With the calendar turning over to 2025, Barrett Media is sitting down with some of the best and brightest media researchers in the industry for a weeklong series, “Digging Through Data.” We begin the series by speaking with Larry Rosin, the President and co-founder of Edison Research, the firm that produces surveys like the Infinite Dial and the Share of Ear Study.
The conversation with Larry Rosin came on the heels of new data from Edison Research that showed that audio listening levels are returning to pre-pandemic levels, with at-home time spent listening while listening in every other enviormnet seeing an uptick in 2024.
According to data from the latest Share of Ear study update, daily time spent listening at home continued to drop in 2024 from its 2022 peak. The average audio consumption of those aged 13+ in the study showed 127 minutes of listening at home, with 107 minutes taking place in all other locations. That time at home figure has declined from 152 minutes in 2022.
Meanwhile, the category of all other places rose from a low of 91 in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Rosin, however, isn’t sure the industry will ever see the figures seen before the COVID-19 pandemic made a massive shift in audio consumption arena.
“I doubt it ever gets fully back, just because remote work is a really persistent trend that was massively accelerated by the pandemic and has stuck in many ways,” said Rosin. “But we’re seeing more and more in-car listening. And in-car listening is good for radio. Obviously, the largest reach for radio comes in the car. And (a rise in in-car listening) has been very helpful for radio.”
One of the things that Rosin predicts will also be helpful for the radio industry in 2025 is the shift from Nielsen to a three-minute qualifying listening down, down from the previous five-minute benchmark.
“The five-minute rule was, I guess you could argue, somewhat arbitrary, so changing it to three is equally arbitrary,” the Edison Research President said. “The radio industry gets 15 minutes of credit for three minutes of listing, so you can’t complain about that.”
Larry Rosin added that, while he takes no issue with the change from Nielsen, he does believe that the shift to a three-minute qualifying time will “without a doubt” be a point of demarcation in the research world.
“They’ve already published that certain formats will benefit more than others, so you’ll just see this reset across the board,” Rosin said. “The aggregate numbers for radio will go up a lot … Obviously the reach is going to go up, and the total rating is going to go up, which is good for radio.”
Despite the move being a good one for radio, Rosin did share some concerns about how the changes will be received in the advertising world.
“I hope that advertisers don’t just look at that and say, ‘Wow, radio delivers more than I understood.’ I fear that they will say, ‘Oh, you’re saying I can get more points for the same amount of money, so I’m just going to give you less money and achieve the same number of points.’ I worry that that will be the outcome here,” he shared.
“But it will lead to a big reset of a lot of things just the way PPM was a reset in 2011/2012 when that rolled out.”
As for 2025, Larry Rosin said Edison Research has two main goals for the calendar year.
“We continue a really strong focus on podcasting. We’re coming out with a lot of new enhancements to what we’re doing in that space, too,” he shared. “Our main focus is making sure that advertisers have the information they need to put more money into podcasting. We are going to have some reasonably big announcements on ways that we are using our data to reduce friction and to increase the profile of podcasting, and to help advertisers understand it, buy it more easily, plan for it, buy it more easily, etc.
“With regard to radio and the Share of Ear Study, this data helps so effectively fight the argument, ‘No one listens to the radio anymore.’ Share of Ear is super effective for that. So I want to work with our radio clients — and maybe possibly get new radio clients — who can use this data to talk to advertisers.”
Rosin concluded that 2025 will include a large focus on helping connect advertisers with data that gives them confidence to utilize the audio space — whether it be radio or podcasting, digital, or streaming — to market to consumers.
“I would say that’s our main focus for this year: providing data that talks to advertisers and helps companies that sell advertising in the audio spac and help bring more money into audio. No one will complain if more money comes into audio, right?” he said with a laugh.
“Then they can all fight over it, but no one complains if it’s fighting over a bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger pool of money. So that’s our goal, is to increase that pool, to help advertisers understand that there’s an incredible audience there. It’s incredibly effective and tends to be very efficient in terms of return on investment. So that’s our big focus for ’25.”
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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.
