The 10 Biggest Radio Stories of 2024: Layoffs, Downsizing & A Record for Shaboozey

In 2024, radio gained a massive star: Shaboozey. Thanks to an ambitious five-format strategy by the EMPIRE label to break “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” to the widest possible audience, the singer-songwriter’s signature track hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July and remained there for a record-tying 19 weeks, making radio history along the way.

“Shaboozey walked into the steps of Bailey Zimmerman and Morgan Wallen and on and on,” says Randy Chase, executive vp of programming for Birmingham, Ala., radio chain Summit Media. “Because they changed our format sonically and texturally and taught radio: ‘Don’t get in your little box.’ It really opened up people’s minds.”

But Shaboozey’s triumph, along with Post Malone‘s surprisingly smooth crossover from pop and hip-hop to country, was among the few major radio success stories in 2024. 

The biggest story was the continuing decline of radio as an industry. Although iHeartMedia and other radio giants point to rosy statistics showing radio’s ongoing popularity, MusicWatch surveys show the “incidence of listening to music” on broadcast radio dropped from 79% in the fourth quarter of 2016 to 50% in last year’s fourth quarter. And while radio continues to reach 52% of music listeners, according to MusicWatch, time spent listening has dropped from five hours a week in 2016 to two hours last year.

Among the broadcasters laying off large numbers of employees: iHeartMedia, Audacy, SiriusXM and, presumably, author Stephen King’s three long-running stations in Bangor, Maine, which punctuated the year in radio by announcing they would close Dec. 31. Major labels responded in kind, laying off numerous longtime promotion execs.

As part of Billboard‘s look at 2024 in a variety of areas, from record labels to the concert business, here are the year’s biggest radio stories.