It’s a new record. Nearly 16 million adults 18 to 49 tune into country music each week, making it the most popular radio format in America, according to a new report from Interep, a New York City-based radio advertising sales and marketing firm. The No. 2 format, news/talk/business/sports, reaches about 13 million listeners weekly. The demos are broader than you think and mirror the general population. Seventy one percent of listeners are 18 to 49, the age group that accounts for 65 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty eight percent of listeners earn $75,000 or more, just one percentage point more than U.S. households overall.
“Not everyone who listens to country music has a broken-down pickup and lives in a trailer, especially not in New York City,” says Jason Steinberg, director of marketing and promotions for Y-107, Hawthorne, New York. The station lost advertisers when it changed from a modern rock format three years ago, but some have returned and are reaching a much larger audience.
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