff, but heavy on the lesser known stuff. New Rock, on the other hand, is much like Active Rock, but without the classic & 80's stuff. Basically 90's and newer rock music. KNRQ in Eugene is an example of this.

That's the way I look at it, anyway.

Names of formats vary wildly. Formats also change as the years go by.

The format breakdowns you see in trade magazines represent what the record companies think they should be, which is not always what those in the audience believe, which is not always what programmers believe!!

Alternative as a music format goes back to the 80's.
Alternative as a liner reference goes back to the 60's when early progressive rock stations wanted to dump the term "underground" because it became associated with pirate stations. I even remember the transition which had stations using the compound liner "underground alternative" as they morphed from "underground" to "alternative." Prevalent mostly in college radio but it crept into early 70's progressive rock radio.

In the late 1980s, the term "postmodern" was also popular for a short amount of time. The videos on MTV's 120 Minutes (Adrian Belew, Sugarcubes, etc.) would have fit that category. Postmodern as a music format was associated chiefly with university radio stations, as very few commercial radio stations were running this type of programming full-time back then.

When I was in Junior High school, I had a drafting teacher who was a big fan of WXXP 100.7, which was a Pittsburgh station that ran a "postmodern" format. We would sometimes listen to tapes of the radio station while working on drafting assignments, as the station could not be received in the valley where our school was located. He said that the postmodern format was short-lived and that a "bubblegum" format capable of gaining a larger audience was put in its place.

I had not considered the possibility that radio music format names, which are defined by broadcast industry people, might differ slightly from music chart names, which are defined by record promotions and marketing people.

KUFO used to be Active Rock. I was under the impression they had switched to Mainstream awhile back. They sound more musical to me, as I'm flipping by, than they did before the change.

Active Rock and Alternative are terms essentially defined by Radio and Records to determine which chart a given station's airplay and adds are reported to. They are terms which allow record companies and the trades to pigeonhole stations, determining which tunes they'll be heavily promoted on, which concerts they'll be offered ties to.

The trades do not use the term mainstream, but includes them under the Active Rock umbrella. No station fits it's pigeonhole perfectly, and the terms are seldom used by the listening public. They are internal labels.

To get a handle on it, study the charts for each format in R&R, and the stations that report to that chart. Should give you both an idea of how Pdx stations are pigeonholed, and how tightly they fit it.

Active Rock and Alternative are terms essentially defined by Radio and Records to determine which chart a given station's airplay and adds are reported to.

There playlists are almost identical though....

Anybody that says Active Rock and Alternative are almost identical clearly doesn't listen to rock radio. Sure there can be a lot of crossover, but they are definately different.

Hero...
I'm looking at Allaccess.com and the playlists are almost identical. Sorry if that bit of TRUTH doesn't settle with you I'm ONLY looking at what Mediabase 24/7 is saying.... Sorry!

Trix: Are you talking about the "Active Rock" and "Alternative" charts --which I think Hero is --, or KUFO's & KNRK's actual playlists?

If the latter, compare the playlists to the charts in R&R to find out which label "should" be applied to each station.

Back in '77, KGW continued to report as Top 40/CHR because that's what advertisers wanted, and record companies catered to -- even though the station had evolved into what was becoming known as Adult Contemporary.