Rhythmic Airplay
American music chart published by Billboard magazine
The Rhythmic Airplay chart (previously named Rhythmic Songs, Rhythmic Top 40 and CHR/Rhythmic) is an airplay chart published weekly by Billboard magazine.
The chart tracks and measures the airplay of songs played on US rhythmic radio stations, whose playlist includes mostly hit-driven R&B/hip-hop, rhythmic pop, and some dance tracks. Nielsen Audio sometimes refers to the format as rhythmic contemporary hit radio. The current number-one song on the chart is "Ah Ha" by Cardi B.
History
Billboard magazine first took notice of the newly emerged genre on February 27, 1987, when it launched the first crossover chart, Hot Crossover 30. It originally consisted of thirty titles and was based on reporting by eighteen stations, five of which were considered as pure rhythmic. The chart featured a mix of urban contemporary, top 40 and dance hits. In September 1989, Billboard split the Hot Crossover 30 chart in two: Top 40/Dance and Top 40/Rock, the latter of which focused on rock titles which crossed over. By December 1990, Billboard eliminated the chart because more top 40 and R&B stations were becoming identical with the rhythmic-heavy playlist being played at the crossover stations at the time.
Billboard revived the chart in October 1992 as Top 40/Rhythm-Crossover, with the first number one being "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. On June 25, 1997, it was renamed to Rhythmic Top 40 as a way to distinguish stations that continued to play a broad based rhythmic mix from those whose mix leaned heavily toward R&B and hip-hop.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rhythmic Airplay” is american music chart published by Billboard magazine. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rhythmic, Airplay and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1325418. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhythmic Airplay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.