In January of this year, Edison Research held a national survey and questioned over a thousand people 12 years and up. The research was done in English and Spanish. It will be interesting to compare January of this year to January of next year, which is less than a month away.

Here are some of the stats found in this study:

The stat 93% of people own a smartphone, smart tv, or smart speaker isn’t surprising. What IS surprising is an estimated 172 million people own a radio in their household while only 98 million people own a smart speaker in their house. This is great news for those of us who know radio isn’t a “dying media.”  Moreover, the survey found AM/FM radio in their vehicle is listened by 70% of those surveyed while 55% listen to online audio, and 32% listen to podcasts. Radio still wins in vehicle listenership.

Even though podcast listening in vehicles was on the lower end of the survey in that category, podcast listening is up tremendously. In 2022, 79 million people said they listened to podcasts regularly. Just two years later that number has jumped to 84 million listening to podcasts. I’ve mentioned in another article it’s important to take hold of podcasting on your station. You can reference that article here.

Audio streaming continues to climb. Pandora is at the top of the list with 84 million listeners, Spotify is close behind with 81 million, followed by Apple music at 76 mill, and iHeart Radio with 74 million. While the top three are streaming centric, we still have a type of radio in the top 4. At this point, your station should have the capability to stream.

Social media continues to change, it seems, even monthly. As of January 2024, Facebook was the most used social media platform. That has changed since then. However, social media use is huge among listeners. Whether you are using Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, or X, you need to be posting daily. Reels and videos gain more views vs plain text posts, and even over photo posts. The chart on the Edison Research site looks like a weather spaghetti model, that’s how all over the place the social media trends are. The takeaway from this is listeners continue to use social media and the users are growing daily. Make it a point to check in with analytics at least once a month to find out where your specific demo is going for entertainment and use that information accordingly.