According to Nielsen, PPM data shows News/Talk reigned supreme once again as the number one radio format. And that comes as no surprise with so many natural disasters, the political landscape in Washington, and listeners’ desire to know what’s going on in their local communities. In fact, according to Nielsen, the News/Talk format had a stronger year in 2017 than it had in 2016.
Nielsen also reports an up year for the Adult Contemporary and Country formats. Contemporary Hit Radio had a down year compared with 2016, but it remained the top-ranked format in terms of audience share among kids 6-11, teens 12-17, Millennials aged 18-34, and persons 25-to-54. And listening to Urban Contemporary stations (also known as hip-hop) was much more prevalent among younger audiences, whereas News/Talk radio (the No. 1 overall format each year in PPM markets) rises dramatically as we age.
The charts below break down the national listening landscape for the 10 most popular radio formats of 2017 in Nielsen’s PPM markets.
