{"id":462152,"date":"2026-06-05T09:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:24:08","slug":"l-a-s-wave-leads-urban-acs-top-10-stations-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462152\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A.\u2019s \u2018Wave\u2019 Leads Urban AC\u2019s Top 10 Stations. | Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

More urban adult contemporary listeners in the U.S. are catching \u201cThe Wave\u201d than any other station in the format, as Audacy\u2019s \u201c94.7 The Wave\u201d KTWV Los Angeles tops Inside Radio\u2019s TOP 10 ranking of urban AC stations, based on weekly cume delivery of persons 6+ during Nielsen\u2019s winter 2026 wave (January-to-March three-month average).<\/p>\n

KTWV, also known as \u201cThe Soul of Southern California,\u201d delivered a 1.7 million cume during Q1 2026 as it celebrated its 13th year in the format. It\u2019s one of just two urban ACs hitting the million-cume mark, as on the other coast, MediaCo\u2019s WBLS (107.5) New York, an R&B mainstay since the mid-1970s, drew 1.3 million.<\/p>\n

WBLS is one of four stations in urban AC\u2019s top 10 to have won NAB\u2019s Marconi Award for Urban Station of the Year. Another of those four, \u201cMajic 102.1\u201d KMJQ Houston, places third. Along with 10th-ranked \u201cMajic 107.5\/97.5\u201d WAMJ Atlanta, Urban One places two stations in top 10 \u2013 soon to be three, given its pending acquisition<\/a> of Service Broadcasting\u2019s \u201cSmooth R&B 105.7\u201d KRNB Dallas, which comes in seventh.<\/p>\n

iHeartMedia, meanwhile, already claims three in the urban AC top 10, two of which are back-to-back in the top five. \u201cV103\u201d WVAZ Chicago, another Marconi Urban Station of the Year winner, has served the R&B audience since 1974, with PM driver Joe Soto on air since 1984. WDAS-FM (105.3) Philadelphia has been at it since 1971, with midday host Patty Jackson there since 1987.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Finishing sixth is Howard University\u2019s WHUR (96.3) Washington, DC, not only a Marconi Urban Station of the Year winner but also the originator of the soft R&B\/jazz \u201cQuiet Storm\u201d late night programming \u2013 heard on many urban ACs today \u2013 back in 1976.<\/p>\n

Atlanta is the only market with two stations in urban AC\u2019s top 10: at eighth, Cox Media Group\u2019s \u201cKiss 104.1\u201d WALR, Marconi\u2019s Major Market Station of the Year winner for 2023; and Urban One\u2019s WAMJ 10th.<\/p>\n

iHeartMedia\u2019s third station in the top 10, ranked ninth, is \u201cMix 92.3\u201d WMXV Detroit, which has been in the format for 37 years, and features afternoon drive host and 31-year Motor City radio veteran Jonathan \u201cBushman\u201d Dunnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More urban adult contemporary listeners in the U.S. are catching \u201cThe Wave\u201d than any other station in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,4975,157,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-462152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-free","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}