The divide between traditional AM/FM Radio listening and digital consumption of radio station content is shrinking — and new data from the Jacobs Media Techsurvey 2026 makes that trend impossible to ignore.
For the first time in the survey’s history, broadcast listening has fallen to 54% of total time spent listening on a terrestrial radio station, while digital platforms now account for 44%. That’s a 10-point gap — down from 15 points just one year ago.
“Broadcast is still ahead, but not by much,” Jacobs said. “Last year, broadcast was five points higher, and digital was five points lower. So there’s been meaningful movement this year.”
The longer view is even more striking. Back in 2013, when Jacobs Media first asked this question in its current form, 85% of P1 listening happened on traditional radio. Digital sat at just 14%. That’s a 71-point gap. Today, it’s 10.
“This chart tells a powerful story,” the Jacobs Media President said. “In 2013, the gap between broadcast and digital was 71 points. Today, it’s just 10 points.”
It’s worth noting what “digital” actually captures. The 44% figure includes computer streaming (12%), mobile apps (9%), smart speakers (4%), podcasts (2%), and smart TVs (2%). Meanwhile, broadcast’s 54% combines car listening — still the largest single platform at 37% — with radio at home, work, or school at 17%.
The demographic breakdown reveals where the real pressure is building. Gen Z has already crossed over — digital now edges broadcast 49% to 48% among that group. Millennials are close behind, with broadcast holding a slim 52–46 advantage. Gen X listeners show a similar split at 51–47.
“When we break this out by demographics, some clear patterns emerge,” said Jacobs. “Gen Z is now slightly ahead on digital, by one percentage point.”
Older listeners, by contrast, still skew heavily toward over-the-air. Boomers favor broadcast 57% to 41%, and the Greatest Generation leans even more traditional at 69% broadcast versus 28% digital.
Format also plays a major role in how that split shakes out.
Among the formats surveyed, CHR shows the highest digital usage on the first slide — 43% digital versus 54% broadcast.
AC, Classic Rock, Classic Hits, and Country all sit in a similar range, with broadcast holding leads between 59% and 63%.
Sports radio, though, tells a completely different story. It’s the only format where digital has lapped broadcast — 56% to 42%.
“Sports fans are voracious,” Jacobs shared. “They want constant updates. They use every device available — cars, phones, and more.”
News/Talk, meanwhile, remains the format most anchored to traditional radio, with broadcast at 59% and digital at 37%. Hot AC sits nearly even at 51% broadcast and 47% digital, while Rock comes in at 55–41 in favor of broadcast.
“The train isn’t leaving the station,” stated Jacobs. “It left quite a while ago.”
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It’s really annoying when music sometimes interrupts a near-constant stream of ads on many radio stations.
Don’t you mean a near-constant stream of ads interrupts music?
It’s true that continuity takes a back seat to revenue push. Radio used to be worth listening to when PDs and DJs were in the business of making a quality product,
Ask yourself, where can I buy a good AM/FM receiver or boombox? Remember the many car radio installers lined up and down Main Street USA?
It’s going to get to a point when the power meter for a legacy station can’t generate as much revenue as a data center.
I think you missed the sarcasm.
You don’t have an ear for sarcasm, do you?
both mediums suck hard, create your own, the tools are out there.
The AM broadcasters, especially, are doing it to themselves….seemingly non-stop ads to the point of practically each sentence has a sponsor and another ad. Unlistenable now and soooo sad.
How much of that online listening is to stations that stream their over the air signal?
I find this survey to be a bit skewed. The mention of p1 listeners is noted multiple times. That would indicate the survey only samples the most die hard broadcast consumers. What about everyone else, the majority of the population? As a millennial on the older end, I can confidently say that among my peers, they only listen to radio in a car for local sports, and I am aware of boomers who still listen to talk (I’m also a tiny sample size). I would love to know how this survey would look if they were to ask the everyday person, not a “p1” broadcast listener. The real final straw here is that cars don’t even make it easy to find radio anymore and that’s the primary method of listening via this survey. It unfortunately takes a backseat to all other forms of digital streaming.
