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Hubbard’s WTOP Named Highest-Earning Radio Station for 13th Year

BIA Advisory Services releases its power ranking of AM/FM stations for 2023

BIA Advisory Services has once again ranked the highest-earning radio stations for the past year. In 2023, Hubbard Radio’s WTOP(FM) in Washington, D.C., has continued its winning streak and remains the top-billing radio station in the United States, according to recently released BIA Investing In Radio Market Reports.

“If you’re keeping count, that’s 13 times in the last 14 years that WTOP(FM) has been #1 on the list,” said BIA in a press release.

BIA says WTOP accrued $66.3 million in over-the-air revenue, alone accounting for nearly 29% of the total radio advertising revenue in the Washington market in 2023. Hubbard’s stations collectively account for 30.1% of revenue in that market.

The chart below lists the top 10 radio stations by revenue in 2023, which reflects only over-the-air revenue as determined by BIA.

Credit: BIA Advisory Services

BIA says over-the-air revenues for the top 10 stations are down an average of 5% from 2022. Number 1 WTOP(FM) is down the least, by 3.9%.

Audacy’s WINS(FM), however, is replacing WINS(AM) on this list as the stations started simulcasting in late 2022. BIA attributes revenue to the FM station. Otherwise, the 2023 rankings shown above remain mostly unchanged from 2022, albeit with WINS knocking most of the stations down a peg.

Hubbard and Beasley Media Group each landed one station in the top 10 while iHeartMedia and Audacy each have four. Four stations program a news format, one is sports, one is sports/talk and the remaining four have music programming.

Five of the top 10 are in New York, two are in Los Angeles, and there’s one each in Chicago, Washington and Boston. Eight of the top 10 are FM stations and two are AM.

In a separate chart, for the top 10 AM radio stations by revenue, two Audacy stations claim spots #1 and #2 — WWBM in Chicago and WCBS in NYC. Both stations have improved in the rankings from 2022, which you can see in the right-most column in the chart below.

Also of note, iHeartMedia’s KTRH in Houston-Galveston, Texas, has moved into the top 10 AMs this past year — climbing from its #14 spot in 2022 to #3 in 2023.

On the other hand, WSB in Atlanta took a substantial dip in the rankings. In 2022 it was #10 overall with $31.6 million in revenue, while, in 2023, the Cox Media Group station only brought in $23.8 million.

Cox Media Group and Cumulus Media each landed one station in the top 10 AM list, while Audacy has five and iHeartMedia has three.

Two of the top 10 AM stations are in Los Angeles, and there’s one each in the New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston-Galveston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Denver-Boulder markets.

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