The holiday season is officially upon us, and adult contemporary and sport radio stations have already received the gift of record portable people meter ratings for November, according to a report from Nielsen. With hundreds of stations making the switch to an “all-Christmas” format, those numbers could be on the rise as well.
Adult contemporary stations saw their best November results in recent years this past month, earning a 7.3% listening share among adults 25–54 and 6.5% for adults 18–34. As the format that features the most “all-Christmas” programs, AC looks to continue to be the biggest benefactor of the holiday spirit, as its numbers are expected to continue to grow in December.
Hot adult contemporary also saw a major uptick, tying record highs for listener share with both adults 18–34 at 7.7%, and adults 25–54 at 7.3%; the results match ratings from July 2015. Hot AC also looks to capitalize once again with the holiday season, as it was the third-fastest growing format in 2014 thanks to its Christmas programming.
Though sports stations don’t have “all-Christmas” formats it also sees an uptick during the holiday season, helping it continue its record breaking pace. After setting a listener share record of 6% in October amongst adults 25–54, November proved a tick better, earning a record listener share of 6.1%. Since 2012, sports radio has increased its share of audience by 15% in the 25–54 demographics.
Nielsen Audio collected the data from 45 PPM markets and includes multicultural audiences.
