According to new data, nearly one in three Americans gets their news via AM/FM each month. That clears the audience share of podcasts, print, and AI chatbots, and gives radio an audience that increasingly looks like one of the most valuable in the room.
YouGov’s annual Trust in Media survey, conducted May 25–26 among 2,102 US adult citizens, found 28% of Americans turned to radio for news in the past month. While this is down 1% from June 2025, the survey’s margin of error is ±2.9 percentage points, which means the year-over-year change may be statistical noise more than signal.
Radio still cleared podcasts (21%), email newsletters (20%), online news aggregators (18%), video platforms (15%), print newspapers (14%), magazines (10%), blogs (9%), and AI chatbots (6%).
The demographic breakdowns are where it gets more textured. College-educated adults used radio for news at 36%, compared to 24% among those without a degree. Income tracks the same direction: adults earning $100,000 or more annually reported radio news use at 39%, versus 22% among those earning under $50,000. By age, adults 65 and older led all cohorts at 34%; 18-to-29-year-olds came in at 17%, the lowest of any group measured.
The political composition shifted from last year’s data. Republicans and Democrats came in nearly even at 30–31%, with Independents at 25%. By 2024 presidential vote, Trump voters reported radio news use at 36% versus 32% for Harris voters. Men outpaced women, 32% to 25%.
The trust picture remains radio’s strongest argument. Social media as a leading news source, reaching 60% of respondents, carries a net trustworthiness rating of -24% for Facebook, -32% for TikTok, and -21% for X. News media as a category registered a net favorability of zero, with journalism scoring +23%, the highest of the three broad categories measured. National Public Radio carried a trust score of +15%.
AI’s footprint as a news source is growing, if slowly. As mentioned, AI chatbots hit 6% reach overall, with 10% of respondents citing ChatGPT and 7% citing Google’s Gemini as specific news tools used in the past month. Forty-six percent of respondents reported seeing what they believed to be AI-generated content online daily. Overall news engagement remained strong: 69% of respondents said they consume national news very or somewhat often, with local news matching that figure exactly.
