The total portion of radio listening time that comes from streams has more than doubled since 2015 according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear. The total portion of radio listening time that comes from streams has risen to 13% in 2023, up from 6% in 2015, among those 13+.
While the gains were across all demos, among younger listeners the shift to digital listening has been particularly noteworthy. The latest data shows that 19% of all radio listening time is via broadcast streams among listeners aged 13 to 34. That’s a 72% increase from 2015 when 11% of their radio listening time was done online.
Edison notes that it’s not just young people who are listening more to radio station streams. Even among 35- to 54-year-olds there has been a significant shift in habits. Today, 14% of their listening time is done to radio webcasts versus 8% in 2015. Yet the biggest jump is among adults 55 and older, who have more than doubled their listening time to radio streams in recent years. Nearly one of every ten minutes of this demo that grew up on traditional radio is now spent listening to station streams.
“It is worth noting that a large factor in the pace of change is how much radio listening happens in the car,” Edison says in a blog post. “While anyone with a smartphone can listen to radio streams while driving, our estimate is that only about one percent of in-car radio time is via streams.”
Edison reported last year that time spent with all audio on the phone surpassed time spent on a radio set for the first time.