Halfway Into 2026, AC, News/Talk Still Top PPM Formats.

At the top of the rankings of Nielsen’s most-listened-to radio formats during the first half of 2026 — based on Inside Radio’s analysis of average-quarter-hour share data in PPM markets, covering Monday-Sunday 6am-midnight — news/talk remains a comfortable first place among persons 6+, while adult contemporary leads among 18-34 and 25-54. While AC ranks second 6+, with news/talk the runner-up for 25-54s, the latter format comes in tenth for 18-34s.

The key question: how is each format trending? For all three demos, AC is basically flat, whether the comparison is year-over-year or from January-to-June 2026. While news/talk’s trend varies by demographic, the format isn’t growing in any of the three. For 6+, it’s down year-over-year 6+ (10.5-10.1) with a more dramatic decline Jan.-June (10.6-9.7), while 25-54 shows a similar but less significant trend either way (6.5-6.2 year-over-year, 6.3-6.0 year-to-date). 18-34 shows year-over-year flat, with year-to-date down 0.4 (4.1-3.7).

Contemporary Christian still has the best growth story across all demos, with steady year-over-year gains going back to 2022 for both 6+ and 25-54, while 18-34’s share is flat from the first half of 2025. Year-to-date, 6+ and 18-34 are up noticeably, while less so for 25-54.

For 6+ and 25-54, hot AC has a good year-over-year story, up from 4.3-4.7 for the former and 5.3-5.7 for the latter, while flat 18-34 (5.4-5.4) and down year-to-date (5.8-5.1). Both classic hits and modern/alternative rock are generally up in all demos, although not in both measures.

Only two other formats — classic rock and Spanish regional Mexican – are downtrending in these demos, one way or other. Classic rock’s year-over-year is 5.3-4.9 for 6+, 5.1-4.4 18-34 and 4.8-4.4 25-54. Spanish regional Mexican, meanwhile, has a year-to-date trend of 3.2-2.7 among 6+, 3.7-2.8 18-34 and 4.3-3.6 25-54.