Christmas carols will soon be filling America’s airwaves from coast to coast! But is radio playing America’s favorite Christmas songs? P1 Media Group wanted to know how the 40 most-played Christmas songs from the 2017 Holiday Season rank among Christmas music radio listeners.
Six decades after its release, “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms is once again America’s #1 Testing Christmas song. “Christmas music’s appeal is a strong as ever among 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.
- The Top 40 songs all tested excellent with 39 of the 40 most-played Christmas songs testing with an appeal score over 70.
- All Christmas Music stations have broad appeal among Men and Women 25-54.
- 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 17-19th, 2017. We 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 2016 according to Mediabase monitored airplay. The full results are available HERE or below