Daily audio consumption in the first quarter of 2025 amounted to 3 hours and 45 minutes of daily listening across both ad supported and ad free platforms like radio, podcasts, streaming music services and satellite radio.
The Record is the quarterly report card on how U.S. consumers spend their listening day, fueled by data from Nielsen and Edison Research. While advertisers are constantly tracking changes in consumer behavior to improve the impact of their cross-channel marketing, The Record helps cut through with a unique representation of the time spent with ad supported audio.
Delineating between total listening (or viewing) and the ad supported universe is vital in today’s burgeoning media landscape where consumer choice grows by the day and marketers are looking at every available opportunity to cut through. In the first quarter of 2025 (Jan-Mar), ad supported audio represented 64% of total listening. This is similar to TV, where 72% of total viewing was spent on ad supported platforms, in Q1 according to Nielsen’s recently launched Ad Supported Gauge report.
Within the ad supported audio universe in the first quarter of 2025, consumers spent 66% of their daily listening time with radio, 19% with podcasts, 12% with streaming audio services and 3% with satellite radio. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, radio’s share of ad supported audio time was 1% lower this quarter, while podcasting’s share was 1% higher. This consistent demand for daily audio—and ad supported audio—varies proportionally based on age.
Radio accounts for anywhere from 47% of daily ad supported audio time among people 18-34 to 73% among 35+. Meanwhile, podcasts are the inverse, representing 15% of daily audio time for people 35 and older compared with 32% among those 18-34.
The following table details how the share of radio audience varies by format, age, demographic and platform for the top 15 largest-reaching AM/FM radio formats. These differentiate between the share of all radio listening and the share of streaming listening specifically, which refer to the digital streaming of AM/FM radio stations.
With broad reach and ample ad space, it’s not surprising that audio remains a critical part of the media mix for companies with varying budget sizes. As Nielsen continue to measure quarter over quarter, audio formats can have powerful reach with audiences of different demographics. Radio, in particular, has a strong hold with Black listeners.
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