The return to office helped bring Canadian radio listenership back to where it was pre-omicron, according to the latest Numeris data.

AM and FM radio reaches 86% of Canadians across the markets Numeris measures, with fall listening up slightly over every other quarter this year, though roughly in line with fall 2021. Listening by adults aged 25 to 54, in particular, was up by 2% to 66%.

Reach is highest in Francophone Montreal (91.4%), Calgary (88.3%) and Edmonton (86.5%).

The majority of radio listening throughout the day occurs outside of the home: Drive and daytime dayparts have the highest out-of-home tuning, up 4% (77%) and 5% (74%), respectively, compared to last Fall. Vancouver has the highest out-of-home drive (83%), evening (70%) and weekend (75%) dayparts across all meter markets.

Time spent listening stayed stable at almost eight hours weekly, with Francophone Montreal spending the most time at 9.5 hours and Anglophone Montreal at 8.3 hours. Torontonians listened for an average of 7.6 hours, Edmonton for 7.7 hours, Calgary for 7.1 hours and Vancouver for 6.

Live radio streaming on PC, mobile device and smart speakers was stable from year to year with a 9% share of total AM/FM radio among all Canadians and 12% for those 18 to 34. Francophone Montreal maintains a 7% share of live streaming, while Montreal Anglophone live streaming increased by 3%. Vancouver is also up with a 2% increase to 12%, the highest of all markets.

The median age of radio listeners is 53, with women making up 48.4% of all listening in central markets. Looking at formats, 26.8% of sports format listeners are female with an average age of 48. Hot adult contemporary listeners are 59.7% female with an average age of 45.