Americans Spend More Time Listening Via Mobile Devices

On Friday, December 16, Edison Research presented its “Top 10 Findings of 2022”. Findings detailed everything from podcast consumption both nationally and globally and smart speaker ownership to in-car listening habits among different generations.

For those of us in the radio and broadcast industries, some of the most pertinent information has been dug up about how our audiences access their audio in and out of the car.

According to Edison Research’s 2022 report, Americans now spend more time listening to audio through a mobile device than a traditional AM/FM radio receiver.

In 2014, approximately half of all daily audio content was listened to via a traditional receiver. This year, the cell phone narrowly surpassed the AM/FM receiver, as can be seen on the graph below. It is important to note that this data refers specifically to audio hardware, not radio content in general, which can be listened to in many ways via smart speakers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.

This date is further broken down by age.

Another hot topic: How the public consumes media in their vehicles.

In his report, Edison said radio still dominates the in-car listening environment, even with the changing habits of Gen Z.

Traditional AM/FM tuners now take the top spot for Gen Zers ages 13-24, claiming 48 percent of time spent listening by device.

During the presentation, Edison representatives said the in-car environment proves different when listening habits are tracked. Despite the mobile phone generally eclipsing traditional receivers, young listeners spend about half their time in the car with AM/FM radio, with the US population aged 13 and older spending 58 percent of their time.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series on Edison Research’s Top 10 Findings of 2022.