Agencies Continue to Underestimate AM/FM Radio’s Audience Share.
- Inside Audio Marketing
- Jun 3
- 2 min read

Will advertisers ever see AM/FM radio for the powerhouse audio medium it still is?
According to a comparison in Westwood One's blog of Advertiser Perceptions' most recent survey of more than 300 media agencies and marketers to Edison Research's Q1 2025 “Share of Ear” report, agencies are still way off the mark when it comes to AM/FM radio's share of time spent with ad-supported audio among persons 18+.
Their perception? AM/FM's share is just 27%, only two percentage points higher than Spotify's at an estimated 25%, while Pandora's is 18%. That means according to advertisers, Spotify and Pandora's combined share of 43% far surpasses that of AM/FM radio.

The reality is of course much different, with AM/FM's share 68%, according to Edison, while both ad-supported Spotify and Pandora claim just 5% each. The remainder of ad-supported audio time spent goes to podcasts (20%) and SiriusXM (3%).
“AM/FM radio’s actual share is 2.5 times larger than what advertisers perceive,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says, “[while] agencies and advertisers vastly overestimate Pandora and Spotify shares.”
The blog notes that since 2017, AM/FM radio has remained dominant based on “Share of Ear,” currently with a 62% share of ad-supported audio – 52% from over-the-air, and 10% from streaming – among persons 25-54. While AM/FM streaming has increased by 67% over that period in that same demographic, ad-supported share for Pandora has fallen 45%, with SiriusXM down 33%. Ad-supported podcasts' share, meantime, has grown from 5% in 2017 to 26% in 2025.
Based on their estimates, advertisers may also be surprised to learn that AM/FM radio continues to have a much stronger presence in vehicles, with a commanding 85% share of ad-supported audio vs. podcasts' 7%, SiriusXM 3%, and 2% each for Spotify and Pandora. “Over the last decade, AM/FM radio’s share of ad-supported audio in the car has been steady in the mid to high 80s,” Bouvard notes.

With podcasts' share gain since 2017 has come significant growth for spoken word content overall, according to Edison. “Pre-pandemic, spoken word content (news, sports, and personalities/talk shows) represented a 29% share of all ad-supported listening,” Bouvard says. “Over the last three years, spoken word has soared to a 37% share of ad-supported audio.”

Broken down by content, “Share of Ear” shows that while music maintains a significant lead in ad-supported audio time share among 25-54s, personalities/talk shows' share has grown the most since 2017, up 48%, with sports up 27%. It's worth noting that this happened while podcasts' daily listeners have grown older. While 18-24 was the segment with the highest share of listening in 2017, at 17%, that honor now goes to 25-34's 32%, followed by 35-44 at 28%. In fact, Bouvard points out, “The older the demo, the greater the reach growth. 45-54 reach is [now] almost as large as 18-24.”
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