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  • What Formats Have the Most Momentum Going into the New Year? How Can They Help Us Discover New Opportunities? (part 1)

    • 01/13/2022
    • Posted by: Kenny Jay
    • Category: country radio, Country ratings, Nielsen ratings, Radio Ratings
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      by Mike O’Malley In 2017 we started a new annual post: “What formats have the most momentum going into the New Year?” We use Nielsen PPM data for the top15 leading formats in terms of share for 6+, 18-34, and 25-54. By trending this data, we have an idea of “Format Momentum” going into

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  • Breakfast Is the Most Important Meal (and Daypart) of the Day?

    • 03/02/2020
    • Posted by: Mike O'Malley
    • Category: country radio programming, Country ratings, Nielsen ratings
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    Many of us were brought up hearing this from our parents, grandparents, or a TV commercial: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” While this may or may not be medically accurate, it is absolutely on the money (literally) for fast food restaurants. And it should be for radio too . So perhaps

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  • Formats with the Most Momentum Entering 2020 and why Country is Poised to Increase

    • 01/07/2020
    • Posted by: Mike O'Malley
    • Category: country radio, country radio programming, Country ratings, radio, radio programming, Radio Ratings
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    Each year since 2016 I’ve posted a piece about formats with the most “share momentum” entering the New Year. That is, formats that are seeing consistent growth and formats that are not. The data source is Nielsen’s Tops of 2019: Radio summary which reports leading formats (AQH share) in PPM markets from January to November.

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  • Christmas Music: How Much Do You Need? (Hint: Not a Lot)

    • 11/14/2019
    • Posted by: Mike O'Malley
    • Category: Christmas, country radio programming, Country ratings, Nielsen ratings, radio programming
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    Christmas music on the radio means it’s the least wonderful time of the year… for country ratings that is. Diary market Decembers are hit and miss for Country shares (often miss) while in PPM markets the Holiday Book are ALWAYS the lowest ratings periods of the year for country. How much lower? Using PPM data

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  • Country Radio’s Summer Love Affair

    • 09/28/2017
    • Posted by: Mike O'Malley
    • Category: Audience Research, Country ratings
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      While the calendar officially marked the beginning fall last week, Country radio’s summer love affair is going to linger a bit longer. While summer 2017 wasn’t the best summer the format has had recently – that was 2014 – Country still put together a combination of growth in 6-plus and some stability 25-54. First, Country’s

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  • COUNTRY’S TWO YEAR SUMMER SLIDE: You May Be Surprised at the “Smaller Piece of the Pie” Story

    • 09/21/2016
    • Posted by: Mike O'Malley
    • Category: Country ratings, Nielsen
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    Quick: What’s down but up at the same time?   Answer: Country this summer: more AQH, smaller share of the pie.   Country’s strongest months still happen over the summer, though looking at the latest trends (thanks to Nielsen’s Tony Hereau for providing A&O&B this chart) country is clearly off in share compared to the

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