For years, it was the station most resistant to Top 40’s downturn. Earlier this week, as the April PPM ratings began to show just how brutal staying-at-home had been to CHR radio, WXKS (Kiss 108) Boston did it again: Even under dire circumstances, it became one of the few CHR stations that was tougher than tough times.

In 2017, I wrote a column called “What Top 40 Must Do Now.” At that time, CHR had become a format largely inhabited by four-share radio stations. Only two CHRs were No. 1 in the market that month, Kiss 108 and WNCI Columbus, Ohio. KDWB Minneapolis and WRVW (The River) Nashville, were No. 2.

Right around the time of the article, Kiss 108 had reclaimed the market lead from Classic Hits WROR. It won 16 of the next 20 months. Then WROR shifted its rock-lean to a more traditional Classic Hits format and returned to No. 1 for most of the following year. Last month, with listening habits disrupted, WROR was off 8.3-7.0, allowing Kiss to tie for the lead 6.9-7.0. This month, Classic Rock WZLX (5.2-6.3-7.5) was the market leader.

But Kiss 108 pulled off something few other CHRs did this month. It went up, 7.0-7.3. By contrast, KDWB was at a record low, off 4.5-3.5. WRVW fell 6.4-4.0. WNCI was only down 6.7-5.5, meaning that it’s still the fourth-highest-rated CHR in PPM. Other legendary CHRs such as WHTZ (Z100 New York and KRBE Houston joined KDWB in the threes. Some big brands, such as WHYI (Y100) Miami and KLUC Las Vegas, found themselves in the twos. Now, CHR was a format of three-share stations.

As Radioinsight’s Lance Venta has noted, March’s huge (and continuing) rises for News/Talk were followed by those for TSL-driven formats that leaned upper-demo, male, minority-targeted or some combination thereof. CHR was punished by the massive drops in cume that affected even those stations that gained share.

Beyond that, CHR was a format that had seemingly benefited in the early days of PPM from the ability to reach multiple meter-carriers in the same household. But even in 2017, the mother/daughter coalition that served CHR so well a decade ago was nearly dissolved. Once America had to stay home, there wasn’t even an occasional carpool where CHR might have been shared.

(In demo, things don’t always look as brutal. WBLI Long Island was off 4.4-3.8, 6-plus. It was up 5.8-6.9 25-54, but that normally very enviable rise seems dwarfed by a flood of TSL elsewhere.)

Any discussion of Kiss 108’s durability often turns to morning man Matty Siegel, and sometimes to the success of KQMV (Movin’ 92.5) Seattle and its morning stars Brooke & Jubal (now Brooke & Jeffrey). But WNCI, KDWB, and WRVW have big morning shows, too, which failed to buoy those stations.

On Thursday afternoon, the fourth day of PPM ratings were released. Heritage CHR WPRO-FM (92 PRO-FM) Providence, R.I. has slipped 7.3-7.1-7.0 over the last three months, but being nearly flat made it the second biggest CHR in PPM, followed by KQMV (5.4-5.8) and KHKS (Kiss 106.1) Dallas (6.0-5.3).

The likely CHR-programmer response is going to be just what Nielsen recommended to advertisers — treat these months as outliers, and expect both listening levels and market rank to stabilize at some point. (KQMV, in the first impacted market, hints at that with this month’s rebound.) But CHR’s old normal hadn’t been so great, either. So I took a Fresh Listen to Kiss 108 and 92-PRO-FM.

I heard PRO-FM on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Middayer Jessica was in afternoons this week. PRO-FM’s tone was relatively “business-as-usual,” although the first thing I head when I listened was an affecting 60-second promo thanking frontline workers, category by category — doctors and nurses, pharmacists, medical and cleaning staffs, first responders, military, teachers, postal workers, food service and grocery store employees. “You are the men and women keeping this country going at a time when we need you more than ever before.”

