Since February, religion \u2014 including stations featuring religious teaching, hymns and other related content \u2014 has been the most programmed format in the U.S. based on Inside Radio\/PrecisionTrak\u2019s monthly station counts, ending country\u2019s long run at the top.<\/p>\n
Over the past three months, religion has performed even better, with its lead over country up from 22 stations in February to 48 for May \u2014 a 118% increase, more than doubling that lead.<\/p>\n
Year-over-year, religion has added 73 stations, up 3.4%, with 32 of those stations joining the format in calendar 2026.<\/p>\n
As for country, while it remains second-ranked, it has lost 33 outlets since last May, more than half of those (17) since January. The format has seen a steady decline in total stations since December 2025, having lost 26.<\/p>\n
Among the top 10 formats, fourth-ranked contemporary Christian continues to be the other star performer, adding 33 stations year-over-year, although just four this year. The only other format to grow both year-over-year and year-to-date is classic rock, ranked eighth, adding 12 and five stations respectively.<\/p>\n
FormatsMay2025Jan2026May2026Gain\/Loss YOYGain\/Loss YTDReligion (Teaching, Variety)20992140217273 ( 3.4% )32 ( 1.5% )Country215721412124-33 ( -1.6% )-17 ( -0.8% )News\/Talk198619841980-6 ( -0.3% )-4 ( -0.2% )Contemporary Christian14191448145233 ( 2.3% )4 ( 0.3% )Spanish1315133013249 ( 0.7% )-6 ( -0.5% )Classic Hits118711691174-13 ( -1.1% )5 ( 0.4% )Variety118611741163-23 ( -2.0% )-11 ( -0.9% )Classic Rock63864565012 ( 1.8% )5 ( 0.8% )Sports602595588-14 ( -2.4% )-7 ( -1.2% )Top 40556545540-16 ( -3.0% )-5 ( -0.9% )<\/p>\n
*Data provided by M Street Corp. US station counts. No Canadian or Mexican stations are included. Format counts are reported at the end of each month.<\/p>\n
Spanish-language formats, which taken together rank fifth, have seen nine new stations since May 2025, although down six for 2025-to-date. Sixth-ranked classic hits also shows a partial growth story, adding five this year while losing 13 year-over-year.<\/p>\n
In addition to country, four other formats in the top 10 have shed stations both since last May and for 2025-to-date \u2014 most notably seventh-place variety (including stations having three or more distinct formats, either block-programmed or simultaneously), with a double-digit decline both ways. Based on either measure, third-ranked news\/talk has lost just a few stations, while sports, coming in ninth, has seen a steady decline since September 2025, down 21 outlets. Top 40, at 10th, has shed 16 year-over-year and five since January.<\/p>\n
Below the top 10, the standout trend involves stations off the air, with a total ranking 14th among all formats, compared to 16th in May 2025. Total stations gone dark are up 43% (up by 120) from May 2025 and 14% (+50) since January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since February, religion \u2014 including stations featuring religious teaching, hymns and other related content \u2014 has been the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,7056,216,3],"class_list":["post-679621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-free","tag-music","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}