Los Angeles is one of the largest radio markets in the United States, with 11,297,500 people age 12 and older in Nielsen’s Spring 2024 market population. The market also shows how radio can serve both everyday audio habits and urgent local information needs: Nielsen recorded more than 97 million gross minutes of local radio listening on January 8, 2025, during the Los Angeles wildfires.
Contents
- Market size and audience composition
- Listening during the January 2025 wildfires
- The FM signal landscape
- California religious-radio context
- Radio, podcasts and in-car audio
- National audio benchmarks
Market size and audience composition
Nielsen ranked the Los Angeles radio market No. 2 in its Spring 2024 market rankings. The ranking describes a substantial addressable audience: 11,297,500 people age 12 and older. These are radio-market population figures, not a claim that every person listened to radio during the measurement period. The source is Nielsen’s Radio Market Survey Population, Rankings & Information—Spring 2024.
The same Nielsen market profile counted 5,018,800 Hispanic people age 12 and older and 796,500 Black people age 12 and older. Those audience counts help explain why Los Angeles radio can support broad, multilingual and community-specific programming at the same time. They should be read as market population measures for Spring 2024, not as station audience shares.
Nielsen also listed 15,730,400 people age 12 and older for the Los Angeles television DMA associated with the market. The radio-market population and television-DMA population are different geographic or measurement concepts, so they should not be treated as interchangeable audience totals.
| Spring 2024 Los Angeles measure | People age 12 and older |
|---|---|
| Radio market population | 11,297,500 |
| Hispanic market population | 5,018,800 |
| Black market population | 796,500 |
| Associated television DMA population | 15,730,400 |
Source: Nielsen, Radio Market Survey Population, Rankings & Information—Spring 2024. The figures are associated with Spring 2024 and use the population definitions supplied in that report.
Listening during the January 2025 wildfires
The January 2025 fires provide a distinct measurement window for local radio’s information role. Nielsen reported more than 200,000 evacuations during the fires covered by its analysis. On January 8, 2025, Los Angeles local radio logged more than 97 million gross minutes. That day’s listening was 40% above the average of the prior seven days, according to Nielsen’s analysis, indicating a sharp increase during the emergency period.
News-talk listening was especially prominent from January 2 through January 8, 2025. Among Los Angeles people age 12 and older, news-talk stations reached a 20% average-quarter-hour share. Nielsen said that 20% share was double the comparison level during the fire period. Among adults ages 25–54, news-talk stations reached nearly a 13% average-quarter-hour share.
The metrics measure different things. Gross minutes capture the total volume of listening accumulated across the measured audience, while average-quarter-hour share describes news-talk’s share of listening during quarter-hour intervals. Neither number alone describes unique listeners or the duration of any one person’s listening.
Nielsen also reported audience-specific minute totals for January 8. Hispanic Los Angeles radio listening approached 22 million minutes, while Black Los Angeles radio listening approached 5.5 million minutes. These are listening-minute measures from the fire analysis, not the Spring 2024 population counts.
The Nielsen Los Angeles radio trend report used six stations: KNX-FM, KFI-AM, KPCC-FM, KRLA-AM, KZNO-FM and KTNQ-AM. The station list defines the scope of that trend report; it is not a complete list of every Los Angeles radio station.
Source: Nielsen, The LA Fires: How multiplatform local media became a lifeline. The fire-period figures cover January 2–8, 2025, or January 8, 2025, as specified above.
The FM signal landscape
FCCInfo facility records show a wide range of authorized FM power and antenna heights among stations with Los Angeles as the principal community. These are facility measurements, not audience ratings. The records below were accessed in 2026, and the listed antenna figure is height above average terrain where supplied.
| Station | Frequency | Authorized power or authorization | Antenna height above average terrain |
|---|---|---|---|
| KXLU | 88.9 MHz | 2.9 kW | Not supplied |
| KPFK | 90.7 MHz | 110 kW | 863 m |
| KUSC | 91.5 MHz | 39 kW | 891 m |
| KTWV | 94.7 MHz | 58 kW | 863 m |
| KLOS | 95.5 MHz | 63 kW | 954 m |
| KYSR | 98.7 MHz | 75 kW | 360 m |
| KKLA-FM | 99.5 MHz | 10 kW | 902 m |
| KRTH | 101.1 MHz | 54 kW auxiliary authorization | Not supplied |
| KBIG | 104.3 MHz | 65 kW | 928 m |
| KCBS-FM | 93.1 MHz | 27.5 kW | 1,074 m |
KPFK’s record lists the highest authorized power in this group at 110 kW, while KXLU’s lists 2.9 kW. That contrast describes authorized facility power only; it does not establish which station has the largest coverage area, strongest reception in a particular neighborhood or largest audience. Terrain, antenna configuration and other technical factors affect real-world reception.
