61-Year-Oldie Tops Best Testing Christmas Songs

P1 Media Group wanted to know how the 40 most-played Christmas songs from the 2017 Holiday Season rank amongst Christmas music radio listeners.

Six decades after its release (1957), “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms is once again America’s #1 Testing Christmas song. “Christmas music’s appeal is a strong as ever amongst those that listen to All Christmas stations” Ken Benson, Partner and co-founder, of P1 Media Group.

Here’s a few highlights from this year’s study:

• The Holiday Classic’s continue to rule the Top 10 with two versions of “Jingle Bell Rock” and two versions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” landing in the Top 10.
• 14 of the top 20 testing songs are classics recorded between 1942 and 1970.
• The iconic Christmas songs test higher than their contemporary counterparts, such as “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” “Last Christmas” and “Wonderful Christmastime.
• 2017’s most-played Christmas song was Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” which ranked #13 in this year’s research.
• All-Christmas Music stations have broad appeal amongst Men and Women 25-54 with 70% of the sample saying they “frequently” listen to Christmas music on a local radio station.
• Classic Rock, Classic Hits, Country, CHR, AC, Rock/Alternative and Christian format listeners are most-likely to listen to an All Christmas format.

P1 Media Group conducted the survey the weekend of November 2-4th, 2018. They sampled 25-54-year-old radio listeners in the Top 50 US Radio Markets that reported listening either “Frequently” or “Sometimes” to Christmas Music on a local radio station during the holiday season. The 40 songs tested were the most-played Christmas Songs from 2017 according to Mediabase monitored airplay. The full results are available http://p1mediagroup.com.