Every year, Nordicom’s Mediebarometern offers one of the clearest pictures of how Swedes consume media. The 2024 edition confirms what many in the industry already feel: traditional radio is standing at the edge of a generational cliff.
The numbers speak for themselves:
63% of Swedes still listen to radio daily in 2024.
Among 65+, daily reach exceeds 80%.
Among 15–29-year-olds, it falls to barely 35–40%.
Time spent listening tells the same story. Older Swedes average close to 2 hours a day, while younger groups devote just a fraction of that. For them, audio means Spotify, YouTube, and podcasts.
This is the essence of the generational cliff: when younger cohorts stop replacing older ones. A medium can appear stable — even strong — as long as the older audience is present. But once demographics shift, the drop-off is sudden and irreversible.
We have seen this movie before. Newspapers ignored it until it was too late. Radio has an opportunity to act differently.
That means shifting focus from linear, one-size-fits-all programming to platform-first, on-demand audio strategies. It means experimenting, building listener acquisition engines, and rethinking monetization models before the demographic tide goes out.
As I write in Radio’s Digital Transformation Playbook (Transformation Digitale de la Radio – Guide Pratique in French):
“It is not enough to survive on today’s revenues. The real test is whether you are building bridges to the audiences of tomorrow.”
The Mediebarometern 2024 data is a reminder that the cliff is approaching. The question is not whether to transform, but how fast and how boldly.
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