Edison Research's latest Share of Ear study reveals significant differences in audio consumption patterns across U.S. regions and explores how geographic location impacts listeners' AM/FM radio and podcast preferences. It highlights how much you give.
The study was based on the U.S. Census' definitions of urban, suburban, and rural, and found that rural residents spent more of their daily audio listening hours than AM/suburban residents compared to urban and suburban residents. It became clear that a large proportion of the data was allocated to FM radio and radio streams. Specifically, listeners in rural areas spend 43% of their audio time on these media, while listeners in urban areas spend 34% of their time on these media.
Conversely, city dwellers are more inclined towards podcasts, spending 13% of their daily audio time on this format. This is more than double the percentage seen by rural listeners who allocate just 6% of their time to podcasts. The suburban listener's habits lie between these two extremes.
Despite these differences in media consumption, Share of Ear's comprehensive analysis of audio usage goes beyond just radio and podcasting to create a uniform “time budget” for listening to radio and podcasts everywhere. The total percentages are in a narrow range between 47% and 49%. %. This consistency means that although the time division between radio and podcasts varies by region, the overall time allocation to these audio sources is similar across the board.