Exactly, I do that all the time if I’m not in my car. Still huge fan of radio here.
I had the same question. I often listen to talk radio shows on “broadcast” stations, but listen to them on either Iheartradio or TuneIn apps as the reception is better, abd I won’t lose the station on longer trips.
I sincerely hope that broadcast media does not disappear. It is totally autonomous wherein digital relies on a “handshake” as the listener/watcher is essentially, a node on the provider’s network.
Broadcast AM/FM radio has way too many advertisements and commercials for the listener to tolerate.
Hmm..even public (commercial free..?) radio has commercials..they may not call them as such.(they help FUND the station)..yeah..thats what commercials do..they fund the stations.
In broadcast: a half minute-13 seconds are commercials -17 seconds content. Repeating a telephone number over and over. DOES NOT WORK
Aggreed. Most 30 second commercials can be written for 15 secondfs. When I was in radio I said all of our instituional promos could be no longer than 15 seconds. No problem. All the info, including sponsor mentions, still fit.
Why would I want to do a kind of individually-registered dial-a-prayer on some corporate governmental infrastructure when I can tune into the airwaves and have at least a semblance of a collective experience you get with broadcast.
Radio used to have music and an intelligent governing body. Now it has democrats, twerking and rap crap!
If they want to fix it they can fix it by simply going back to playing real music made with real instruments played by people who at least know what the instruments are and what they are for!
What on earth does that have to do with political affiliation? Nothing.
I own 5 cars(2 Classics). All 5 are over 20 years old. They all have AM-Fm radios and that’s all I listen to when driving.
Most FM stations in my area play the same tired old 14 songs every day. 22-25 minutes of ads in every hour! Unlistenable!
AM radio in my area has been pretty much gutted.
The AM stations that remain play far too many ads and after 8PM it’s all infomercials for dietary supplements.
Very sad.
It’s my fault. Used to listen for 2.5 hours per day as I drove to and from work. Retired last June. Sorry.
Don’r know about your car radio, but on my Toyota the sat receiver quality beats the FM hands down. The FM sounds like trash. And let’s not talk about the AM.
Music on FM radio is repetitive , boring programming – in NYC the classic rock station and. Classic hits play the same exact burned out 80s songs over and over , with DJs who are not allowed to have any personality – the only edge radio would have is DJ personality which they took away , so it’s soulless repetitive 80s songs all day , all night , who would bother listening ? The numbers have to be worse than this – non commercial radio is the only good option in NYC we have WFMU – open playlists and DJ personality
Why no mention of Satellite radio? Maybe I’m the only one that listens…
I’ll never pay for a service with so many obscure channels that I’d never be able to find one or two that I could toggle back and forth! Plus, you STILL get commercials! No way. I don’t have pay TV and I won’t have pay radio!
Oh, I’ve tried their free offer weekends, etc..and didn’t like what I heard and got totally turned off trying to find sat channels that played only commercial free 80s and disco music!
The last time I used AM it was to receive traffic updates through a construction area (the state runs them 24/7).
The last time I used FM was to…well, I can’t remember, it’s been awhile.
Satellite radio is a lot of money for stuff I never listen to.
I bring my own music, BT’ed from my pad/phone or loaded onto the car sound system HD.
Works great. Sounds great. Nothing I don’t like. Free because I already own all the music I like. And I never have to listen to commercials.
Podcasts are replacing talk radio and music is streaming or played offline from a smartphone. Broadcast television is also declining. One wonders where the spectrum of radio frequencies will be reassigned. UHF now powers digital broadcasts and wireless technology while much of the UHF/VHF spectrum were added to existing cellular frequencies. There are some people with old garage door openers living near military airbases and every now and then those doors open and close on their own as the spectrum they used to own is now used by the military. While the medium changes, the content is still king. Do it correctly with the proper talent and focus and you’ll keep doing it on a different medium.
