iHeart Updating ‘Urban’ To ‘Hip-Hop/R&B’

• In an update to a movement that began in earnest a month ago after “Blackout Tuesday,” a July 2 Rolling Stone article addresses the ongoing music industry debate over the continued use — or eradication — of the format designation “Urban” (and its related term, Urban AC). It was last month when Republic Records announced it was removing the term “URBAN” from its verbiage in describing departments, employee titles and music genres. That announcement further stated, “We encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit, as it is important to shape the future of what we want it to look like, and not adhere to the outdated structures of the past.” Rolling Stone mentioned that iHeartMedia was indeed transitioning away from those format descriptions.

To that end, RAMP reached out to iHeartMedia for clarification on the discontinuation of “Urban,” and a spokesperson told us, “I can confirm we are no longer using it. The term ‘urban’ is definitely outdated — it was created back in the 1970s by the legendary DJ Frankie Crocker, one of the pioneers of black radio in New York. We have transitioned away from it and use more descriptive and specific names such as ‘Hip-Hop’ and ‘R&B’ for everything. We already didn’t use it to reference our Hip Hop and R&B stations as ‘Urban’ on the air, but now we are also no longer using the term ‘Urban’ internally or when referencing the format within the music industry. This includes job titles, etc.”

In line with those updated terms, we understand Mediabase will mirror that move by rebranding Urban as “Hip-Hop/R&B” and Urban AC as “R&B,” however, nothing is official quite yet. Stay tuned.