Chicago PPM report: 93.9 The Lite on top as Christmas music season begins
Sister station 103.5 KissFM remains on top in demos
As iHeartMedia’s AC 93.9 The Lite (WLIT) kicked off its 25th annual Christmas Music format Tuesday, the station has already perched itself on top of the overall PPM ratings for October and won’t be budging from that position anytime soon.
WLIT topped all comers with a 4.9 rating, and for the third time in the last four ratings reports, proving the station is strong even without Christmas music. In key demos, WLIT finished fourth in the 18-34 demo for its highest ranking since June, but did not appear in the top ten in either the 18-49 or 25-54 adult demos. Expect that to change when Christmas music starts showing up in the November and December surveys. WLIT also led in cume, with a 3.4 percent increase from last month.
Once again, WLIT Sister station 103.5 Kiss FM, which extended The Fred Show for five more years in morning drive last week, swept all key demos, finishing first in all key adult demos and eleventh overall, keeping a commanding lead over Audacy’s Top 40 B96 (WBBM-FM). However, B96 did enter the top ten tied for seventh place with Rhythmic Classic Hits sister station 104.3 Jams (WBMX-FM) and country US 99 (WUSN-FM).
Despite ICE raids continuing in the Chicago area, all-news and news/talk stations showed mixed results in October. While WBBM Newsradio was flat in third place overall, Nexstar’s news/talk WGN-AM fell from fifth to twelfth. On the other side of the ledger, Chicago Public Media’s WBEZ jumped to thirteenth place and finished fifth in the 25-54 demo while conservative talk WLS-AM continued to rise, tying B96 for 21st place and is Chicago’s most-streamed radio station.
Classic Hits and Rock didn’t have a great book as Hubbard’s The Drive (WDRV) fell from first place overall to fourth with its lowest share in a year, and Cumulus’ WLS-FM fell from third to ninth (and in the 18-34 demo, too.) Other rock outliers did well with Audacy’s Triple A WXRT finishing second overall despite lackluster demo support, while Cumulus alternative Q101 (WKQX) finished fourth in the 18-34 and 25-54 demos while finishing fourteenth overall.
Sports talk 670 The Score (WSCR-AM) benefited from the Cubs’ playoff run, finishing in a tie for sixth place with Regional Mexican WOJO-FM and Hubbard’s Hot AC 101.9 The Mix (WTMX-FM), which slipped from fourth, but maintained its second-place standing in the 25-54 demo. The station didn’t exactly benefit from the hoopla surrounding Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl, despite devoting a weekend to all of her eras of music.
While a lot has been made about Hip-Hop being absent in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the time since 1990 when Shadoe Stevens was hosting American Top 40, the format is still going strong in New York City, where iHeartMedia’s WWPR-FM (known as Power 105.1 and is flagship for the nationally syndicated Breakfast Club) jumped from ninth to fourth place in the 25-54 demo, while rival MediaC0’s (formerly Emmis) WQHT-FM a.k.a. Hot 97 finished fifth with both were in the top ten in the ky 18-34 and 18-49 demos. In Chicago, iHeartMedia’s WGCI finished second in the tie for second in the 18-34 demo and finished fifth in the 18-49s. Overall, WGCI placed nineteenth, while traditionally non-competitive Power 92 (WPWX-FM) tied for 28th.