Going back to 2022, Inside Radio’s monthly analysis of Nielsen PPM cross-market average quarter-hour share data, covering Monday-to-Sunday 6am-midnight, suggests that adult contemporary and contemporary Christian are clearly trending up across the board, while news/talk, CHR and hot AC are headed down. But it isn’t that simple.
Comparing year-to-date format shares for the past three years in four key demographics — persons 6+, 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 — AC’s numbers are headed in the right direction in all four, most notably 18-34 (8.0-8.2-8.5), yet a by-survey look for 2024 shows AC down sharply since January in each of those demos. As that may be a regular seasonal trend for AC, it’s probably too early for any concern.
While Contemporary Christian has shown a steady uptrend since 2022 in all four demos, even 18-34 (2.3-2.7-3.0), there are notable downtrends over the past several months in every demo except 6+, the largest also among 18-34s, where share is down steadily since April (3.3-3.0-2.9-2.6).
The opposite situation is the case for news/talk, where the yearlies show, as they have for a while, a gradual decline, highest among 25-54s (7.4-6.1-5.7). But not so fast: news/talk’s June-to-July trends show the format will bounce back when there are major news stories, such as the attempted assassination of former President Trump and the countdown to President Biden’s decision to bow out of the 2024 Presidential race. Across the four demos, news/talk’s shares were up from 0.3 to 0.5 in July.
For sports stations, year-to-date shares are up for 6+ (4.1-4.3-4.4), but numbers have dropped significantly from January to July 2024, even with the NBA playoffs and championship and the first half of the Major League Baseball season.
Then there’s CHR and close cousin hot AC, where the past two years suggest a clear downtrend, yet shares for both formats are up since January in all demos, although less so 6+. Also up since January are both urban contemporary and urban AC, while yearly trends show mixed results. Country shows the same uptrend from April or May through July, even as the format’s shares are down from last year.
There’s better news for classic rock than for classic hits. The former’s up just about everywhere since 2022 and also up since January, while the latter’s up or down over the past two years but also up since January except for 18-48 or 25-54. Adult hits is up somewhat from 2022 but up steadily since February or March in every demo.
Modern/alternative rock is generally uptrending over the past two years, yet its shares have headed down across the board in all demos since the first quarter of this year. Finally, both Spanish regional Mexican and Spanish contemporary are down since January.
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