Nielsen PPM Shows Format Shifts After First Full Year of 3-Minute Qualifier.

With the release of Nielsen’s January 2026 survey comes the first year-over-year comparison reflecting the change to a three-minute listener qualifier — which became effective with the January 2025 book’s data — with an examination of how format shares have changed from a year ago.

Inside Radio’s analysis of average quarter-hour share data in PPM markets (covering Monday-Sunday 6am-midnight) shows that while there’s been some minor shuffling in the order of the top 10 formats among persons 6+ year-over-year — with urban AC replacing classic rock in the top five, up from sixth to fifth, and hot AC passing sports, from ninth to a three-way tie for sixth — there are more notable differences from last January among adults 18-34 and 25-54.

For 18-34s, classic hits moved up from seventh to fifth, while urban contemporary went from ninth to sixth and news/talk from 10th to eighth. Of those, only news/talk saw a significant share increase from a year ago, up 8%. 

Among 25-54s, the big change was modern/alternative rock’s move from outside the top 10, ranked 11th a year ago, up to seventh, gaining 13%. This may reflect several major market stations’ lean toward 90s grunge-alternative hits in the mix, to attract Gen Xers.

Year-over-year, when it comes to share growth, only one format stands out across the board: hot AC, up 7% 6+, 16% 18-34 and 8% 25-54. Other formats saw growth in just one of these demos. Aside from modern/alternative rock for 25-54, 16th-ranked classical was up 16% (1.9-2.2) in 6+, while for 18-34, aside from hot AC and news/talk, 11th-ranked Spanish regional Mexican saw a 9% gain (3.4-3.7) and 18th-ranked adult alternative was up 50% (1.0-1.5).

Three formats have declined in share in all three demos, vs. January 2025. Most notably, classic rock was off 12% 6+, 22% 18-34 as its rank fell from a tie for fifth to 10th, and 13% 25-54 where it went from a tie for seventh to just outside the top 10. Sports was down 11% 6+, 12% 18-34, and 6% 25-54. Finally, there’s Spanish contemporary, with declines of 22% 6+, 27% 18-34, and 24% 25-54.

CHR, which ranks second among 18-34s and third 25-54, also saw year-over-year losses, down 7% in the former demo and 8% in the latter. Other declining formats in these two demos include adult contemporary, off 7% 18-34, and news/talk, down 5% 25-54.

There’s one other notable year-over-year trend in each of these demos: total share of the top 10 formats is down vs. January 2025, with 1.2 share points lost for 6+, 1.4 for 18-34, and 0.7 for 25-54. How does that compare with the difference from January 2024 to that of 2025? Down 0.9 for 6+, up 0.1 18-34, and down 1.2 25-54, suggesting that overall, one of the effects of the three-minute qualifier change is more stations listened to for shorter periods of time.