America’s Top Christmas Songs For 2020
• Are America’s all-Christmas stations playing the right songs? P1 Media Group and MRC Entertainment attempted to answer that burning question by testing the appeal of the 40 most-played and 40 most-streamed Christmas songs from the 2019 Holiday Season, according to BDSradio. P1 Media Group conducted a survey with folks likely to listen to a local all-Christmas music radio station this season. They tested the 40 most-played songs and the 22 unique songs from the 40 most-streamed list — a total of 62 songs.
The Key Findings: For the fourth straight year “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms is America’s No. 1-testing Christmas song. “Christmas music’s appeal remains as strong as ever amongst American radio listeners whom listen to All Christmas stations ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ and personally enjoy Christmas music on a local radio station during the holiday season” says Ken Benson, Partner & co-Founder of P1 Media Group. Haley Jones, Director of Radio, MRC Data, commented, “As we often see, there is lots to learn when we compare radio airplay to on-demand streaming data, even with holiday music. In fact, over half of the top 40 most streamed holiday songs were underplayed in radio in 2019. Understanding streaming data can help broaden the appeal of your station.”
A total of nine songs from the Top 40 most-streamed songs list tested better with likely Christmas radio listeners than nine songs from the Top 40 most-played songs list. The data suggests these nine songs can be played more often on the radio: 1) Michael Bublé — “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (ranked 230 on 2019 airplay chart); 2) Frank Sinatra — “Jingle Bells” (44); 3) Nat King Cole — “Deck the Halls” (562); 4) Perry Como — “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (64); 5) Michael Bublé – It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (65); 6) Darlene Love — “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” (57); 7) Perry Como — “Home for the Holidays” (74); 8) Andy Williams — “Silver Bells” (119); 9) Thurl Ravenscroft –“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (48).
The test list was compiled from the most-played Christmas Songs on American radio in 2019 and the most-streamed Christmas songs in America in 2019 according to MRC Broadcast Data Systems. The full results are available at p1mediagroup.com.