The tallest listed antenna height in this group is KCBS-FM’s 1,074 meters above average terrain. KYSR’s listed height is 360 meters, the lowest supplied height among the records that include this field. Again, these measurements are not listening estimates.
Sources: FCCInfo Los Angeles FM facility search results for KXLU, KPFK and KUSC; and FCCInfo Los Angeles FM facility search results for KBIG, KCBS-FM, KKLA-FM, KYSR, KLOS, KTWV and KRTH. Records were accessed in 2026.
California religious-radio context
A Pew Research Center analysis of FCC-licensed stations counted 221 religious radio stations in California. The analysis, using stations accessed in March 2025, found that religious stations represented 20.4% of California’s radio stations and that California had 0.6 religious radio stations per 100,000 residents.
The programming mix was not limited to a single format. Catholic stations represented 12.5% of California religious radio stations. Independent owners accounted for 31.2%. Mostly-music programming appeared on 27.3% of the state’s religious radio stations, while mostly-talk programming appeared on 46.8%.
These figures describe California’s licensed-station context rather than Los Angeles listening behavior. They are useful for understanding the wider environment in which talk, faith and community audio programming operate, but they do not identify the share of Los Angeles listeners using religious stations.
Source: Pew Research Center, Religious radio stations in each US state. The station access period was March 2025.
Radio, podcasts and in-car audio
Nielsen’s U.S. audio benchmarks put radio in context with podcasts and other ad-supported formats. In Q1 2024, U.S. consumers allocated nearly 70% of daily ad-supported audio time to radio and 20% to podcasts. More than 80% of in-car ad-supported audio time went to radio during the same quarter.
For adults age 18 and older, News/Talk accounted for 10.8% of U.S. radio listening in Q1 2024. Among streaming-only radio listening, News/Talk accounted for 21.7%. The difference shows why “radio listening” and “streaming-only radio listening” should be kept separate when comparing audio behavior.
| U.S. audio measure | Period | Share or time |
|---|---|---|
| Daily ad-supported audio time allocated to radio | Q1 2024 | Nearly 70% |
| Daily ad-supported audio time allocated to podcasts | Q1 2024 | 20% |
| In-car ad-supported audio time allocated to radio | Q1 2024 | More than 80% |
| Radio listening from News/Talk, adults 18+ | Q1 2024 | 10.8% |
| Streaming-only radio listening from News/Talk, adults 18+ | Q1 2024 | 21.7% |
Source: Nielsen, The Record: Quarterly Insights on How U.S. Audiences Listen to Ad-Supported Audio. These are national U.S. benchmarks, not Los Angeles-specific estimates.
National audio benchmarks
In Q2 2024, U.S. adults spent 4 hours 5 minutes per day with audio across radio, podcasts, streaming music and satellite radio. Radio received 67% of U.S. daily ad-supported audio time in that quarter.
Age differences were visible in the same Nielsen benchmark. Among U.S. adults ages 18–34, radio’s share of daily ad-supported audio time was 48%, while podcasts’ share was 35%. Those percentages describe shares of daily ad-supported audio time for that age group, not the percentage of young adults who listened.
Pew Research Center reported that 82% of people age 12 and older in the U.S. listened to terrestrial AM/FM radio in a typical week in 2022. The same fact sheet reported that 31% of people age 12 and older listened to a podcast in the past week in 2023. The measurement years differ, so these figures should not be presented as a same-period head-to-head comparison.
Source: Nielsen, The Record: Q2 U.S. audio listening trends; and Pew Research Center, Trends and Facts on Audio and Podcasts. The Nielsen measures are from Q2 2024; the Pew measures are from 2022 and 2023, respectively.