Individual preferences in Radio listening are wide and varied – and Radio operators respond by offering a broad range of programming to serve every taste! Here’s a list of the current popularity of formats aired on over 11,000 commercial Radio stations licensed in the U.S. today.
An additional 275 commercial stations are licensed under construction permits for future broadcast; 199 commercial stations are currently dark/off the air. Over 2,300 HD Radio stations are using HD Radio Technology, and there are over 1,550 HD2/HD3/HD4 multicast channels on the air. Number of commercial streamed AM/FM Radio stations: 7,898; 3,775 non-commercials report streaming. NextRadio reports nearly 3.2 million app downloads of FM radio on smartphones.
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Rank |
Format | # Commercial Stations |
1 |
Country | 2,126 |
2 |
News/Talk | 1,343 |
3 |
Classic Hits | 920 |
4 |
Spanish | 866 |
5 |
Sports | 768 |
6 |
Adult Contemporary | 601 |
7 |
Contemporary (CHR Top 40) | 584 |
8 |
Classic Rock | 498 |
9 |
Hot AC | 465 |
10 |
Religion (Teaching, Variety) | 318 |
11 |
Oldies | 316 |
12 |
Rock | 299 |
13 |
Black Gospel | 212 |
13 |
Adult Standards | 191 |
14 |
Contemporary Christian | 176 |
15 |
Ethnic | 167 |
16 |
Urban AC | 163 |
17 |
Adult Standards | 162 |
18 |
R&B | 150 |
19 |
Southern Gospel | 138 |
20 |
Alternative Rock | 114 |
21 |
Soft Adult Contemporary | 109 |
22 |
Modern Rock | 107 |
23 |
R&B/Adult/Oldies | 72 |
24 |
Variety | 56 |
25 |
Jazz | 24 |
26 |
Rhythmic AC | 21 |
27 |
Easy Listening | 19 |
28 |
Gospel | 15 |
29 |
Classical | 13 |
30 |
Modern AC | 9 |
31 |
Pre-Teen | 1 |
32 |
Other/Format Not Available | 53 |
Source: Inside Radio/M Street Corp., December 2016 (No Canadian or Mexican Stations are included). HD Radio stats from iBiquity/HD Digital, December 2016. TagStation/NextRadio, November 2016. |
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