According to newsgeneration.com, 244.5 million Americans listen to the radio each month. What are they listening to? The most popular formats are country music stations, then news talk radio, followed by adult contemporary.
Back in the day, radio was just about the only thing to listen to when driving down the road. These days there’s radio (and satellite radio, at that), podcasts, audiobooks, and heck, some people even watch TV while they drive (we do not recommend this…).
Do you find yourself listening to the radio more or less than you might have 15 years ago? What’s the reasoning behind your answer?
Please tell us in the poll below. Leave a comment too and tell us what you most often listen to while you drive.
Books on CD.
Usually listen to Sirius satellite radio while traveling and listen to the music on Dish while parked. We also have an old cell phone loaded with our favorite music (we call it the iDroid . . .) for those times when nothing else is available.
Interesting,
You complained about REV using a scene outside of North America in their advertising, but you use a right hand drive vehicle for this poll? Hmmm!
Good one!
i was a voracious AM radio listener during my working years…primarily WGN in chicago. retirement, more options and a new mgmt team at ‘GN changed all that. the new team at ‘GN transformed what had been a very successful radio station..the #1 station in chicago into just the opposite. lots of other distractions in retirement as well. i still look for and enjoy listening to Rush. while driving the MH we usually listen to Sirius/XM.
Forever in this case is 4 years. I listened to broadcast radio at work all the time. Since going full time in the rv it is usually Pandora these days.
Got my new car and the first thing I did was turn the volumn down so I didn’t have to listen to the noise when I first started it up in the morning. Wish they still had the option for no radio in new cars.
Mine does .. an option to not activate the radio function on the touch screen…
NPR while I’m driving.
radio is about the same, the iPOd, while i still listen often, i don’t listen as often (all day previously) as i used to when i worked.
I prefer AM talk radio while traveling or FM music when signals get far and few between. Always listen to Rush in the morning, home or traveling
Talk radio only mostly NPR. I don’t listen to music with vocals. Cant understand them. Off if someone else is in car.
We have satellite radio in the RV and the car we mainly drive, but I think retirement is the major reason that I listen to commercial radio less often. While working in DC I listened to a lot of commercial radio during my daily commute to and from work, and especially on days when my 45-minute commute became a 90-minute commute.
First there was cable music , you got to pick a category. Next was XM that merged and I lost my 3 favorite channels. Pandora was next & pretty darn good for free. Now it’s Spotify and they are a total game changer. Also my private music collection on my iPhone is quite large.
At the last festival/concert I was asked how do you know this band? My response was I don’t listen to the radio
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and Spa or Watercolors on Sirius. Plus other PBS programs and SIRIUS NFL while boondocking. The great thing about Sirius is I can get it most anywhere except eastbound I-84 in the Columbia Gorge.
The key question is 15 years ago. 15 years ago I owned my own appraisal company in the Philadelphia PA metropolitan area. I averaged 70 to 75,000 per year. I listened to KYW a 24 hour talk/news station and to FM stations as well.
Now that I live a normal life, I do listen to radio while driving although not nearly as much. And while driving my RV, four to five hours per day and never above 64 mph and (SWMBO) she who must be obeyed, gets to change the dial!
In the sixties to mid seventies, it was mostly AM I listened to. Mostly oldies on FM now. I fire up the old shortwave radio and listen to overseas broadcasts on occasion. If I can receive it with an antenna, I’ll listen to or watch it. (no cable or satellite for me)
My wife and I listen exclusively to Sirius satellite. We have it in both our vehicles, our 5th wheel via Tailgater and Dish network at home.
Much less in retirement as I used to have a radio on in my office all day. On the first day of RV trips we have the radio on as it’s all familiar territory then it usually stays off to allow easier conversation.
I was going to say less because after retiring I do not spend nearly as much time in my car. But then I remembered that I do spend much more time in my motorhome!
I have over 4k hours of old time radio on MP3’s I listen to… new radio is trash talk and horrible music
Great poll. It’s been at least 15 years since listening. Besides the disappearance of most good radio shows, you deal with what seems like endless adds. There used to be a nice radio show hosted by Rick Barry. He had traditional views on coaching and sports in general. It was great to hear but I think he fell out of favor with many people. Then were the local radio talk shows out of San Francisco that I used to listen to (40 or so years ago). Gone now.
Once Rush Limbaugh assumes room temperature I will probably never listen to broadcast radio again.
I listen to broad cast radio about the same and very little traveling. With satellite radio we listen to it all the time and can get most of the same stations almost anywhere.
As we live in Wyoming, it is hard to get a station we like to listen to and in some instances any station at all. So, we have SiriusXM in all vehicles.
Sirius FM is also available for Home use..
It depends on where I am. At home the radio is on almost all the time (tuned to the local classical music station); on the road I have an extensive play list on my iPod. Don’t listen to much of anything in camp.
What ever happened to the days of Wolfman Jack
That voice! Unfortunately Wolfman Jack died in 1995. I loved listening to him. 🙂 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Probably more as I am now retired and couldn’t listen to radio or any other type of music. Retired now and have music on radio on as I work around the house and yard also when out for a walk ( no talk radio for me, mostly BS radio).
My listening is about the same. I have been a ardent NPR radio listener for more than 40 years.
As I am retired, I have no time driving to/from work. My radio time was mostly behind the wheel. Yeh, on vacation driving I have several days full of radio but still less than 15 years back.
I listen to live talk and news radio all day and night. I started my listening at age 12 in 1967.
I’m a Trump fan I only have cbs nbc they have a problem of telling the truth I listen to the radio a lot now.
I get enough bad news from every other media source, and I stopped listening to broadcast radio, long before I retired. On my daily commute before I retired I got in the habit of listening to satellite radio (music stations only), it help me forgive some of the other commuters, the ones who were in a hurry, changed lanes, cut others off, etc. Listening to music calmed me down and when I got to work I was in a much better mood, than I would have been fighting traffic and listening to talking heads pushing their agenda….
We listen to the radio while in the truck and on my iPad while in the trailer. We can pick up our local country-western station regardless of where we are, depending on the signal strength.
I lived in Portland and liked a talk radio station there so I listen to it over the internet. They play a couple of hours of a morning show out of Sacramento but not the last hour. Sometimes I’ll switch over to that station to get that last hour. There was a station in LA I listened to when I was in CA so I also listen to that on occasion.