Audio4cast

• Session Starts is defined as “The number of streams of one minute or more that are started within a time period.”
• Average Active Sessions is defined as “The average number of streams of one minute or more that are active within a time period.”
• Average Time Spent Listening is defined as “The average number of hours for each session lasting more than one minute within a time period.”

“The changes were made in response to requests from both the publisher and the agency community for measurement standards in keeping with other digital best practices. Terrestrial radio AQH and Cume measurements are not the best metrics for measuring today’s audience delivered via a digital channel and do not accurately pertain to online audio,” stated Ando CEO Robert J. Maccini.

The other big change is the very first appearance of Pandora in any kind of audience measurement ranker.

Pandora debuts at number 2 behind CBSRadio’s entire online network including AOLRadio and Yahoo Launchcast (Last.fm is not part of CBSRadio’s measured network.)

The most relevant figure on the new ranker for purposes of comparing stations/networks to one another is the Average Active Sessions column (AAS). Interestingly, each group”s AAS number was unbelievably close to their former AQH on the last ranker released by AndoMedia. Meaning that AQH was doing a pretty good job of estimating numbers of listeners in the first place.

AndoMedia has also moved to releasing two different rankers, one for all streams measured, and one that they hope will define “domestic” listening. Unfortunately, the domestic ranker is missing lots of stations because online brands such as Digitally Imported, AccuRadio, and others are not able to provide the data in the form necessary for them to identify IP locations, according to Patrick Reynolds, Sr. VP at Ando. He says they are working to resolve it. Until they do, a domestic ranker won’t be a true representation of domestic listening.

Clear Channel, on the other hand, does not appear on the All Streams ranker, which was their choice according to Reynolds. Hopefully, these issues will be resolved for future releases. In the meantime, Using Clear Channel’s data from the domestic ranker, they would fall in at position 3, behind CBSRadio and Pandora on the All Streams Ranker below:

There’s no sign of Targetspot’s network in this ranker, although they announced in April that they would begin using Ando’s measurement, consolidating the industry on one audience measurement platform. Katz’ Online Network is the only sales network reflected in these new rankers.