Advertisers Urged To Leverage Radio Growth Amid Nielsen PPM Changes.

While Nielsen has already reported nearly across-the-board uptrends in PPM and nationwide radio listening since its change from a five-minute to a three-minute qualifier in January, the question now is how stations and advertisers can leverage that growth. Nielsen VP Audio Insights Jon Miller helped connect the dots during Radio Advertising Bureau’s “Tune Into Growth” webinar.

“Radio remains a large reach vehicle, and that’s an important story to tell,” Miller says, citing AM/FM radio’s 92% monthly reach of U.S. adults 18+ during Q2 2025, ahead of smartphones, TV-connected devices, live and time-shifted TV, PCs and tablets. “This extends across different groups because radio is the original ad-supported free audio platform. It’s in all of our cars, it’s out of home, it’s portable. [For] those reasons, radio has that large reach, and that’s why advertisers need to capitalize on it when planning for audio.”

Miller also cites Edison Research’s Q2 2025 “Share of Ear” report showing Americans 13+ spend three hours and 50 minutes per day listening to audio, and that 80% of daily ad-supported audio time is going to radio and podcasts. “Those two things need to be on your media plan when you’re planning for audio and you’re planning for reaching consumers at scale,” he says. “It’s great to have huge reach on your music service, it’s great to have a ton of subscribers, but if you’re not able to reach those consumers with ads, how valuable are those folks to you as an advertiser?”

When it comes to marketers and radio, there remains some education to be done, based on results of a Nielsen global marketing survey. “There’s a bit of a disconnect here between perception and reality,” Miller says. “When we asked them how effective radio is, it scored the lowest. Less than half of our respondents said they think radio is an effective medium, and yet, when you look at ROI, radio scored second only to social.”

Advertisers and radio salespeople also need to know the power of network radio, which Nielsen shows reaches 93% of listeners every week. “From a national advertising perspective, network radio is really important,” Miller says. “Network radio is the one place where radio really acts like TV on a national basis. [It’s] an effective and affordable way to tune into growth among your target consumers [and] allows advertisers to plan and buy at the national level, at a scale that adds significant value to the media mix.”

Even though the three-minute qualifier change is limited to PPM markets, Nielsen’s research shows it’s impacted delivery across all DMAs, boosting network radio’s reach. “[While] PPM markets [are] seeing a 17% increase in average audience, on a national level this modernization effort has resulted in a 6% increase in impressions and gross rating points,” Miller says, noting the increases were the same whether light, medium or heavy spot schedules.

Using an example where Nielsen Media Impact moved 20% of a national campaign’s ad budget to network radio, Miller shows how the move lifted reach and impressions, adding 19 million more adults 25-54. Additionally, national radio adds 8.8 million more consumers reached three or more time with these ads, a 39% increase.

“We know that audio is very powerful,” he says. “We know that there are many easy ways to reach American consumers when you consider radio, and in particular network radio in your buy. if you’re not planning audio with network, radio and podcast, then you’re not really planning audio.”