Total daily audio time is high and stable. Adults 18+ spend about 3 hours 54 minutes a day with audio. People 13–34 lead every age group at 4 hours 30 minutes; 35–54 spend 4:03; 55+ spend 3:17. Younger Americans are not leaving audio. They are listening more, on more platforms.
On-demand now leads linear. By 2026, on-demand platforms (streaming music + podcasts and similar) account for about 56% of all audio time. Linear formats (AM/FM and satellite) have lost the majority they held as recently as 2020. That is the long-run structural shift.
AM/FM is still the single largest platform in total time. Across 2025 data, AM/FM (over-the-air plus station streams) is about 33% of all audio time among 18+, more than double YouTube music/videos at 14%. Streaming music as a category is large, but it is fragmented across Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Pandora, and others.
In ad-supported audio, radio still dominates. That is the number radio sellers emphasize:
- Q4 2025: ad-supported audio was 63% of all listening. Inside that bucket, radio was 61%, podcasts 21%, streaming music 15%, satellite 3%.
- Q2 2026 reporting puts AM/FM at about 62% of ad-supported time among 18+, versus 6% for ad-supported Spotify and 5% for ad-supported Pandora. Most Spotify listening is now ad-free (about 78%).
Advertiser perception is often inverted: agencies have estimated Spotify/Pandora far larger than AM/FM. Edison’s time-spent data says the opposite for commercial inventory.
Among 18+, AM/FM is about 54% of all in-car audio and 83% of ad-supported in-car audio. Among 13–34, AM/FM still takes 70% of ad-supported in-car time (podcasts 11%, streaming music 10%, YouTube 7%).
The newer twist is the device, not the content. For 13–34 in Q2 2026, smartphones account for 46% of in-car listening time versus 43% for a radio receiver. It's the first time mobile has led that demo in Share of Ear history. In 2015 the split was 19% mobile / 66% radio. Edison is explicit: device ≠ source. Some of that phone time is streamed AM/FM. Radio content can survive even as the tuner becomes optional.
Streaming has also passed AM/FM in daily music reach among 13+ (46% vs 43% in Q2 2026). Flip to ad-supported music only, and AM/FM is still more than double streaming (43% vs 19% daily reach), because so much streaming is paid and ad-free.
Share of Ear supports three true statements at once:
- Radio still wins commercial audio. If the question is “where can an advertiser buy scale among people actually hearing ads,” AM/FM is still the largest slice by a wide margin, including among 13–34 in the car.
- On-demand is winning the culture war. Total time, music discovery, spoken-word among the young, and in-car devices all tilt toward phones, playlists, and podcasts.
- AM remains the weaker half of “AM/FM.” Edison usually reports AM and FM together. Youth weakness in talk radio and the rise of podcasts imply AM is more at risk than FM music stations, even when the combined number looks resilient.