Oldies, Adult Hits and Nostalgia music formats

Oldies
Playlists include popular hit songs from the 50's, 60's and 70's. It is not out of the ordinary for such stations to focus on a specific decade or two of music.

Classic hits
Playlists include popular music from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It is not uncommon for this format to include classic rock music within the playlists. There is a thin line between the oldies and classic hits format and many times it is simply the marketing angle the station selects.

Adult hits
Playlists include popular music from the 1970s through today and included pop, rock and/or dance music. These stations tend to play about 10% of current top 40 music with the rest from decades past.

CHR-80s
Playlists of this format include popular music specifically from the 1980s, sometimes the early 1990s but may include a slant toward rock music or dance music.

Standards
Also known as nostalgia or adult standards, this format plays popular contemporary and soft music from the 1930's through the 1960's but may include big band and swing music.

Big band
Also termed swing (depending on the decade), this format is similar to standards, except the music spans from the 1920's through the 1940's and is more upbeat. It is common for programming segments of this format to appear on non-commercial stations and college run stations.

Oldies in other languages
In markets with large Hispanic communities, it is common for the above formats to include playlists with heavy concentrations of Spanish language popular music, such as "oldies-español", "classic hits-español" and "adult hits-español."
In eastern Canada, there are numerous stations with playlists of French language popular music from decards past ("oldies-French").

MOR
Stands for 'middle of the road', this format was popular in decades past but has become all but extinct in today's radio world. This format combines news, information and music together. Music playlists include popular songs of the time (most of which are played on oldies and adult standard stations today).

Other oldies formats
In addition to the above, several more oldies formats are defined and explained throughout these listings. These different types include "rhythmic oldies" (see under urban formats), "urban oldies" (see under urban formats), and "classic rock" (see under rock format).