Report: More Cars On the Road Is Great News For Radio

In the world’s most car-obsessed country, driving is on the upswing. The car is making a comeback, and according to a blog posting at the Alan Burns & Associates website, that's great news for radio.

Apple tracks mobility around the world through anonymized data fed back from Apple devices as they and their owners move around and as people request driving directions from Apple.  Their latest “map request” report shows daily traffic in cars, public transit, and on foot from January 13 (an apparently arbitrary date) through May 27.  The chart below summarizes the driving data indexed to that day (January 13 = 100).

The beginning date of January 13 was mid-winter, when driving tends to be low. It was also a Monday, which tends to be the second-lowest traffic day of the week after Sunday.  Driving increased as America moved toward spring, reaching a high of 140 (that is, 40% higher than on Jan. 13) on March 6.

But that was the last “good” day of in-car listening nationally as Covid-19 precautions began to take hold. From that date, listening declined dramatically, hitting bottom on April 12th at a 37.  On that day there was 63% less driving (as measured by requests for directions) than on January 13. Radio stations were taking enormous hits in daily and weekly listening, according to the blog.

Fortunately, the numbers are coming back even as America reopens unevenly. By the end of the period on May 27 the index was up to 109.  That’s 9% above the January reference date, “only” 22% below the March high, and going in the right direction.

This good news comes with a caveat and a challenge, though.  There’s evidence that at least some of the resurgence in driving comes from people who used to take public transportation (to work, most likely) but have reverted to using their cars since being in one’s own car exposes you to fewer potential virus-carriers.  This places radios in front of people for their commute.  But are those folks going to listen to radio, or listen to what they used on the bus/train…which in many cases is likely to be podcasts or personal music collections?  Can radio win those people back?