Marketer commuting hit 64% in April, the highest rate since tracking began in 2022. For AM/FM, which derives its strongest case from in-car listening, that puts radio’s most valuable audience and the buyers who fund it in the same place at the same time.
The data come from Cumulus Media’s Westwood One Audio Active Group most recent edition of the Advertiser Perceptions survey. 301 marketers and agency professionals were polled between April 1 and 13, alongside a Quantilope study of 1,601 adults 18+ conducted the same month, measuring pre-COVID commuters.
The number that matters most to radio’s sales argument is 92%. That is the share of marketers and agency professionals now commuting in some form, against 7% still fully remote, and it lands at a moment when AM/FM’s in-car reach case has never needed more support against streaming and podcast competitors. By comparison, 85% of average Americans are commuting, and 15% remain exclusively at home.
The gap represents a reversal of the pattern that held from 2022 through early 2024, when marketers trailed the general workforce in return-to-office rates before the two groups converged in spring 2024.
Among those commuting, marketers and agency professionals averaged 4.4 days per week in the office in April 2026, up from 3.3 days in April 2022 and holding near flat from 4.2 days recorded in both April and October 2025.
The frequency figure is the one radio sellers will want to quote. A marketer averaging 4.4 office days per week is in a car during the periods when AM/FM commands its strongest share. According to Edison Research’s Q1 2026 Share of Ear report, AM/FM held an 83% share of ad-supported audio listening in cars and trucks. Streaming platforms and podcasts, by contrast, are consumed primarily at home, meaning the commute recovery concentrates its audience benefit on broadcast radio rather than its digital competitors.
Among the 36% of marketers and agency professionals commuting partially, 33% say they do not plan to return to the office full-time, down from roughly half who said the same in October 2024. Another 29% say they don’t know when they’ll make a full return.
Face-to-face business activity has recovered in parallel. At 73% resuming in-person media meetings and 76% back at conferences, the buyers that radio needs to reach face-to-face are physically accessible again, sitting across a table rather than behind a muted Zoom window.
The commute recovery arrives alongside a disconnect that Nielsen’s Audio Today 2026 report puts in stark terms. Nielsen’s Global Compass benchmark data shows radio delivers a weighted return of $2.00 for every dollar spent, second among all measured media channels behind only social media’s $2.22 and ahead of video, display, television, and connected TV.
Despite that, marketers surveyed in Nielsen’s 2025 Annual Marketing Report ranked radio last in perceived effectiveness, with just 46% viewing it as an effective channel. Ideally, buyers who spend more time within radio’s strongest listening environment will close that gap from the inside.
