According to author Jeffrey Lee Brothers in his book Hot Hits: AC Charts 1978 – 2001, "When CCM published music charts, it received data from a specific number of radio stations regarding the number of times a song was played.
This airplay data was then assigned points and weights based on the cumulative number of plays per song.
The AC charts have long covered the most radio stations in the Christian music industry.
When CCM first published its radio hits charts, AC was not a recognized format.
CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) and AC merged again on October 6, 1982 until CCM split them again on May 6, 1985 to reflect the current formats.