A new kind of data for radio
Every business has a story to tell, and metrics are critical to understanding when, where and how that story is resonating with your target audience. But if you don’t have a handle on exactly which metrics accurately reflect your audience, how do you know if you are telling the right story at the right time, and how can you make strategic decisions that will keep your business thriving?
As digital technology continues to change the way audiences interact with media at breakneck speed, radio metrics have failed to completely align with this evolution — leaving broadcasters without the kind of visibility into audiences that streaming platforms have long enjoyed.
At the October 2025 NAB Show New York and January’s CES 2026, we asked: Why should we have to settle for less? Especially when radio audiences are mostly listening inside their connected vehicles, and their dashboards are telling the story that every broadcaster needs to know: exactly how, when, and where listeners tune in.
As demonstrated at both events, our new version of the DTS AutoStage™ Broadcaster Portal, built on the DTS AutoStage platform, provides a firm and definitive answer to that question, namely that we no longer have to settle for analog data in a digital world. The portal logs critical listener behavior and turns it into meaningful intelligence that can drive smarter programming, stronger audience connections, and new opportunities for monetization. And it does so with a focus on one of the key things that makes radio unique — localization. With access to listening analytics across 9 million vehicles in the U.S. alone across 250 U.S. markets, the portal gives broadcasters a clearer, more dynamic view of behavior than ever before.
What the data reveals
As I talked with broadcasters and industry colleagues in New York and Las Vegas who were exploring the new portal, I was able to demonstrate how its numbers can tell a more in-depth story about listener behavior than ever before, reflecting their markets back in ways — and places — they’ve never measured before.
In smaller towns, local sports and community events can amplify evening radio listening. In resort and coastal regions, listening surges during peak travel weekends. And in metro areas, back-to-school mornings create measurable shifts in drive-time habits almost overnight. But these patterns are often missed by metrics that do not log in-vehicle listening.
As an example, Radio World writer John Garziglia reported from CES that Lee Perryman, owner of Sylacauga’s Radio Alabama, said the broadcaster platform “has changed my life, because I’m able to show prospective advertisers where and when people are listening, which I can’t do otherwise.” As Garziglia points out, because Perryman is in an unrated market, there are no metrics. “I can’t prove anything, so we produce coverage maps that show our proposed coverage areas which we layer into DTS AutoStage Maps showing where people are listening, and pair that with data from our streaming services to show the demographics of those people are as representative samples,” continued Perryman.
Another of the major impacts the DTS AutoStage portal is having is enabling broadcasters to see audience movements at both local and regional levels so they can further understand how, when and where their listenership extends beyond their local area. For example, a New York station can quantify listening across New Jersey and Connecticut, while a Syracuse station can identify engagement from nearby Utica and Rome. Those “spillover” listeners have always existed, but now stations can finally identify and monetize them.
With a single standardized approach across all markets — from Los Angeles, where information comes from over 240,000 vehicles, to Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA, with just over 11,000 vehicles — broadcasters have a consistent framework for comparing trends and making informed decisions across markets for the first time.
What’s new and why it matters
The updated version of the DTS AutoStage Broadcaster Portal expands the scope and day-to-day usability of in-car analytics.
Here’s what’s new:
- Broader coverage and consistency: A unified framework now measures every market the same way from New York to Monterey — enabling truly comparable insights nationwide.
- Deeper local insights: Stations can pinpoint where and when listeners are tuning in, including cross-market spillover audiences.
- Faster feedback: Audience movements update within 24 hours, letting stations test programming ideas and spot new patterns as they emerge.
For broadcasters, this data isn’t just interesting — it’s something they can act on right away.
Imagine seeing those local and regional listening patterns come to life — whether it’s weekend spikes, commuter shifts or unexpected cross-market reach. What’s emerging is a living map of in-vehicle listening habits — when people tune in, where they tune in and for how long. Broadcasters can watch those patterns evolve in near-real time, and use them to shape everything from programming to promotions.
From data to decisions
The value of these analytics lies not just in what they measure, but in how quickly broadcasters can act on them. Stations can see audience shifts within 24 hours and respond almost immediately.
Morning shows can test new segments and see the impact the next day. Sales teams can demonstrate advertiser reach with location-based listening trends. And programmers can track seasonal spikes tied to weather, events or travel patterns — insights that once took months to surface.
That immediacy can change the conversation. Instead of debating estimates or waiting for reports, broadcasters can point to real audience movement, enhancing their ability to be proactive with programming and implement strategies that work based on near-time data.
With verifiable reach and audience proof, stations can strengthen their business model and bring new confidence to advertisers and partnerships.
As Mike Hulvey, president and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, explained to Garziglia, “By establishing a communications link with the automobile dashboards in your market, you’re able to access near real-time consumption data, regardless of where you’re at.”
Radio’s data renaissance
For years, radio’s greatest strength has been its connection to the community — the familiar voices, local news and shared moments that make the listening experience personal. We’ve all seen how digitization has scattered attention across countless platforms, threatening radio’s dominance. But it is also digitization, through the DTS AutoStage Broadcaster Portal, that can give radio the tools to compete analytically and expand visibility in our digital age. Stations of all sizes, in some locations never before measured, now have a new way to understand and strengthen what radio does best.
This is why the industry is responding so enthusiastically. As Mike McVay of McVay Media wrote in Radio Ink, “Expect to see Xperi DTS AutoStage explode as a research tool used for audience measurement and content research, streaming metrics from listening online or on apps, and the collection of first-party data coming together as part of sales.”
Radio has always been about telling stories, and it has always been resilient — adaptable, local and deeply connected to its listeners. Now, radio is becoming data-driven too. Where once there were data deserts, there is now a landscape rich with insight fueling radio’s story for decades to come — and the best part is, it can happen where radio has always mattered most: in the car.
