P1 Media Group has released its annual study of the the appeal of the 100 most-played Christmas songs from the 2023 Holiday Season.

P1 says “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms remains America’s #1 best-testing Christmas song for seven of the past 8 years. P1 Media Group Partner/co-founder Ken Benson said, “Christmas music’s appeal remains as strong as ever amongst American radio listeners who listen to All Christmas stations ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ and personally enjoy Christmas music on a local radio station during the holiday season.

Other key findings include:

• The Holiday standards dominate the Top 100 with five versions of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town, “Sleigh Ride,” and “Winter Wonderland” making the list.
• Three Artists, Amy Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Andy Williams, have four songs in the Top 100.
• Women score Christmas music on average four points higher than Men. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is the #1 tester for Women, while Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” is #1 for Men.
• Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” from 2010 and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” 2014 are the two highest-testing original Christmas songs from the 2000s, ranking #51 and #54, respectively.
• The favorability of Christmas music remains strong. Seventy of the Top 100 songs tested with an appeal score of 75 or higher on a 100-point scale, and 95 songs tested 70 or higher.

By demographic the top testing songs by age are:

• 18-24 “All I Want for Christmas is You” Mariah Carey
• 25-34 “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” Michael Buble with Burle Ives version a close second.
• 35-44 “Ring Christmas Bells” Ray Conniff
• 45-54 “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” Any Williams.

More say Christmas Music should begin in early November this year than last with 31% saying Early November (up from 23% last year), 17% mid-November, 28% Thanksgiving, 22% early December, and 2% mid-December.

Most Christmas music lovers, 52% (60% in 2023 and 48% in 2022), want Christmas music programming to stop on New Year’s Eve. 14% say Christmas Day, 22% December 26, 7% December 27, and 3% some other time.

P1 Media Group conducted the online survey from November 1-3, 2024 sampling 400 18-54-year-old radio listeners from the Top 50 American Radio Markets. Participants were required to listen either “Frequently” or “Sometimes” to an all-Christmas Music local radio station during the holiday season and rate their enjoyment of Christmas music on a local radio station during the holiday season a ‘7’ or higher on a 1 to 10 scale. We identified “Heavy Streamers” by asking each respondent, “How frequently do you listen to music on your smartphone, computer, or other listening device from a streaming service such as Pandora, Spotify, or Apple Music.” 60% of the sample responded they stream “every day,” and 28% answered a “few days” a week.  

The test list was compiled from the most-played Christmas Songs on American radio in 2023. The full results are available at http://p1mediagroup.com