Radio Dominates Ad-Supported TSL With Young Demos

AM/FM radio is the dominant way to reach 13- to 34-year-olds with advertising in the car.Americans ages 13–34 spend just under an hour a day listening to audio in vehicles. 

Most of that time—63%—goes to ad-supported platforms. Within that ad-supported slice, AM/FM radio, including over-the-air broadcasts and radio streams, accounts for 70% of listening. 

For advertisers trying to reach young consumers on the road, broadcast radio remains the clearest path. 

Podcasts rank a distant second at 11% of ad-supported in-car time among this age group. Ad-supported streaming music follows at 10%. Music and music videos on YouTube take 7%. SiriusXM, limited here to its non-music channels that carry ads, accounts for 2%. The rest of in-car audio time among 13- to 34-year-olds is largely ad-free—especially paid streaming music—so those minutes do not deliver commercials. 

The car is a high-value setting because it concentrates attention and sits on the path to purchase. Edison Research’s Share of Ear study measures listening by everyone in the vehicle, not only the driver, so the figures reflect passengers as well. 

Younger listeners split their overall in-car time more widely than older adults—AM/FM still leads total in-car time for 13–34s, while streaming has a larger foothold than it does among all adults 13+—but when the comparison is limited to platforms that actually run ads, radio’s lead widens sharply. That distinction matters for media plans. 

Streaming music claims a meaningful share of total dashboard time, yet much of it is subscription and therefore commercial-free. Filtering to ad-supported sources leaves AM/FM with seven in ten minutes among 13–34s, with podcasts, ad-supported streamers, YouTube music content, and ad-supported SiriusXM splitting the remainder. 

Advertisers who want scale against young people in cars still get it first from AM/FM radio.