BIA Advisory Services has revealed its annual ranking of the top billing stations in the country as part of its newly released Investing in Radio 2024, 1st Edition and for the ninth year in a row and thirteenth time in the past fourteen years the list is topped by Hubbard Radio News 103.5 WTOP Washington DC.
WTOP’s revenue in 2023 was $66,300,000 down four percent year-over-year from $69,000,000 in 2022. BIA notes thar WTOP accounts for nearly 29% of all radio advertising revenue in the Washington DC market with Hubbard’s cluster combined accounting for 30.1%.
The majority of the stations in the top ten were also down year-over-year.
iHeartMedia CHR 102.7 KIIS-FM Los Angeles remained in second place nationally with $41,800,000 in 2023 down from $44.1 million in 2022. KIIS-FM has dropped precipituously from its pre-pandemic $69.9 million in 2019.
Audacy News 1010 WINS/92.3 WINS-FM New York rose to third with its $40 million in revenue rising from $32.1 million in 2022. The rise comes from the October 2022 addition of the 92.3 simulcast. WINS on AM itself had $31.6 million in revenue in 2021.
iHeartMedia AC “106.7 Lite-FM” WLTW New York dropped to $33.3 million in 2023 after hitting $35.1 the year before.
Beasley Media Sports “98.5 The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM Boston ranked fifth with $32,775,000 in revenue down from $34.25 million in 2022.
iHeartMedia CHR “Z100” WHTZ New York fell a tad from $33.5 million in 2022 to $31,750,000 in 2023.
iHeartMedia Hot AC “104.3 My-FM” KBIG Los Angeles was seventh nationally with $31,475,000 in revenue down from $33.2 million in 2022.
Audacy Sports 660 WFAN/101.9 WFAN-FM New York remained in eighth place nationally with its $30,350,000 million off from $32 million in 2022.
Audacy News 780 WBBM/105.9 WCFS Chicago dipped to ninth falling from $32 million to $30 million last year.
Audacy News 880 WCBS New York returned to the top ten with $29,700,000 in revenue. The station was at $30.9 million two years ago when it last ranked tenth.
Audacy and iHeartMedia each had four stations in the top ten with Beasley Media Group and Hubbard Radio placing one station on the leaderboard. The list included four all-News stations, two CHRs, two Sports stations, and one AC and Hot AC. Five of the stations were in New York, two in Los Angeles, and one each in Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC.
The list also included three AM/FM simulcasts. BIA also released for the first time a flawed ranker of the top ten billing AM stations. The list we note as flawed because while it includes seven other AM/FM simulcasts it omits both WFAN and WINS.
Of note from the AM list, iHeartMedia News/Talk 740 KTRH Houston rose from what would’ve been fourteenth of all AMs ranked in 2022 to third in this version of the list with revenue of $24,625,000. BIA’s Nicole Ovadia noted that the station self-reported those numbers along with a corresponding decline in revenues for sister Rock/Alternative “94.5 The Buzz” KTBZ-FM.
Cox Media Group News/Talk 750 WSB/95.5 WSBB Atlanta was the tenth overall station in 2022 with revenue of $31.75 million. In the non-election year of 2023, the station fell to $23,800.
Other stations appearing on the AM list are:
- iHeartMedia News/Talk 640 KFI – $24,625,000
- iHeartMedia News/Talk 850/94.1 KOA Denver – $21,575,000
- Audacy News 1070 KNX/97.1 KNX-FM Los Angeles – $20,800,000
- Cumulus Media Sports “The Ticket” 1310 KTCK/96.7 KTCK-FM Dallas – $18,050,000
- Audacy News 1060 KYW/103.9 WPHI Philadelphia – $16,600,000
- Audacy News 740 KCBS/106.9 KFRC San Francisco – $16,400,000
