Digital Audio vs Radio Advertising in Canada

Which is bigger in Canada, radio or digital audio?

Radio is the largest single platform. Digital collectively is bigger. Both statements are true and most sales decks quote only the one that suits them.

The best independent Canadian dataset is Signal Hill Insights' “Audio on the Move”, a nationally representative study of 6,161 Canadians aged 12 and over, fielded in May and June 2026 and weighted by age, gender, education, language and region.

Signal Hill Insights, “Audio on the Move”, 6,161 Canadians aged 12+, fielded May–June 2026, published 29 July 2026.

Context: 90% of Canadians aged 12+ listened to some audio yesterday, and ad-supported listening is 49% of total audio time — the other half is subscription or owned. 77% of audio time is music, 23% spoken word.

So radio holds 39% and the digital platforms together hold 58%. But no single digital platform is close to radio on its own, and YouTube now essentially ties all other music streaming services combined.

Two Canadian studies disagree. Which do you use?

The two headline numbers sit far apart, and the honest answer is that they are not measuring the same thing. We plan on Signal Hill, and treat the Radio Connects figures as a different measurement rather than a rival answer to the same question.

Radio Connects, the Canadian radio industry's own research body, published “From HEAR to HERE” in April 2026. It reports radio at 60% of ad-supported audio listening time among adults 18+, against ad-supported streaming at 11% and podcasts at 29%. Those three figures are Numeris Fall 2025 PPM data covering Canada's largest radio markets, quoted inside the study, rather than output from its own survey of 3,000+ Angus Reid Forum members.

Signal Hill, over a near-identical period, puts radio at 39% and podcasts at 9%. The podcast figures differ by more than three times.

That is the reconciliation, and it matters. Signal Hill is a national recall survey of Canadians aged 12+. The Radio Connects figures are PPM-metered data for adults 18+ in the largest radio markets only. Metered listening in big markets and self-reported listening across the whole country are different measurements of different populations, so most of the gap is method and universe rather than one study being wrong. It is still worth knowing that Radio Connects is funded by the industry it reports on, and Signal Hill is not.

What does radio still do that digital audio does not?

Reach, the car, and the morning. Those three are not in dispute in either study.

• Near-universal weekly reach. Numeris put average weekly radio reach at 80% of Canadians aged 12+ in the Spring 2026 PPM book. In diary markets, AM/FM reached 81% of Canadians aged 25–54. These move between books — the Fall 2025 book read 81% — so check the current one rather than treating them as fixed.
• The car. 68% of AM/FM listening happens on a car radio. Music streaming is 77% smartphone. If your audience is a commuter and your message is time-sensitive, radio is where they are.
• The morning. AM/FM peaks at 7am, capturing 26% of its audience in that hour. Music streaming peaks at 3pm, YouTube at 8pm.
• Local trust and immediacy. Live, local, presenter-voiced. There is no digital audio equivalent of a live read on a station the audience has listened to for a decade.

That daypart split is the strongest planning argument in Canadian audio, and it points at combination rather than substitution. A plan using radio in breakfast and streaming in the afternoon is buying genuinely different listening occasions, not the same person twice.

What does digital audio do that radio does not?

Targeting, entry cost, and measurement granularity. Also a route in that does not require a sales conversation.

• Audience targeting. Radio is bought by station and daypart, which is a proxy for audience. Digital audio is bought by audience directly.
• Entry cost. Spotify's self-serve minimum is $250. There is no comparable low-cost entry into Canadian radio — every buy goes through a sales house.
• Creative flexibility. Multiple versions, swapped mid-flight, tested against each other. Radio creative is produced, cleared and scheduled.
• Impression-level reporting. Served impressions, completion, and platform-side outcome data where the route supports it.

The counterweight is scale. Canadian digital audio advertising was a $258 million market in 2024 against $1.06 billion for commercial radio. Radio is declining — down 2.6% year on year in the 2025 broadcast year — and digital is growing at 13.9%, but the gap is still four to one.

Can you compare them on cost?

No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is estimating. This is the single most requested comparison in Canadian audio and there is no credible published basis for it.

Radio is bought on rate cards negotiated privately, market by market, through four main sales organisations — Bell Media, Stingray, Corus and Rogers. None publishes rates. There is no self-serve or programmatic route into a Canadian AM/FM schedule.

Digital audio is auction-priced with no published floors beyond Spotify's $250 minimum campaign budget.

The two are also not measured on the same currency. Numeris measures radio through PPM panels in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary, and through diaries elsewhere — people-based, market-level. Digital audio is measured by served impressions, ad-server based. A reach figure from one is not comparable to a reach figure from the other.

One further wrinkle worth knowing: Numeris has signalled it is looking at replacing diaries with a different approach, so smaller-market radio trend data may not be comparable year over year going forward.