No one and nothing breaks on radio these days, because they don’t play music anymore. Most stations have one or two playlists, and they just keep playing them all day. The real problem is that a handful of corporations have a monopoly, and own all of radio, so things have gone from bad to boring. Then, when the award shows air these days, most people haven’t even heard the nominated songs or artists. You can thank radio for that, which was a really great medium at one point. The corporate giants ruined it.
Some LPFM’s and their programming have become a better source of music beyond the cookie cutter bland corporate playlists and that mass commercial load. But, this also depends on quality of its operator and programmers. VALLEY1049.ORG “NW ECLECTIC” branded station seems to have their act together musically. Wow currently playing 2 Beatles as in new Paul McCartney and new Ringo Starr music on rotation. What a music programming risk, eh? None of the commercial outlets will touch it??????
radio is a monopoly run by the shysters,
so quality has gone into the toilet with no competition
break up the monopoly and have the free market take over and have a few non-shyster owners allowed in the game and watch a re-birth happen.
I have a excellent am/fm tuner from the 1970’s that is on almost every day. Sports talk in the early morning, some classical music in the late morning. Then classic rock all afternoon. My son just bought his own Tuner / receiver and is listening to that more than spotify. We have a lot of folks that listen to the radio at work all day. Not sure if they surveyed streamers only.
I stopped listening to radio when Rush Limbaugh died. I stopped watching television long before that. I consume all my media online from the internet today. I’m old.
Give the stations back to the DJ’s. Enough of this corporate garbage.
megacorp radio doesn’t care what you want to hear, they have pre-programmed it from their palatial offices and who are you to ignore their data wonks who are paid to jam it down your throats.
why else is Cumulus & Audacy going under like a submarine
Here in Albuquerque, NM, we probably have one of the best FM stations in the country.
The station is located on the UNM campus. It is KUNM 89.9 FM, a public supported NPR station. They play the best music from every conceivable genre, and they have the best objective news and talk programs found anywhere. And contrary to what thrump says, they don’t lean to the left. On the critically acclaimed “Democracy Now” program, discussions of failures of liberal policies and politicians are routinely the topic. Many people who work at the station are volunteers, especially the radio hosts. They even bring in their own music to play on the air. And people from all over the world know of and listen to KUNM because they are one of those stations that stream their content at kunm.org Alas, since our current administration has decided that it needs so much of the budget to support war and building more detention centers that it can’t afford to throw a few crumbs to the people, we are , so far, successively funding the station ourselves. Please, wherever you are, listen to KUNM, and if you think it is worth supporting, chip in a few bucks a month.
This is a joke, right? https://www.kunm.org/show/democracy-now
links to this – https://www.democracynow.org/
And that link has EVERY story as a hard left story. What propaganda. Do you work for the Atlantic? or wait The New York Times? Please. Not one dime of federal OR state money should be spent on “public radio” any more. Its propaganda that should die. And the left should own the fact that they killed it, instead of being willing to be reasonable and TRULY have balance in public radio.
That program “Democracy Now”reminds me of the commie propaganda from the likes of Radio Moscow and Radio Peking back in the 1960s! I think that gal who is the moderator must be an aging “hippy” who is trying to recall the days of anarchy!
There is never such a thing as news “balance”, not left or right…news is the one sided TRUTH!
Eventually, broadcast radio will start charging people just like SiriusXM.
I turn my AM radio one two to three times a day for about 20 minutes each time when I am out in the shed doing some work. Around 8/10 times I turn on the radio, there is a commercial. When there is not a commercial, whatever is wrong in the world is Joe Biden’s fault… still.
I’m a Boomer that listens to digital radio on IHeart. In the car, at home…I listen to podcasts of shows I missed during the day. The only reason I would listen to broadcast radio: no other option. I also stream TV with YouTubeTV as my dashboard.
Does this research account for listers who use digital sources to listen to FM radio?
