Jacobs Media will release their 2022 Techsurvey next week, and there are already some interesting results that have been released.

The survey of 31,000 core listeners representing the listening habits of 450 stations, and according to Fred Jacobs, while radio professionals may be talking about what is happening with the connected car, they may be missing the bigger picture.

Attendees at the 2022 NAB Show got a preview of the survey that shows that now more than 8 in 10 core radio listeners can connect a smartphone to their cars, up from 73% in 2018 with most of those Gen Z (89%) and Millennials (87%).

Bluetooth (75%) has also overtaken FM radio (70%)  as the most important feature in a cars entertainment system, while AM radio is now at 33%.

AM/FM listening in the car is continuing to erode according to the 2022 survey, down to 56% and continuing to decline from 62% in 2018, followed by  SiriusXM (19%) with streaming audio which includes stations apps and Pandora etc is at 6%. Podcast listening is at 5%.

Among those who own cars with a ‘Connected System’a majority of time spent with audio is Digital (SXM, Steaming audio, podcasts, audio books etc) while AM/FM listening is down by 9% to 47%.

Techsurvey 2022 will be released next Tuesday (early Wednesday morning Sydney time), and while it is all about radio listening in the US, it is a survey of radios core listeners that gives an interesting insight into their radio listening habits.

radioinfo’s interview with Fred Jacobs at NAB 2022