Interep's Spring 2005 Radio Format Share Analysis shows an evolving format landscape where News/Talk/Sports, Spanish, Urban and CHR continue to dominate, while a resurgent Country has tied a declining AC for the fifth position. However, the big gainer was Classic Rock, which surged to its highest level in years with a share increase of more than one and one-half points. As impressive as those numbers look, it should be noted that the latter category includes the Jack type stations, of which more than two dozen switched to the format in time to be listed under that heading in the Spring Book.

Looking at the results in more detail, News/Talk/Sports may be down from the peak reached during last Fall's political season, but the format grouping is steady from its level of a year ago. Spanish -- up just a tenth of a point -- has reached another record high while maintaining a year-long uptrend.

Urban is up incrementally, matching its total from Spring '04. During the past year, there has been a shift from Urban Contemporary toward Urban AC. CHR has experienced some erosion since it peaked last Spring and Summer, though the declines occurred mainly in the "Dance" segment of that format.

The Oldies format hit a new low as some of the high profile stations that have adopted the "Jack" type format came from the Oldies category.

The long declining AOR format -- which also includes Mainstream Rock -- rebounded strongly in Spring 2005, while New Rock (Modern Rock) continued to decline and is almost down a full share in the last year, though some of that share loss may be a reflection of stations moving out of the format.

The Top 10 format categories listed in the Interep Share Analysis account for nearly 90 percent of total radio listening in the continuously measured Arbitron markets.