The audio landscape in America today offers more choices for consumers and more types of programming than ever before. Everything from music and sports to talk radio, the variety of personalities and perspectives characterizes not just the diversity of radio content, but also the unique audiences—young and old—that are tuning in each day in markets large and small all across the country.
And when it comes to the large catalog of nationally-available content created each week by the 46 radio networks measured by Nielsen RADAR, the broad variety of programming offered appeals to many different generations, including some not traditionally associated with “network radio.” These networks, which provide content across the U.S. on thousands of stations, are the focus of the latest Nielsen Audio Today report, which profiles the more than 181 million Americans (age 12 and older) who listen to network radio each week.
Millennials (consumers aged 18 to 34) account for more than a quarter of the national network radio listeners, as 51.1 million tune into a RADAR network every week. That’s more than Generation X (44 million) and Baby Boomers (43 million). In fact, compared to the national average for RADAR network radio listening, which reaches 68% of listeners, network radio reaches 70% of Millennial Americans.
And the strong representation from this demographic is good news for the radio industry. Despite their youth, more than seven in 10 (70.8%) Millennial network radio listeners have household incomes greater than $75,000 per year and 68.4% are college graduates.
