Most advertisers are making media decisions based on what they personally use, not what their customers actually listen to. If you work in an office, live in a major metro, and stream Spotify on your commute, your intuition about where your customers spend their audio time is probably wrong. Significantly wrong.
Edison Research has been tracking how Americans consume audio for 25+ years. Their Q4 2025 Share of Ear study, a rolling 12-month diary survey of 4,000 adults, reveals a gap between advertiser perception and consumer reality that should concern every local business owner who has ever said "nobody listens to radio anymore."
The Number Advertisers Get Most Wrong
Edison asked 302 advertisers and agencies what percentage of ad-supported audio time they thought went to AM/FM radio. The average answer: 26%.
AM/FM radio accounts for 63% of all ad-supported audio time among adults 18+ — 13 times larger than ad-supported Spotify and Pandora combined. In a typical hour of ad-supported audio, Americans spend 38 minutes with AM/FM radio. Podcasts get 12.8 minutes. Ad-supported Spotify gets 3.3 minutes. Pandora gets 1.7 minutes.
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Boise Is a Driving Market. That Matters.
Unlike New York or Chicago, where media planners commute by subway, the Treasure Valley runs on cars. According to U.S. Census data, 78% of American commuters drive a car or truck, and 88% of them drive alone. In markets like Boise, Nampa, and Caldwell, that number is even higher — and commute times are long enough to make radio exposure a daily certainty for most households.
AM/FM radio holds an 83% share of in-car ad-supported audio, a number that has held essentially steady for seven consecutive years. When your customers are driving to work, picking up the kids, or heading to your competitor's location, AM/FM radio is what they're listening to.
64% of all AM/FM radio listening happens away from home: at work, in the car, running errands. Most streaming listening happens at home. Radio reaches people when they're out in the market, close to the point of purchase — timing that matters for local advertisers in a way that home listening doesn't replicate.
What Happens to Reach When You Add Radio
Among adults 25–54, if you run ad-supported Spotify, you reach 7% of your audience daily. Add Pandora, you get to 13%. Add podcasts, and you reach 40%. Add AM/FM radio and reach jumps to 76% — nearly double what you had without it.
Daily unique reach among adults 25–54 by platform combination
Radio is the single biggest jump in the entire ladder. And 90% of AM/FM radio listeners don't use ad-supported Pandora at all. 89% don't use ad-supported Spotify. Radio is reaching a largely different audience than digital streaming.
The Spotify Reality Check
76% of Spotify's audience is now ad-free — the Premium subscription tier. Spotify's ad-free audience has quadrupled since 2017. The share of Spotify listeners who are actually reachable by ads has been essentially flat for years despite Spotify's massive user growth.
Meanwhile, Pandora's ad-supported share among adults 18–34 has crashed from 14% in 2017 to just 5% today. Among 18–24 year olds, Spotify beats Pandora 30 to 1 in audience share.
Your Ads Actually Get Heard
Edison Research partnered with MARU/Matchbox to measure what percentage of the time ads are actually audible among home listeners on each platform:
Nearly a third of ads on Spotify and Pandora can't be heard at all — typically because they're playing in the background while someone does something else. Radio, especially in-car radio, commands attention in a fundamentally different way.
What This Means for Boise Advertisers
Radio is the dominant ad-supported audio medium in America. The perception that it's declining is largely driven by the habits of media industry insiders in coastal cities who commute on subways, not by the actual behavior of adults in Boise, Nampa, and Caldwell who drive everywhere.
The most effective campaigns we run aren't radio-only or digital-only. Radio builds name recognition across the Treasure Valley while streaming TV, location targeting, social, and display ads capture and convert that audience once they're ready to buy. If you're running digital without radio, you're likely reaching 40% of your potential audience. Add radio and you can reach 76%.
If you're wondering how to actually measure that impact, read our breakdown of radio measurement in the digital era. And if you want to understand why AI media planning tools are systematically hiding this data from advertisers, read why the algorithm has a blind spot.
Curious what this looks like for your category?
We'll show you what competitors in your space are spending, which audiences they're reaching, and how a radio + digital plan could perform for your specific business.
Talk to us about advertising →Source: Edison Research Share of Ear® Q4 2025, published by Cumulus Media / Westwood One Audio Active Group®. Methodology: 4,000 respondents (1,000 per quarter), persons 13+, 24-hour audio diary. Advertiser Perceptions survey: August 2025, 302 advertisers and agencies. Audibility study: MARU/Matchbox, April 2024, 1,617 persons 18+.