Radio’s reach and time spent listening is up year-over-year, according to radioCount’s fall 2025 release.
The survey includes results from the four continuously measured markets – North Bay, Thunder Bay, Belleville and Peterborough – as well as the 17 markets measured annually each fall, including Charlottetown, Fredericton, Saint John, Sydney, Chatham, Cornwall, Guelph, Owen Sound, Pembroke, Sarnia, Timmins, Wingham, Brandon, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Chilliwack, Kamloops, and Prince George.
The listening period measured covers Sept. 1 – Oct. 26, while continuously measured markets reflect listening between April 28 and Oct. 26.
Across all markets combined, radio reached an average of 2.1 million people, 12+, a 1.7% increase over radioCount’s fall 2024 measurement. Listeners spent an average of 17.9 hours listening to radio, up 0.8% year-over-year. Both the continuously measured and fall-only markets also had gains in cume from a year ago.
For the fall-only markets, overall time spent listening rose from 17.9 hours a week in fall 2024 to 18.1 hours this year. Average weekly cume increased 1.8%, reaching 1.67 million persons 12+. radioCount says cume and radio tuning continued to trend upward among both the key adult 18-49 and 25-54 demos.
Among men, time spent listening rose year-over-year, increasing 1.2% for Men 18–49 and 2.8% for Men 25–54. Average weekly cume also increased, up 2.7% and 2.6% respectively. Time spent listening among Women 25–54 grew by 3.2%, while Women 18–49 increased their listening by 1.6%.
Stations playing pop-based formats like AC, Hot AC and CHR, continue to attract the most listeners, with 10.4 million hours spent with these stations weekly in the fall measurement period — an increase of 9.4% from fall 2024. Together, the format accounted for 34.1% of all radio tuning, up from 6.1% a year ago. The Country format ranked second, with more than 5 million hours tuned weekly.
In the four year-round measurement markets, time spent listening to home-market stations among Adults 25-54 increased to 18.6 hours per week, up from 18.3 hours last fall. Time spent listening among Adults 18-49 also rose to 18.1 hours weekly — an increase of 3.0% year-over-year.
