In this age of smartphone music subscription services and media players, do you still listen to the radio? If so, you are not alone. In fact, more people listened to the radio in 2010 than 2009. According to an Arbitron report released on Monday, known as the RADAR 108 survey, the number of people who listen to the radio increased in 2010. Arbitron is a media research company. RADAR stands for Radio’s all Dimension Audience Research. 56 radio stations operated by 7 radio networks make up the audience research group. According to the RADAR 108 survey, just over 74 percent of people 12 years old or older heard at least one radio advertisement during an average week within the survey period. This translates to an increase in the estimated listening audience of just under 7 million people, or 3.4 percent overall,  to 193.1 million people. Arbitron’s survey period lasted from January 7, 2010 to December 8, 2010. During that period they surveyed a total of 395,382 people. To see how Arbitron’s numbers break down for people 18 an above, check out their breakdown of radio network ratings.

Even though more people listen to the radio it may be they listen to the radio for a shorter amount of time. In 2010, Edison Research completed a smaller 875 person study that concluded people spend less time listening to the radio. In particular, this part of its study focused on people aged 12-24 and saw that listening to the radio as a morning activity declined 33 percent from 74 to 41 percent over a 10 year period from 2000 to 2010. Though people spend less time listening to the radio, the report found that it was still their primary source for discovering new music, with 51% frequently learning about new music over the air waves. For those with cell phones within the same age group, online radio stations, like Slacker and Pandora, beat out traditional radio usage at 18 and 16 percent respectively. Check out Edison’s entire report here (pdf). One (of many) interesting fact is that only 42 percent of those surveyed had heard of HD radio, a feature built into the Zune HD. Another is the appeal of Pandora’s custom stations and fewer commercials being seen as an advantage over traditional radio. Smart DJ, with Zune Pass, provides a similar feature. Do you think the trend of more people listening less frequently will continue to increase in 2011? Or are internet radio providers going to take over?