NEW YORK—Digital audio has been taking up more than an hour per day of U.S. adults’ time since 2016, and 2022 will be another year of solid growth. U.S. adults will consume an additional 3 minutes per day of digital audio this year, to reach 1 hour and 40 minutes. Among active digital audio listeners, the daily figure will be a robust 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Indeed, digital audio will account for 12.7 percent of overall media time among U.S. adults. Within digital media time, audio’s share will be 20.3 percent—a high figure compared with many alternative digital options, according to the eMarketer analysis.

Adults will spend more time each day listening to digital audio (1:40) than they will watching sub OTT services (1:27), using social networks (1:15), using tablets (1:09), or watching videos on their smartphones (0:40), according to the eMarketer report. Listening to digital audio is among the most popular digital activities that the research firm tracks, not least because it is easy to consume while multitasking, the firm noted.

Listening to digital audio is also more popular than listening to the radio, although radio retains a significant share of audio time spent. This year, nearly 55 percent of total audio time will be spent on digital platforms (1:40), while the remaining 45 percent (1:23) will be spent with traditional radio. Digital first exceeded radio in 2020 and has only grown its share since. This trend will continue, according to eMarketer.

Radio will still account for 10.5% of all media time among US adults in 2022—"not a small figure,” according to eMarketer.