In the third quarter of 2025, Sony Music Publishing scored a three-peat as the No. 1 publisher on both the Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs charts for the first three quarters of 2025.
This time around, Sony received a boost from having the top song on both charts, Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” and the No. 1 songwriter on both charts, Shane “sombr” Boose, who wrote and performed “undressed,” which was No. 7 and No. 22 on Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs, respectively. (Sony administers sombr for Songs of Orchard.)
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They were two of the 75 songs that Sony had on Top Radio Airplay in the third quarter, up from 73 in the second quarter. The publisher had stakes in 69 tracks on the Hot 100 Songs chart, down from 75 in the prior quarter. For both rankings, its market share was down slightly from the second quarter, from 30.90% to 30.76% on Top Radio Airplay and 33.88% to 30.10% on Hot 100 Songs.
Meanwhile, Warner Chappell Music held the No. 2 spot on both rankings for a second consecutive quarter, with 23.67% on Top Radio Airplay and 22.32% on Hot 100 Songs. Both shares were improvements on the publisher’s second-quarter shares of 21.66% and 21.57%, respectively. And while its song count improved from 62 to 64 on Top Radio Airplay, its tally fell from 57 to 52 on Hot 100 Songs. Warner Chappell’s top track on both charts was also “Ordinary.” In addition, Warner Chappell was the No. 1 publisher on the Top Country Radio Airplay list.
Universal Music Publishing Group ranked at No. 3 on both charts, with its Top Radio Airplay market share sliding from 16.79% to 14.79% and its Hot 100 Songs share dipping from 18.56% to 16.62% quarter to quarter. UMPG held stakes in 46 songs on Top Radio Airplay, down one from the second quarter, and its top track was Shaboozey’s “Good News,” which ranked at No. 2. On Hot 100 Songs, its count improved from 50 to 52, with its top track, “Golden” by HUNTR/X from KPop Demon Hunters, also ranking at No. 2.
Kobalt and BMG alternated at Nos. 4 and 5 on both charts, finishing in that order on Top Radio Airplay with 11.24% and 5.28% of the pie and swapping places on Hot 100 Songs: BMG finished fourth with 12.75% — a massive increase from its 3.24% second- quarter share — and Kobalt was fifth with 8.83%.
Kobalt’s song count improved on both charts, growing to 42 in the third quarter from 39 in the prior pro quarter on the Top Radio Airplay list and to 35 from 32 on the Hot 100 chart. Its top song on the former was “Good News,” while its top song on the latter was Morgan Wallen’s “What I Want” featuring Tate McRae, which ranked at No. 3. BMG also had “Good News” as its top performing song on the Radio Airplay list, where its song count fell to 14 tunes from the second quarter’s 16 songs; while on the Hot 100, its song count improved from the second quarters’ 32 songs to 35, with “Golden” as its top song.
Looking at the bottom half of the Radio Airplay publisher rankings, three publishers returned from the second quarter: Big Machine, which moved up to No. 6 from No. 10 last time with a 1.75% share; Concord, which fell one position to No. 8 but improved its market share by 13 basis points to 1.40%; and Position Music, which fell one spot to No. 9 but enjoyed a bigger 18-point basis surge to 1.39%. The top song for both Big Machine and Concord was Russell Dickerson’s “Happen To Me,” which ranked at No. 10, while Position’s Music top performing song was Benson Boone’s “Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else,” which finished at No. 6.
In the third quarter, two publishers that were absent from the Q2 rankings made the top 10: Spirit Music, with a 1.46% share from three song placements on the chart, including its top performing song, Scotty McCreery’s “Bottle Rockets” featuring Hootie & the Blowfish, at No. 20; and Me Gusta Music with a 0.96% share and three song placements on the chart with Luke Bryan’s “Country Song Came On” as its top performer at No. 34.
In the bottom half of the Hot 100 ranking, only two publishers repeated from the second quarter: Position Music and Concord. The former came in at No. 6 with a 1.64% share, the same ranking as the prior quarter; while the latter finished at No. 7 with a 1.07% share, up from No. 10 last quarter. Position’s top song was Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” at No. 14, while Concord’s top tune was Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” at No. 4.
Meanwhile, three publishers that were absent from last quarter’s Hot 100 rankings appeared in the top 10 this quarter. Coming in at No. 8 was Spirit Music with a 0.63% share, with McCreery “Bottle Rockets” featuring Hootie & the Blowfish its top song at No. 40. In ninth place with a 0.55% share was Big Machine, whose top song, Morgan Wallen’s “What I Want” with Tate McRae, placed at No. 3. And in tenth place, Downtown finished with a 0.51% share on the strength of its sole placement on the Hot 100 ranking, Dareyes de La Sierra’s “Frecuencia,” which was the No. 85 song on the tally. Of the three, Spirit had the highest song count with five placements, while Big Machine had a stake in three of the quarter’s Hot 100 songs.
**Methodology: For the Top 10 Publishers Top Radio Airplay chart, percentage calculations were based upon the overall top 100 detected songs from 3,133 U.S. radio stations electronically monitored by Mediabase 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the period of July 1 to Sept. 30. For Top 10 Publishers Hot 100 Songs, percentage calculations were based upon the top 100 songs ranked by Billboard Hot 100 points calculated from digital sales, streaming and Mediabase-tracked radio airplay detections during the period of June 27 to Oct. 4 and reflecting the issue dates of July 12 through Oct. 4. Publisher information for musical works on both charts has been identified by the Harry Fox Agency. A “publisher” is defined as an administrator, copyright owner and/or controlling party.**
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