Last year, Edison Research’s Share of Ear was able to pinpoint the moment when daily time spent with on-demand audio passed time spent with linear audio overall in the U.S. In fact — on demand had passed linear in every location years earlier — with the exception of one popular listening location: the car. The car has proven to be a different animal when it comes to audio consumption.

The firm discussed in a 2023 report that the newer the car, the more likely the listener to consume satellite radio. The graph below shows that among those with 2020 or newer model year cars, 22% of their daily in-car listening time is spent with SiriusXM, compared with only 4% of daily in-car time spent with SirusXM by those with cars from model years 2009 and older. Newer cars have newer hardware, and people who buy newer cars can afford subscription services.

For all model year cars, the time spent with “radio” is essentially the same with 74-75% of the total daily in-car audio time. Add the percentage of time spent with AM/FM radio to the time spent with satellite radio in-car, and it’s almost identical regardless of the age of the vehicle. Which means that the same amount of time is spent with linear audio options in the newest of cars as the oldest of cars, just through different distribution mechanisms.

AM/FM radio dominates time spent with audio in older vehicles, and still accounts for over half of all time spent with audio (52%) in-car, but you can easily see satellite radio’s strength in newer cars.

On-demand listening is growing in the in-car environment, albeit slowly. For most people at most times, driving and ‘radio’ seem to just go together.