Nielsen: Radio Reaches the Most Americans Each Week

More than 90% of adults listen to Radio each week

Radio has been touting its high weekly penetration forever, but it often gets compared to monthly figures from digital and TV. Nielsen’s inaugural Comparable Metrics Report leveled the playing field and showed that radio has the highest weekly reach across all age groups, as more than 90% of all adults listen each week.

So who tunes in the most? According to Nielsen, African-Americans and Hispanics dominate, spending more than 13 hours listening to the radio. Hispanics are the most avid listeners, tuning in for 13 hours and 36 minutes each week.

When marketers and ad planners look at their choices, TV digital and radio are typically the first three media options. According to several eMarketer reports, TV will account for 37.9% ($74 billion) of the total U.S. media ad spend in 2015, followed by digital with 31.6% ($61.7B) and radio with 8.2% ($16 billion). Nielsen’s AdIntel data affirms this finding, and in the first six months of 2015, TV ad spend exceed $39 billion.

The Comparable Metrics Report shows that the average adult spends 775 minutes in a typical week with radio.