The Real Value of Talk Radio in 2025

Since 2013, I’ve worked for WOWO radio in Fort Wayne Indiana.  This is WOWO’s 100th birthday this year and for the past 3 decades WOWO has been a news/talk radio station. It’s a legendary station with most of 100 years being broadcast on 1190AM.  WOWO can also be heard at 92.3 FM

WOWO can also be heard on your favorite streaming device, like Alexa or Google smart speakers, your favorite streaming audio app, or even directly from the WOWO.com website.  I’ll be sharing some information from the most recent rating period for Fort Wayne in the future, however today I’ve got insider data from a company I’ve shared with you before, Edison Research.

In their first newsletter for 2025 the headline reads:

Majority of News and Sports Audio is Consumed via AM/FM Radio.

Here’s what else they say:

Today’s insight is never-before-released data on AM/FM radio consumption and a surprising finding about how different kinds of audio content are consumed from radio.

When a respondent to Edison Research’s Share of Ear® survey records the audio they consume, they also tell us what kind of content they are listening to, including news, sports (talk or play-by-play), talk/personalities, or music.

For decades, pretty much the only way to consume news, sports, and talk audio was through the radio. But now, there is an explosion of new audio delivery options available to listeners.

News audio is by far radio’s strongest suit. Just under 70% of all daily time spent listening to news audio is happening on AM/FM radio. Close behind is sports, at 61%. The majority of news and sports audio in the U.S. is consumed via AM/FM radio.

Meanwhile, AM/FM radio takes a strong, but considerably lower portion of the other two content categories: talk/personalities and music. As we have reported previously, podcasting has taken the lead in the talk category, and of course, music fans now have many options for consumption.

For businesses looking to invite local consumers to be their customers, the talk radio formats are huge. This year I officially represent  both News Talk WOWO radio and also our Sports Talk radio station, 1380 The Fan.

Before I wrap this up, I’ll address the other audio choices we have.

Podcasts.  They have been growing in popularity for awhile and along with their popularity, there’s also been tremendous growth in the number of different podcasts we can listen to. I just did a Google search and answers say there are between 3 million and 6 million different podcasts covering nearly any topic you can imagine. While that’s pretty cool as a consumer, it’s overwhelming as a local business attempting to figure out where to advertise in the podcast world.  Here’s what we’ve done at Federated Media, the parent company I work for… Our own show hosts have their own podcasts.  On WOWO radio both our afternoon host, Casey Hendrickson and Fort Wayne Morning Show Host Kayla Blakeslee take their shows and especially the interviews and news stories and save them as podcasts so listeners can listen on demand, just like all the other podcasts are on demand.  Except Casey and Kayla’s podcasts are an extension of their daily radio shows.

Streaming services.  Our radio stations are listened to via all the streaming services too.  When I’m working from my home office, that’s how I listen.

Want to invite our local listeners to  become customers to your local business? Contact me. Scott@ScLoHo.net

One last item about Kayla and Casey.  On January 6, 2025, Barrett Media released the results of a national survey of radio professionals and Kayla was named one of the top 25 out of 70 morning radio personalities.  The story is here for Kayla.

Casey was named one of the top 25 afternoon radio personalities in the United States.  Details for Casey are here.