Eight in Ten Millennials Listen to Internet Radio

Last fall, Edison Research debuted “The New Mainstream”, a research project performed on behalf of the Streaming Audio Task Force – a consortium of Pandora, Spotify, and TuneIn.  Now, Edison is pleased to follow up with a new report showing the results of the study among 18-34s.

The changes happening in media consumption are vastly more pronounced in the younger age groups.  Our study of online 18-34s shows that in every location of listening outside of the car, online 18-34s are more likely to listen to online radio (including the streams of AM/FM stations) than radio from a traditional transmitter.  Of course, the change in consumption is being driven primarily by the adoption of smart phones.

As shown by other studies – Internet Radio usage does not lead to a wholesale abandonment of ‘traditional’ radio – indeed 89% of 18-34s reported listening to over-the-air radio stations in the week before they were surveyed.  The advent of Internet Radio has surely led to some time-shifting from one form to the other, but meaningfully there is little doubt that Online delivery has expanded the time people spend with audio.