I would say, probably moreso than you'd think. I know of several people in their early to mid 50's who regularly pay for streaming services. I am 45, turning 46 this year. While I dont use paid services 'yet', many of my friends do. Also, my wife is 52 and her favorite genre is Rock/metal. (Not death metal though. But she loves Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, etc.) She regularly streams stuff as well. Remember it's 2026. So those who were born in the 1970's are already entering or well into their 50's, those born in the 80's are already in their 40's and so on. A couple decades ago your average 55 year old never would've dreamed of paying for streaming or using it regularly. But those people are now already in their mid 70's today.
I think the cutoff for streaming services is more around those in their early 60's and above.
Radio still does well with the people who have been using it for most of their lives. They may not use it in the same way they used to use it, but usage is still reasonably high among older demographics. Radio, as a whole, is targeting an older audience than it did 20 years ago, and the choices on the dial reflect that. I've said it many times on this site, but I still use radio because it's easy. I push a button, and it's there. If I don't like what I hear, I push another button. I don't have to make a playlist and/or add songs, and I don't want to spend what little time I have to myself curating a playlist. Having said that, I only listen to one local radio station with any regularity outside of football season. I moved into my current house 10 years ago at the end of next month, and I have never turned on or plugged in a single radio or stereo. The vast majority of my radio consumption is streaming out of market stations. Outside of the car, I stream the local station that's my favorite. I either tune it in on my Roku TV or ask Alexa to play it in the house.
Kind of like your situation, my partner (50) is a year younger than I am, and she has a paid Spotify subscription and listens mostly to that. She went to Kansas State, and you won't find K-State sports on the radio here. So, even during football season, it doesn't offer much for her. Once-in-awhile, she listens to NPR or the same local station I tune into, but she usually plugs her phone into her car and listens to Spotify. Right before Christmas, a Silverado ran a stop sign and totaled her 2020 Nissan Sentra. She has a free trial subscription with SiriusXM in her new car, and she does like it, but I doubt she'll ditch Spotify for it.
Local stations are primarily used for their news and local sports content, but only sought out for those. Music on stations like this isn't their main draw anyway. However, all this being said, I don't know that Fairfield's radio service is particularly impacted by streaming one way or another.
People use local radio for a variety of reasons. The news and sports content might be more important in smaller communities, though. News and sports, though, are more available on other sources than they used to be, too, even with the demise of the local newspaper. I've been told of smaller towns in Iowa that have gone from having a daily or weekly newspaper to crowdsourced news on Facebook. I can't imagine that's a good or reliable way to get your news, but running a quality news operation is expensive.