I regularly listen to the UPenn radio station playing all kinds of eclectic music mixes — WXPN. I also listen to my burnout rock station in St. Louis where I grew up, KSHE 95. Now I’m way past the broadcast signal range, but I’m still able to listen to my favorite FM stations thanks to digital media.
I live in western IN and most of the stations here are run by computer. THAT means that sometimes there is dead air…..NOTHING on the air at all! Also, these “stations” don’t even run live DJs, neglect weather, markets and have 30 seconds to one min of local news. The already act like radio is dead,,,,BECAUSE they are killing it. I am SOO glad corporations own radio stations…..they have totally screwed free radio in lieu of forcing people to the internet/phones for news. An ignorant populace is easy to control and that’s where this is heading.
Same problem here in North Carolina and Virginia..Lots of stations with dead air or two sound tracks running at once or some other problem. Then, when you try to contact the station to let em’ know you’re a concerned listener, you get nowhere!
Classic rock station play the same limited playlists and I can no longer listen. Consultants have ruined rock radio. Too bad there aren’t more ‘free form’ classic rock stations that aren’t afraid to play a wide variety of album rock like the AOR format of the early 70’s.
Broadcast radio’s biggest problem is that it lacks entertainment value. Stations play the same songs over and over in a rotation, because that’s what they expect listeners want to hear. You could call it Big Mac radio, where one classic rock station has exactly the same rotation as the next one on the band. Some stations don’t even have on-air personalities (i.e. DJs), instead pushing a computer generated rotation, interspersed with commercials, which also lack creativity, and thus, entertainment value. Satellite radio isn’t any better in this respect – you can hear the same rotation, with the same song played at the same time of day, often on two or three different channels. People themselves aren’t really interested in exploring new genres or music, preferring instead to stick with the familiar. It’s a lack of intellectual curiosity that prevents them from tuning a new station, or demanding that stations have a greater variety of music, coupled with the egocentric trait of only consuming that which conforms to their narrow view of the world.
I still remember Paul Anka coming over my little transistor radio for the first time with “…………Oh….Please Stay with me…Diana.”
My car stereo has a Aux/USB input. I put all my music (ripped from any media, or purchased digitally) on an “old” iPod Classic w/80 GB storage that lives in the center armrest. It’s easy to create a giant playlist of music I love and listen for hours with no interruptions, no subscriptions, no streaming, and no dependence on proximity to local stations. This won’t work for live content (sports, news, weather), but for music, it’s the way to go.
LOVEIT
In my family, only my wife still listens to / watches broadcast radio and TV. For me and my 3 kids it’s been streaming, audiobooks, podcasts, and purchased media for around 15 years.
14567 MP3’s on a USB stick ended XM for me, radio long gone
The Greatest generation are almost all passed. The generation you were referring to is the silent generation.
Thank you! I thought I was the only one who caught what was a rather obvious error.
I long ago gave up on radio. Today, I use thumb drives. No commercials, no repeats, and long time plays before changing again. Radio went dead with mergers and payolla. Now you can’t request a tune, because they are paid to play the same tunes hour after hour. Many no longer have DJs and those are boring corporate controlled channels. I can take 4 or 5 thumb drives and travel across the US and never hear the same tune twice and never worry about traveling out of range.
I’ve worked in 3 careers in my life. Restaurants, radio (for decades) and now I work in tech. In restaurant management I learned that if your business shrinks by even a few percent a year for several years, you’re headed to not being in business anymore. When I started in radio I played actual records, and stayed until my position was eliminated due to automation and consolidation.
Now I work in the tech industry, and you know what I never hear from my (mostly) Gen Z co-workers? “I heard this great song on the radio.” They don’t listen to FM, and AM is like ancient Rome to them.
Its the ADs, most shows are 60/40 now. 60% ads, 40 % content and another 10-15% paid content spoken by the host! Its unlistenable at this point. Music station repeat the same thing for months/years. I listen to podcasts since some still have no ads or can be skipped. In the case of i Heart app, they put ads on top of the local ones and sometimes they overlap and is even worst!