Classic Hits Music: The Year in Review

Welcome back from the break. Just before the holidays I looked at how the music being played at Classic Rock stations is slowly evolving. You can see that column here. This week, I’m peeking under the hood of the Classic Hits format for notable trends.

Thanks to Mediabase I was able to pull full year statistics for Classic Hits airplay in 2025. I decided to look at which artists received the most airplay at the format. I also pulled archived numbers for 2024 (previous year), 2020 (5 years earlier), 2015 (10 years earlier) and 2000 (25 years earlier) to look for changes. Here’s what stood out.

Similar But Different

Comparing the top ten most-played artists in 2025 to the previous year, it’s mostly the same ten artists but the order gets shuffled up a fair amount. As opposed to Classic Rock where there was little movement in the top ten, Classic Hits stations changed things up some in the past year.

Michael Jackson and Billy Joel held on to the first and second slots, respectively. After that Madonna jumped four placed to third, Bon Jovi jumped three places to sixth and Pat Benatar was the only new entry jumping from eleventh to eighth. She took Elton John’s spot as he fell five slots from sixth to eleventh while Fleetwood Mac also dropped from fifth to ninth.

Here Come the Nineties

It’s subtle but if you squint at the data just right you can see a new decade slowly infiltrating the format. U2, which straddles the eighties and nineties, is up from forty-two to thirty-one. After sneaking in at number eighty-nine last year, Alanis Morrissette is now the fifty-sixth most played artist. Likewise, No Doubt climbed twenty-three spots to seventy-three. New additions to the list include Green Day at sixty-nine and the Goo Goo Dolls at seventy-five. Get ready because here comes a new generation of stars to contend with.

When the Eighties Took Over

Being much more versed in Classic Rock history than Classic Hits I was also intrigued to see the change that took place in the format between 2000 and 2015 when the eighties truly took over.

To put it into perspective, of the top one hundred most-played Classic Hits artists in 2025, only eight were in the top one hundred twenty five years ago. The Beatles, who were number one in 2000 are now thirty-second and the Beach Boys who were second now rank seventy-fourth. For a more graphic illustration, here is the top twenty artists from 2000 compared to 2025.

It’s hard to believe there was a time when the format was dominated by The Supremes, The Four Seasons and Elvis Presley. I wonder if there will ever be a time when we say the same thing about Journey, Madonna, and Bon Jovi?

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Mike Stern

Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.