Traditional Radio Losing TSL In Newer Vehicles

As Edison Research’s Share of Ear® studies have consistently shown, when people are in their cars, it is AM/FM Radio that is the overwhelmingly dominant audio companion – -with 67% of all listening going to broadcast radio.

No matter the age of the car one is driving, this is the case. AM/FM garners a strong majority of all time spent listening in the car, even among people who drive the newest cars.

However, one can’t help but see that among those who drive the newest cars, listening to AM/FM is not quite as robust as it is among people who drive older cars.  When people have more choices, some people will, obviously, avail themselves of these new options.  And the choice that people driving newer cars seem to be making in greater numbers is SiriusXM.  As the graph below shows, among people whose principal car is model years 2015-2018 more than one-quarter of listening in the car goes to SiriusXM.

What is fascinating is if one adds together the AM/FM number and the SiriusXM number, as is shown in the graph below.  In every case, the sum of the two numbers is essentially the same.  No matter the age of the car – about seven-eighths of all listening goes to “Radio” – whether it is delivered from a satellite dish or a ‘terrestrial’ tower.

For all the discussion of new technologies in the car, such as voice activation, podcasts, and streaming, for most people and drivers of most cars, their time spent behind the wheel is taken with linear, programmed, hosted ‘radio’ type content.

For more on in-car listening, download the complete Miles Different: In-Car Audio study here.