Even the virtual “Take-Out Tour” that Jessica was doing with the station’s restaurant sponsors this week took on a different tone — what would have been a routine sponsor tasting was now radio and restaurants trying to keep each other going during the downturn.

Here’s PRO-FM just before 4 p.m. on May 14:

• Bruno Mars, “24K Magic”
• Doja Cat, “Say So”
• Adele, “Water Under the Bridge”
• Sam Smith & Demi Lovato, “I’m Ready”
• DJ Snake & Alunageorge, “You Know You Want It”
• Justin Bieber, “Intentions”
• Powfu, “Coffee for Your Head”
• Chainsmokers f/5 Seconds of Summer, “Who Do You Love”
• Twenty One Pilots, “Level of Confusion”
• Taylor Swift, “Delicate”
• Roddy Ricch, “The Box”
• The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
• Drake, “Toosie Slide”
• Maroon 5, “Don’t Wanna Know”

When I took a “Fresh Listen” to WKRZ Wilkes-Barre, Pa., last week, it was clear that KRZ had become one of the few diary-market outlets to put its full-service “big station” heritage to use. Kiss 108 had clearly sprung into action as well. When I heard Kiss in afternoons, almost everything APD/MD Mikey V. did was geared to the audience’s new reality, including:

• Talking about sharing the listeners’ need to be informed to tease and then hand off to a news update from sister WBZ:
• Kicking off the hour with “Mikey V living that quarantine life with you … ”
• A listener phoner thanking him for “playing good tunes” through the crisis and two others with listeners answering the question “why are you happy?”
• Setting up Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” with “let’s not forget summer is going to come, and I think this is going to be song of the summer.”

There was a promo with Styles, Nick Jonas, and Camila Cabello about the need to stay home and protect the vulnerable, there were attitude sweepers about home haircuts, there was what sounded like a typical “listen on all your devices” promo, except that it began with Siegel declaring, “Remember, we’re always by your side.” It was the only mention of Matty in the hour I heard. While iHeart has stopped extending its morning shows to 11 a.m., there is now a recap hour of Siegel from 6-7 p.m.

Here’s Kiss 108 just before 3 p.m. on May 13:

• Black Eyed Peas X J Balvin, “RITMO (Bad Boys for Life)”
• Ariana Grande, “Breathin”
• Sam Smith & Normani, “Dancing With a Stranger”
• Blackbear, “Hot Girl Bummer”
• Maren Morris, “The Bones”
• Bruno Mars, “That’s What I Like”
• Justin Bieber f/Quavo, “Intentions”
• Doja Cat, “Say So”
• Harry Styles, “Watermelon Sugar”
• Khalid x Normani, “Love Lies”
• Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy”
• Pitbull f/Ne-Yo, “Give Me Everything”
• Surfaces, “Sunday Best”
• The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
• Benee f/Gus Dapperton, “Supalonely”
• Harry Styles, “Adore You”
• Bad Bunny f/Drake, “MIA”

CHR has come out of previous, less-dire crises with both boldness (Mike Joseph’s “Hot Hits” format on WCAU-FM Philadelphia in 1981) and brush strokes (KHKS evolving from Hot AC to become the first mid-‘90s success story, as the music got better and morning host Kidd Kraddick took hold). Recently, I’ve felt that only the boldness of a Hot Hits-type salvo can help the format right now, particularly in these unprecedented times that you’ve heard so much about.

But I’ve kept being returning in recent weeks by full-service CHRs working from the format’s heritage template — KRZ, Kiss 108, PRO-FM. I liked what I heard on WBLI recently, and if I listened to some of the other CHRs that were hit this month, I’m sure I’d hear some of them stepping up to both the format and community’s challenges in the same way. But I’ve also heard heritage CHRs that were jockless in middays and others where the morning team was extended to noon, but talking about particularly trifling morning show things. I’ve written that a determination to “do radio” counts for a lot now, particularly when radio is needed to serve. I feel that way more with each article.