Nielsen: Final 2013 Holiday Scorecard Is In

Overall, Adult Contemporary (AC) is the leading format when it comes to holiday programming every year in Nielsen’s portable people meter (PPM) markets.

And 2013 was no exception—it claimed the top spot in both the 6+ and 25-54 demographics, overtaking News/Talk and Pop Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR), respectively. It also held the second position with 18-34 year-old listeners (Pop CHR remained #1) bypassing Country in December. But the story doesn’t end there; AC’s older sibling—soft AC—made more noise this year. And a few other major formats also saw their results buck the trend of years past.

Below are some highlights from Nielsen’s Holiday PPM data across 45 markets* using the full-week (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight) daypart and audience shares for the 6+ demographic.

• With the second-highest number of stations that program Christmas music behind AC, Soft AC got more bang for its buck during this year’s season—to the tune of almost 30% higher increases in shares since the November survey—as compared with 2012. The format also won the race for largest share increase percentage-wise, rising to a 1.1 share in Holiday from a 0.6 in November.
• Hot AC, which had a banner year in 2013, was one of only two formats that managed to flip its Holiday slump this year from 2012. A year ago, this format’s shares dropped 6 percent during the holiday season but instead grew slightly this year, gaining a 10th of share-point (to 5.7 from 5.6).
• By devoting more stations to holiday programming than in years past, Classic Hits was the other format to reverse its negative trend from last year. The strategy paid off as the format held steady with a 5.2 share across all three of the most recent months.
• On the other hand, Mexican Regional went the opposite direction. After a flat trend in 2012, the number-one format with Hispanic listeners dropped 8 percent between November and Holiday, falling to 3.5 from 3.8.