NAB Show New York: Radio’s Big Data Time Is Here.

Big data has been commonplace in TV and digital media audience measurement for years. Yet it has largely remained elusive for broadcast radio. Tech provider Xperi aims to change that, giving broadcasters access to near real-time listening metrics from millions of connected cars equipped with its DTS AutoStage platform.

“Today is our big data moment because DTS AutoStage is going to unveil audience measurement from millions, I mean, millions of cars,” Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer, Cumulus Media/Westwood One, said Wednesday.

Unveiled during a panel moderated by Bouvard and devoted to data, the update to the platform’s Broadcaster Portal promises a treasure trove of never-before-seen listening metrics and previously unheard-of sample sizes from the car, the top location for American radio listening.

The portal reports such familiar listening metrics as audience share, time spent, cume rating and occasions of listening. “What’s so cool is this is not a survey, we are not relying on people’s memory,” Joe D'Angelo, Sr. VP of Broadcast Radio and Digital Audio, Xperi told the NAB New York crowd. “The connected car reports back all the radio tuning minutes occurring in the car.”

The portal draws listening data from immense sample sizes: 241,700 AutoStage-equipped cars in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA; 231,048 in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ; 120,585 in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL. This should allow broadcasters to narrowly slice the data by dayparts and location with confidence. Medium markets including Tucson, Colorado Springs, Des Moines and Grand Rapids have samples sizes of at least 9,000 vehicles. “In markets outside the top 200, there are an average of about 4,000 cars reporting listening data,” D’Angelo explained.

For its first release, Xperi says it will provide listening data for 250 markets. Among them is Syracuse, NY, for which D’Angelo showed the top 15 stations from September (pictured above). A quick comparison by Inside Radio of Nielsen Audio’s ranker from August (the most recent survey period currently available) showed seven stations were found in the top 10 of both rankers.

Because the listening data is available within 24 hours of the broadcast, users can quickly gauge the impact of individual programming elements and promotions. D’Angelo showed a slide (pictured above) charting the hourly listening occasions surge to all-news LBC London on Sept. 8, 2020, after news broke that Queen Elizabeth II had died. U.S. broadcasters, for example, will now be able to compare the audiences of a play-by-play broadcast for a 1pm NFL game versus an 8pm match. “What’s exciting is the speed of our data processing,” D’Angelo explained. “We can report a day, week, or month on a 24-hour turnaround. You can understand what’s happening in your market in the moment.”

Importantly, the updated portal displays audience heatmaps. This enables broadcasters to visualize exactly where people are listening to a station. Sales teams can show clients the stations that are most listened to in the parts of town where they have stores.

While the upgrade brings new market rankers to radio, it’s important to note what it doesn’t include: listener demographics like age and gender, along with any consumption that occurs outside the car.

Tools to help broadcasters demonstrate impressions and attribution are on the horizon. “New features coming in 2026 include ad impressions generated by in-car ads, proving radio’s impact by comparing cars that were exposed to ads and those not exposed to a radio campaign,” D’Angelo continued. “This will allow you to demonstrate if those exposed to in-car radio ads were more likely to visit a retailer location.”

Also on the drawing block for 2026 are enhancements to offer more daypart granularity, including quarter-hours, standard dayparts, and custom time periods.

Among the automakers that have integrated DTS AutoStage are every model of KIA and Hyundai, along with certain models from Nissan, Ford, Lincoln, Genesis, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, and Tesla.

To gain access to this free data, stations need to provide Xperi with a station logo, their on-air moniker, format name, streaming URL and a live data feed from the station’s playout system that organizes all the songs and ads.