Americans Listen To 200 Billion Minutes Of Audio Weekly

A new set of data from Nielsen has revealed that the average US dweller is listening to a massive amount of audio on weekly basis, although not all of it seems to be coming from sources which you might expect.

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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

Ever wonder how much we listen to audio programming in a given week. Nielsen Research actually keeps track of this and has some very interesting data that shows that Americans. listen to a tremendous amount of audio, but not all of it comes from the sources that you might think. With streaming at the forefront of everybody’s minds (not to mention the news) these days, you’d think that’s where we’d get most of our audio pleasure. Not so, however.

According to Nielsen, in an average week there are more than 202 billion minutes spent listening to audio in the U.S. Of that total, a whopping 188.6 billion minutes, or 93%, comes from AM/FM radio, while streaming audio on a phone is next with just 9.5 billion minutes. This is followed by streaming audio on a tablet (2.4 billion) and streaming audio on a computer (1.5 billion). That means that only around 6% comes from streaming!

The study also states that Americans listen to radio five days per week and just three days streaming on smartphones and tablets and two days of weekly streaming on a computer. When it comes to actual people listening to certain devices, Nielsen gives us these numbers:

Radio: 228.5 million adults

TV (live, DVR and time-shifted): 216.5 million

Apps and web on a smartphone: 204 million

Video on a smartphone: 127.6 million

Streaming audio: 67.6 million

Satellite radio: 35.9 million

Podcasts: 20.7 million

Nielsen sums it up by saying, “As the audio landscape continues to expand, more and more options will become available to consumers as technology drives all media usage forward. Through all of these changes, AM/FM radio continues to reach more people and garners the most time spent with audio.”

What all that means is that radio may be old and less important that it once was, but it’s not done yet. There’s still on lot of listening left in that medium.