Over the course of 2025, Denver radio ratings have been on the move. The latest audience survey shows that Christmas remains king on the local airwaves at this time of year, but the results as a whole have proven to be much more fluid.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Nielsen ratings service<\/a>\u00a0tracks numbers for radio outlets in the U.S., including Denver, the nation\u2019s eighteenth-largest market based on a population estimate of\u00a02,853,400, with\u00a0174,300\u00a0of those residents identified as Black and\u00a0602,600\u00a0classified as Hispanic (the company lists no other demographic categories). All three sums are up substantially since 2023<\/a>, but remain unchanged from January 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n As for listenership data, Nielsen only shares one number publicly: total listeners aged six and older who tune in to local stations from 6 a.m. to midnight.<\/p>\n By that measure, the ratings winner in November 2025, the most recent month for which figures are available, was KOSI, the Mile High City\u2019s longtime adult-contemporary kingpin. But that dominance carries an asterisk: For the 24th consecutive year<\/a>, the station switched to an all-Yuletide-favorites playlist well before Thanksgiving. (This year\u2019s flip took place at 5 p.m. on November 13.) This move boosts listenership figures thanks to businesses that put the channel on lock throughout holiday shopping season.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tDenver, make your New Year\u2019s Resolution Count!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re $17,500 away from our End-of-Year campaign goal, with just a five days left! We\u2019re ready to deliver \u2014 but we need the resources to do it right. If Westword matters to you, please contribute today to help us expand our current events coverage when it\u2019s needed most.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n KOSI\u2019s listenership supremacy, which duplicates its performance during the previous holiday season, is no surprise. But the rest of the latest top ten proved to be far less predictable.<\/p>\n Classic rocking KRFX\/The Fox landed in the second slot circa November, an enormous leap from eleventh place in December 2024. KQMT\/The Mountain, the Fox\u2019s main competitor when it comes to old-school rock, experienced a similar boost, moving up from seventh to third. Other legacy stations slid down the roster over the previous eleven months, including KALC\/Alice (third to fifth) and KXKL\/KOOL 105 (second to eighth). But the most precipitous tumble was experienced by KCFR, the flagship station of Colorado Public Radio. Last December, it had the fifth-highest ratings. By this November, it wound up eighteenth.<\/p>\n The biggest changes at major Denver stations of late have involved KOA and KHOW<\/a>, a pair of news\/talkers in the portfolio of iHeart, the largest owner of radio broadcasters in America. In November, KOA replaced the vast majority of its venerable Colorado Morning News program with an opinion-based show helmed by Ross Kaminsky; the station then convinced veteran yapper Michael Brown to move from KHOW to KOA to fill Kaminsky\u2019s previous time period. It\u2019s too soon to tell how this pivot will affect the sibling stations, but KOA remains in tenth place, the same position as last December, thanks largely to bumps from Denver Broncos gamecasts. As for KHOW, the stats are contradictory: It dipped from 24th to 25th place even as its ratings share increased just barely.<\/p>\n General Nielsen data and other market research indicate that radio remains a viable communications medium. An\u00a0October 2024 report from Westwood One<\/a>\u00a0contends that \u201cover the last five years, AM\/FM radio has overtaken linear TV in ratings. As of 2023, AM\/FM radio\u2019s 18-49 ratings were 12 percent greater than TV. Among 25-54s, the gap between TV and AM\/FM radio ratings has been steadily closing. Based on TV and AM\/FM radio audience forecasts, 2025 will see AM\/FM radio overtake TV in the all-important 25-54 demographic by 13 percent and widen its ratings lead over TV among 18-49s by 47 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n