Artists With the Most Radio Songs No. 1s in the 21st Century

Billboard’s electronically-monitored Radio Songs chart dates back to the Dec. 8, 1990, print issue.

“Billboard this week introduces the Top 40 Radio Monitor, a new airplay-only chart that provides actual monitored airplay data on top 40/pop stations,” announced a story on page 4 that week. “The chart uses a new technology [that] tracks airplay of songs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in markets where monitors have been installed. The monitors identify each song played by an encoded audio ‘fingerprint.’ Top 40 is the second format in which this information will be made available to our readers; the [Country Airplay] chart has used the methodology since the Jan. 20 issue.

“The Top 40 Radio Monitor chart is compiled by counting the number of times each record is played on each monitored station,” the story further explained. “Each play is multiplied by the number of listeners at that exact time, using [Nielsen Audio] data.”

Starting with the Nov. 30, 1991-dated Billboard Hot 100, the Top 40 Radio Monitor took over as the multimetric Billboard Hot 100’s radio measurement component (replacing stations’ self-reported ranked lists, which had reflected airplay popularity dating to the Hot 100’s Aug. 4, 1958, start). Since renamed Radio Songs, the chart started with a panel of 109 pop stations – in 1998, it expanded to all formats and currently sports more than 1,100 reporters, as monitored by Mediabase with data provided to Billboard by Luminate. A selection of stations remain reporting three-and-a-half decades after the chart began, including WHTZ (Z100) New York and KIIS Los Angeles.

Mariah Carey ruled Radio Songs in the ‘90s with eight of her 11 career No. 1s during the decade. She logged the list’s first leader, “Love Takes Time.”

Who has the most Radio Songs No. 1s over the first quarter of the 21st century? As Billboard celebrates the top-performing artists, albums and songs of the first 25 years of the century since 2000, browse below, the acts with the most No. 1s on the Radio Songs chart in that span.

Plus, check out Top Artists of the 21st Century, Top Billboard 200 Albums of the 21st Century and Billboard’s Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century charts, as well as all coverage of Billboard’s 21st Century charts here.

Billboard’s Top Artists, Top Billboard 200 Albums and Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century recaps reflect performance on weekly charts dated Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 28, 2024. The Top Artists category ranks the best-performing acts in that span based on activity on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100. (Titles released prior to mid-1999 are excluded, although such entries that appeared on the Billboard 200 or Hot 100 in that span contribute to the calculation of the Top Artists chart.)