Nielsen: 'Format Of The Summer' Race Is A Dead Heat

July's Hot Formats

Based on ratings results from the the release of Nielsen July Portable People Meters, the numbers indicated Country cooling a bit as Pop Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR/Top40) loggs a second consecutive motnh of growth.

Suddenly what could have been a runaway race by Country for the 'format of the summer' is a much closer race down the srtetch.

Elsewhere in the pack of formats competing for shares of ears this summer, Nielsen saw other trends continue from previous months. The record-setting ways of both Hot Adult Contemporary (AC) and Classic Rock showed no signs of slowing down in July; meanwhile, in the spoken word arena, the heart of summer has once again proven to be a cool period for news and sports listening.

Format Performances In July

   Below are some highlights from Nielsen’s July PPM data across 45 markets using the full-week (Monday-Sunday 6 a.m.-midnight) daypart audience shares.

• After establishing new all-time highs for listening share last month, Country held steady with audiences aged 6 and over (8.6%) and 25-54 (8.4%) and dropped back by nearly half a share-point among listeners aged 18-34 (10.2%) in July. This ended an impressive run of growth stretching back to January for America’s No. 1 overall format. Country finds itself tied with Pop CHR this month among all listeners aged 6-plus, and it appears these two formats will take the race for ‘format of the summer’ down to the wire in next month’s August results.
• Pop CHR's upward movement over the last two months (growing from 8.4% in June to 8.6% this month with listeners aged 6 and over) is making May's 8.0-share appear more and more like a blip on the radar for a format that this July was either ranked No. 1 or tied for first across the three of the demographics we analyzed. Not surprisingly, this month's 8.6-share is Pop CHR’s best showing since July of 2012, when the format was on fire in PPM markets.
• Hot AC remained the format with the most consistent upward trend in 2014 by upping the bar for 6-plus (6.4%), 18-34 (7.2%) and 25-54 (6.9%) listener shares in July, each a new all-time high. And Classic Rock made some news of its own, topping out at a 5-share with listeners aged 6 and over and a 4.1-share among audiences 18-34 years old, each marking the first time the format has been above a five or four share in PPM in those demos, respectively.
• 6-plus shares for News/Talk dropped to their lowest mark in PPM since Nielsen began tracking this data in 2011 (8.1%), All News stayed flat relative to last summer (2.5%), and Sports fared slightly better this July (4.1%) than in 2013 (3.8%).