After 10 full years, the Edison Research Share of Ear study remains one of the best barometers of radio’s overall health. And not just radio, but audio as a whole. And while radio may be seeing a drop in usage from traditional methods, audio remains a strong medium overall.
Many in the industry are often told by outsiders that radio is dead, or at minimum, it’s in the process of dying. Certainly, there are challenges for the medium, but there are also encouraging signs for audio content creators.
Over the decade-long data procured by the company, Edison Research has shown a decline in traditional AM/FM radio listening, which co-founder and President Larry Rosin called unsurprising.
“(The latest Share of Ear data) doesn’t show a collapsing. We updated it quarterly, and every quarter it’s just a little lower than it was before,” Rosin said of terrestrial radio listening. “So over 10 years, it’s just gone down. It was something like 53% of all listening when we started, and now it’s like 36% of all those things.”
While losing almost a third of its audience over a decade might sound like a bloodletting, when juxtaposed with losses cable TV has seen — dropping 9% of its viewers annually — shows the changes in the medium aren’t as drastic as some may believe. Rosin noted the results “aren’t disastrous” and that AM/FM radio remains the dominant player in cars.
However, the biggest change in the past 10 years of the study relates to mobile phone usage. According to Rosin, 55% of Americans 13 and older had a smartphone in 2014 when the Share of Ear study began. Now? That figure has risen to over 90% of all demographics have a smartphone, which Edison Research shows has completely shifted the way we consume audio content.
“The two biggest sea changes we’ve documented in Share of Ear are the rise of phone as the primary device for audio consumption and the switch from linear audio consumption to on-demand audio consumption. And we watched huge leads — as of 10 years ago when the AM/FM radio where it was set as a listening device far ahead of the phone — and we watched those two lines cross. Then linear listening versus on-demand, we watched those two cross,” Rosin said. “The first crossing came in 2022, and the second came last year in 2023. And those are the two most significant changes we’ve documented over the course of these 10 years. It ripples through everything.”
It isn’t often that trends completely flip on a dime. With that in mind, Rosin believes we’re likely to continue to see audio consumption from mobile devices increase.
“The odds that one of those will even slow down, let alone reverse I’ll take any bet that anyone wants to make on that,” Rosin argued. “I think we can all certainly logically see it as unlikely…These people? They’re phone first, they’re digital first, they’re on-demand first. I know radio people who still think that (those aged 13-34) sort of hit a certain age threshold and sort of reverse innovate to radio, and I am deeply skeptical.”
In some of the latest data released by the company, a whopping 84% of Americans aged 13 and above listen to some form of ad-supported audio each day. That figure includes AM/FM radio, Spotify or Pandora free tiers, SiriusXM spoken word channels, or free YouTube videos.
But while that figure continues to decline for terrestrial radio, AM Radio continues to take hits. With many news/talk stations airing on the band, the Edison Research President the format is overdue for an update of its metrics and begin turning toward the future.
“(News/Talk) certainly got into a groove in the late 80s, but I have bad news for everyone: that was 35 years ago,” Rosin shared, noting that it was a smart move for companies to commit to an all-conservative lineup, before noting that many of listeners drawn to the format by Rush Limbaugh are now aged out of the key demographic. “If they were 35 and Rush came on, which would have been right down the middle, now you’re 70 years old. 35 years later, time marches on.”
Rosin added that other talented hosts have hit the genre, but many are simply impersonating Limbaugh. He later made a comparison between the format and a long-ago form of entertainment.
“If you’re my age, I’m 61, you’re far, far, far too young for vaudeville. Vaudeville was something that my grandparents enjoyed. My grandparents were born right around the early 1900s. You can sort of see that happening with the news/talk format right before your eyes. If you’re today’s 25-year-old, you would think of it as something grandpa listens to.”
After a decade of data, Rosin still believes in the power of the study with each quarterly update, noting that the results bear out some hard truths for radio groups, but an overall signal of health for audio.
“Honestly, I think Share of Ear is the single most important thing I’ve done in my entire career,” Rosin said. “It had no precedent, no one knew the relative size of the audio sector until Share of Ear, and it’s endlessly fascinating data. And with regards to radio, what it shows over the 10 years is — and I don’t think it surprised anybody — it shows a story of consistent decline, in terms of its share of all audio. We don’t see any significant change in the amount of audio people listen to.”
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
