The algorithm was feared to be radio’s undoing. Now, three years of media habit data now show algorithmic platforms like social media, streaming television, and music streaming shedding frequent users, while radio posted the smallest decline of any platform tracked.
Crowd React Media, a division of Harker Bos Group, fielded the survey among 1,094 US adults 18 and older between March and April, the third consecutive year of its State of Media report. The study tracks two metrics: weekly cume, defined as total reach across frequent, occasional, and rare users, and conversion, defined as the share of that cume that engages three to five days per week.
Radio’s weekly cume held at 76% in 2026, recovering from a 2025 dip. Frequent use held flat at 30% for the second consecutive year. Session length held flat across all three years, with the 30-minute to one-hour window the dominant listening occasion at roughly 40% annually.
The conversion losses elsewhere were steeper.
Social media’s frequent-use rate dropped from 70% to 62% in a single year, the largest single-year decline of any platform in the study, despite cume holding at 89%. Streaming television fell eight points. Music streaming dropped seven points and has declined every year since the study launched, sliding from 39% frequent use in 2024 to 35% in 2026. Podcast conversion fell from 37% to 28% over three years even as total reach recovered to 57%.
News media was the only platform to gain conversion, adding three points. Radio’s half-point loss was the smallest among the eight platforms that declined.
The report attributes the broad conversion softening to what it calls feed dilution: degradation of content quality across algorithmically driven platforms driven by AI-generated content, creator burnout, and volume without sustained quality. Radio carries no algorithm. The report notes it cannot be gamed by content volume or AI generation the way social and streaming feeds can.
Daypart data inside the radio findings shows morning as a primary listening occasion, declining from 52% in 2024 to 40% in 2026. Afternoon drive climbed from 28% to 34% over the same period. Listening while working rebounded from 21% to 30% year over year, and listening while exercising rose from 25% to 31%.
Traditional AM/FM leads access methods at 76%, followed by mobile and tablet at 31%, desktop streaming at 27%, smart speaker at 24%, and in-vehicle connected audio at 15%. Among 18 to 34 listeners, AM/FM still leads at 70%, with mobile and tablet at 45%.
The study’s most direct counterargument to conventional industry assumptions involves younger listeners.
Forty percent of 18 to 34-year-olds cited local content and events as a reason they listen to radio, compared to 30% overall and 20% among adults 55 and older. For news/talk specifically, 42% of listeners cited breaking news as their primary motivation, the highest-rated driver in the category. The report describes younger News/Talk listeners as using YouTube for long-form debate content and turning to radio when something breaks, characterizing that audience as supplemental rather than lost.
