Nielsen: September Good Month For Sports, Hispanic Formats

While the results of August’s portable people meter (PPM) survey had Nielsen singing the praise of Classic Rock and Classic Hits, which battled it out for “format of the summer” supremacy, the two most popular Spanish-language formats saw an upswing in September: Mexican Regional and Spanish Contemporary.

Combined, these two formats account for nearly one quarter of all Hispanic radio listening across the U.S., and their popularity is a clear indication of the strength of Spanish-language radio on the airwaves.

Of that quarter of all radio listening done by Hispanics, Mexican Regional has for the lion’s share; accounting for 16.3% of Hispanic radio usage nationally. And in looking at September’s PPM results, we see that this format is up from each of the previous two years.


Spanish Contemporary also had a good September and set a few new records for share of audience in PPM measurement as well. In particular, the format secured more than 3% of the tune in from all adults 25 to 54.


As for spoken word formats, a few interesting results also emerged in September based on seasonality.

First, after tune-in for the News/Talk format rose to historical levels in recent months (buoyed by the increasing interest in the race for the White House), its share of audience dipped in September. News/Talk declined slightly in share of audience among all listeners age 6 and older, falling from 9.6% in August to 9.3% in September. It’s worth noting that the September PPM survey extended through Sept. 7, and therefore, didn’t include the first Presidential debate, which drew 84 million TV viewers.


Also, Sports radio was on the rise during September, another expected development. Sports formats are cyclical and see their highest shares of audience around the changeover of the year when football returns and baseball concludes. What stood out in September, however, is that format posted its best September results since the beginning of PPM measurement: 4.7% share among all listeners 6+, 3.7% in the 18-34 demographic, and 5.3% with consumers aged 25 to 54.