Yesterday (Aug. 20, 2023) was National Radio Day and the Pew Research Center used the occasion to provide a snapshot of the industry in the U.S.
First and foremost, the firm notes that approximately eight-in-ten Americans (12+) listen to broadcast radio weekly. Weekly listening to radio has remained relatively steady in the last two years after dropping slightly in 2020. In 2022, 82% of Americans ages 12 and older listened to terrestrial radio in a given week, Pew Research notes, citing Nielsen data. Weekly listenership dropped from 89% in 2019 to 83% in 2020, a decline that coincided with the beginning of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
Radio is a source of news for many Americans, with nearly half (47%) of U.S. adults saying they get news from radio “at least sometimes,” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey. The figure has remained constant in recent years. In the same survey, only 7% of U.S. adults say they prefer radio to other platforms for getting news.
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One in five Americans, or 20%, say they “often get local news” from listening to their hometown radio station. These findings are from a 2018 Center survey. At the time, that was below the share of U.S. adults who say they often get local news from TV stations (38%) but comparable to the share who often get local news from daily newspapers (17%).
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Another finding in the news format reveals that most journalists feel “highly connected” to their audience. Approximately six-in-ten radio and podcast journalists (59%) said they felt extremely or very connected to their listeners. That was significantly higher than the 45% of print journalists, 44% of TV journalists, and 43% of online journalists who said the same.
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The share of Americans who listen to podcasts has increased over the last decade. As of 2023, 42% of Americans ages 12 and older have listened to a podcast in the past month, according to Edison Research’s “The Infinite Dial” report. The Center notes that the percentage has remained relatively constant since 2020, when 37% had listened to a podcast in the past month. Looking back, in 2013 just 12% of Americans listened to a podcast in the last month.
Roughly half of Americans (51%) say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, including one-in-five who report listening to podcasts at least a few times a week, according to a 2022 Center survey. Among U.S. podcast listeners, two-thirds say that news is discussed on the podcasts they listen to. Younger adults are more likely than older adults to listen to podcasts. Two-thirds (67%) of Americans ages 18 to 29 have listened to a podcast in the past 12 months, compared with just 28% of those 65 and older.
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