The author is senior director, broadcast strategy & business development for Xperi.
For decades, radio has been one of the most powerful and resilient media channels in the U.S., especially in the car. Yet broadcasters have long made critical programming and business decisions using data designed for a different era, when listening occurred primarily at home and audience behavior could only be estimated weeks or months after the fact.
Today, research shows that the majority of AM/FM radio’s reach takes place in the vehicle as people move throughout their day, creating a growing disconnect between where listening happens and how it is measured. Until recently, radio lacked a way to measure listening at scale, in context and with enough timeliness to inform strategy, and significant portions of real-world audience behavior were not consistently or clearly measured.
But now measurement has reached an inflection point. For Xperi, this moment reflects years of ongoing work to evolve the in-vehicle broadcast experience with DTS AutoStage as a platform. It isn’t just the size of the data set that makes this moment meaningful, but its usability — in-vehicle listening transformed into insights broadcasters can apply day to day.
Real behavior
Traditional AM/FM measurement has provided an important industry standard for decades. However, it relies on limited samples, delayed reporting and methodologies that rely on a listener’s willingness to wear a device or on their recall. In a media environment shaped by streaming platforms, digital dashboards and advertiser expectations for transparency, those constraints are increasingly apparent.
In today’s vehicle, radio plays a central role in ad-supported audio. Roughly eight in 10 U.S. consumers are reached daily by in-vehicle AM/FM radio, and about half of all listening among adults 25–54 takes place there (per data from Xperi, MRI-Simmons and Edison Share of Ear).
Importantly, AM/FM also accounts for approximately 85% of ad-supported audio time spent in vehicles, reinforcing the reality that in-vehicle listening is widespread and largely centered on AM/FM radio. Radio listening in connected vehicles changes the equation because tuning behavior can be measured as it happens, rather than by listener recall.
The DTS AutoStage Broadcaster Portal, launched in 2023, is designed to translate connected-car data into insights broadcasters can use strategically. With the most recent updates, the portal is delivering a broadcaster-facing dashboard that makes large-scale listening data usable for day-to-day decision-making.
Because it is built on the DTS AutoStage platform, which supports millions of vehicles across the U.S., it provides visibility into 250 markets, many of which have not been measured before.
Inside the portal
The DTS Broadcaster AutoStage Portal gives a station-level view of in-vehicle listening by market, time of day and geography. With data refreshed within 24 hours, broadcasters can examine trends across days, weeks, months or quarters, and drill down hour by hour.
In the largest U.S. metros, connected-car samples reach into the hundreds of thousands (example: Los Angeles with 240,000+ vehicles). In mid-sized and smaller markets like Knoxville (15,132), daily insights are derived from thousands or tens of thousands of vehicles. Some smaller and mid-sized markets have historically lacked reliable third-party measurement. For the first time, markets of all sizes can be evaluated using a single, standardized measurement framework.
This scale means sample sizes that are materially larger than those used in traditional measurement — 16 times larger than current radio samples, and 57 times larger for the top 25 U.S. market samples, offering a level of stability and reliability that has historically been difficult to achieve, particularly outside the largest markets.
As a result, broadcasters can compare listening trends across markets in ways that were previously difficult or impossible, making it easier to identify stability, growth and meaningful change over time. This enables better programming decisions to keep audiences sticky and engaged.
For an individual station, this means tracking how in-vehicle listening behaves across dayparts and geographies within a single view. Programmers can track how a morning show performs hour by hour, assess whether a format change is gaining traction over days or weeks, and understand where listening is coming from inside and outside their core market, using data that reflects actual listening behavior.
Among the newest capabilities are:
- Context at scale-made usable: The portal surfaces in-vehicle AM/FM listening by station and market, helping broadcasters understand how their performance fits within overall in-car listening patterns.
- Stable, comparable measurement: Large connected-car samples are translated into consistent station rankings, share trends and cume reporting across markets, giving music and content teams a clearer view of performance trends for evaluating strategy.
- Daily audience movement, visible: With overnight refreshes, the portal allows broadcasters to see when listening shifts following programming adjustments, promotions or major events, providing faster directional insight than traditional, delayed summaries.
- Daypart and format insight: Interactive daypart views show how listening evolves hour by hour, helping stations understand where formats, shows or scheduling decisions are gaining or losing traction throughout the broadcast day.
- Overnight dayparts: First-time insights into how listeners are engaging with broadcast content during overnight dayparts.
- Geography that informs strategy: Heat maps and out-of-market listening views reveal where listeners are tuning in, both inside and beyond a station’s core market, turning signal reach and audience spillover into measurable, strategic information.
Strategy in motion
One of the most consequential changes enabled by connected-car radio measurement is speed.
Instead of waiting months to understand whether a programming or format change resonated, broadcasters can observe audience movement more quickly. This also makes it easier to distinguish between localized market dynamics and broader audience trends, helping broadcasters determine when a change reflects a market-specific shift rather than a national pattern.
That immediacy supports smarter experimentation. Programmers can observe seasonal effects — such as back-to-school drive-time shifts, Friday night sports listening in smaller markets or travel-driven spikes in resort regions — as they unfold, helping stations respond in near real time rather than retroactively explaining results.
This also changes how performance can be communicated internally and externally. Rather than debating projections or reconciling delayed reports, teams can ground discussions in observable audience behavior that reflects where listening actually occurs.
A foundation
What broadcasters see today in the expanded DTS AutoStage Broadcaster Portal represents the foundation of a broader evolution in radio analytics. These additional capabilities are expected to roll out over the next two years.
- Ad measurement and gross impressions: In-car reach and frequency reporting for radio campaigns.
- Greater daypart and time-period granularity: Measurement down to quarter-hour increments, with support for custom dayparts and specific minute ranges to assess the impact of special programming features.
- Enhanced trending: Improved ability to demonstrate audience stability over time and better capture the impact of special events and programming changes.
- Demographic and socio-economic profiles: The ability to layer in demographic, socio-economic and purchasing context from third-party data sources to better profile radio audiences.
- Attribution — proving radio works: Analysis of retail visitation among audiences exposed to radio campaigns versus those unexposed, helping assess whether radio advertising drove incremental location visits.
Together with the portal’s current functionality, these planned enhancements change the game for broadcasters, enabling greater accountability and insight into audience behavior and advertising performance — particularly in the in-vehicle environment where radio remains strongest.
Radio’s enduring strength has been its connection to listeners and the communities they serve. As measurement continues to evolve to reflect real-world listening, broadcasters are gaining the timeliness and understanding needed to compete more effectively, make smarter decisions and demonstrate radio’s value in a rapidly changing media landscape.
