Americans increasingly listening on the move reflecting the lifting of quarantine restrictions according to recent research from Edison Research. The findings are from their Share of Ear reports based on interviews conducted during October, 2020.
Prior to COVID-19 restrictions in Q2 2020, 32% of all audio in in the US was consumed in car. When quarantine restrictions went into place in Q2, erasing many Americans’ commutes and greatly reducing travel in general, in-car listening plummeted by 37% so that it accounted for only 20% of all listening. This caused at-home listening in Q2 to soar from 49% of all listening to 70% of all listening, an increase of 43%.
The latest research shows a shift back to the car as quarantine restrictions have been lifted by varying degrees across the country. In-car listening grew from 20% in Q2 to 28% today, not quite equal to the pre-pandemic number of 32% of all listening.
An increase of Q3 audio consumption in car means a decrease at home, where at-home listening levels fell from 70% in Q2 (the beginning of quarantine) to 59% of all listening today.
At-home listening, although at lower levels since Q2, is still 10 points higher than pre-pandemic listening. With a US workforce that has seen many employees transition to home office environments, future surveys will bear out whether or not this is a permanent shift.
When quarantine restrictions began in Q2, at-work listening fell by almost half from 15% of all listening to 8%. The latest research in Q3 shows that at-work listening has slightly rebounded, growing from 8% to 10% of all audio consumption, an increase of 25%.
