Posts filed under ‘Internet radio’
Mobile Music Ad Dollars Are Growing
Mobile ad dollars are growing, according to eMarketer. As smartphone usage expands, revenues from the ad-supported component of mobile music, games and videos alone will grow 52.7% this year to $433.8 million.
Two things are driving the increase – one being the growing audience for mobile music, gaming and video content. The second reason is that more and more content providers are shifting to an ad based revenue model, stimulating marketplace spending. Spending on ads for mobile music, gaming and video content accounted for 20% of the revenue in the space last year but will increase to 30% by 2015, to nearly $3.59 billion. The remainder of the revenues will be paid by subscription and download fees.
There’s a strong tolerance for mobile ads if the apps are free – new study info from Nielsen showed both that free apps are preferred by consumers and 51% of consumers say they are okay with advertising on their devices if they can access the content for free.
Monetizing mobile content with ads is becoming increasingly important for services such as Pandora. With the most downloaded free music app in Apple and Google app stores, Pandora sees the majority of its audience on mobile devices.
Why Broadcasters Need To Work With Lots of Streaming Portals
Last week Clear Channel announced that they continue to expand the variety and number of streaming broadcast stations offered on iHeartradio by adding a list of college radio stations. College radio is a broad category that spans everything from student-run stations featuring block programming and music, news and sports programming to professionally-run stations with specific formats. At launch, iHeartRadio’s College programming will include more than a dozen of the leading college stations from eleven states across the country. 
It’s a nice move that college radio stations would find attractive – why wouldn’t they want to join up with a larger streaming portal? More potential listeners, an easy entry into mobile and automotive audiences. It’s a good idea, right?
I think it’s a fine thing that iHeartRadio is expanding into a major portal to broadcast streams. The name iHeartradio is a good one for a site with such a universal offering. A tuner-like portal that offers listeners the ability to sort through stations by geography and format and find just what they are looking for is a valuable offering for listeners who can search for the station from the place where they grew up or their alma mater’s stream.
iHeartRadio has a nicely developed offering, a handy mobile app, facebook integration and even some deals with automotive manufacturers, all things that are appealing to smallish broadcasters who can’t leverage those sorts of thing on their own. Signing on to iHeartRadio makes sense for all of these reasons.
Unless it’s an exclusive deal. Then what seems like a really good idea turns into a really bad idea very very quickly. Unfortunately some early deals with iHeartRadio by Univision, Greater Media, Cumulus, and EMF are rumored to have made iHeartRadio their exclusive digital portal. Despite the fact that other great big portals exist and already have lots and lots of traffic. Like, for example, TuneIn – a service that has one of the most popular streaming radio apps in iTunes, provides a tuner to many devices, and has lots of auto deals too. They’ve been around for a long time and are sending lots of traffic to lots of stations. Why abandon that?
Content creators should work with every distribution platform they can to give listeners access in as many ways as they want it. Leverage your content to build your audience through as many access points as you can. Limiting access is only good for one brand, and it’s not yours that I’m talking about…
What’s Driving Internet Radio
“In the not-too-distant future, a car with a radio that receives only AM or FM will qualify as an antique.” So says a WSJ article covering a new study released by Deloitte on Generation Y’s automotive buying power and preferences.
The study finds that 59% of 19 to 31 year olds place in-car connectivity as the top interior feature when shopping for a new car. This year one out of every four persons in that age group will buy a new car, almost half of them will purchase new or used in the next two years.
That’s driving heavy interest in tuners and platforms that are app ready and adaptable to safe car use. Pandora, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, NPR and others are working with auto manufacturers to place their apps in the cars, as is SiriusXM. Leading the way, Pandora has deals in place with almost 2 dozen auto manufacturers already.
I think there’s a short term and long term view to all of this and long term my money is on all-in aggregators like TuneIn who provide access to anyone who wants to be listed in their directory. If you are a car manufacturer, isn’t that what you would want to offer? I’m thinking that’s what buyers will want to buy.
2011 in Webcast Metrics: Some Winners, Some Losers
Triton Digital has released its monthly top 20 report for December 2011, based on its measurement of streaming platforms that subscribe to its Webcast Metrics service.
I’m weary of the microscopic monthly analysis of this data, so I decided to take a look at what has happened to the general space in a year.
- Pandora continues to completely dominate the measured pack. From January 2011 to December 2011 they grew their AAS (Average Active Sessions) by 88%. Session starts grew by less, meaning they did a pretty good job of holding on to their listeners. Their Time Spent was down, but only slightly from .83 to .75.
- Slacker was the big winner in terms of share of growth, they increased the size of their AAS by nearly 93%. The numbers are much smaller though, Slacker ended the year with an AAS of 50,767, in part thanks to the addition of AOL‘s streaming audience to its network. Slacker’s growing their audience and their tsl — gaining listeners and getting them to listen longer.
- Clear Channel’s online platform is iHeartRadio, although on the ranker it appears as Clear Channel. Their online audience grew as well, but not as much as you might expect given all the promotion. AAS is up by 48%. TSL down from 1.15 to .63 – more listeners spending less time listening.
- CBSRadio’s online platform suffered the loss of AOL’s streaming audience when they moved to Slacker. Their online audience dropped nearly 40% last year.
- ESPNRadio.com started the year on a big high of 17000, the largest standalone streaming number. At the end of the year they were still the biggest, although their number is down to 13,959 in December. It is possible given their singular focus on sports that January’s exciting football playoffs factor into that, I’m not sure.
Got more observations? Chime in! Here are the rankers I took my observations from:
Pandora’s Local Market Clout
Pandora released audience data today showing that they have grown their audience by 50% or more in top markets across the country in the past year. Releasing data that compares January’s audience stats with “holiday 2011″ stats, Pandora now claims to have a 1.0 rating with Adults 18-34 in top markets across the country. 
The report uses audience information provided by Pandora and analyzed by Edison Research using methodology that resembles that used by Arbitron, however, they make no specific comparisons to Arbitron’s reports or other stations in their press release. Releasing audience data in this form enables advertisers and agencies to assimilate Pandora’s audience reach with traditional broadcast radio stations’ reach. This assimilation of data and direct comparison to broadcast audience data is precisely the kind of thing that some broadcasters are trying to prevent.
It’s a powerful statement about Pandora’s popularity that they are able to deliver a 1.0 rating in all of the top ten markets in the US with Adults 18-34. You can read the press release here.
More Music Sharing on Facebook
Facebook has a new music sharing feature that allows friends to listen to what their friends are listening to – at the same time. When connected friends see what their friends are listening to in the chat sidebar on facebook they can click to join the listening experience and hear the same song at the same time from the same service. It’s a new feature that facebook launched last week with integrated partner Spotify. Plans are to roll it out with other music streaming partners in the coming weeks.
It’s easy to see how this could really take off virally and increase time spent with facebook as well as time spent with music services. Spotify has 4.6 million daily active users on facebook already, while other services have far less – MOG has 10,000 daily active users, iHeartRadio has 230,000.
As friends join friends in listening, they can chat about the music they are hearing. Other friends can chat and listen as well, joining a group chat that can expand into new networks of friends of friends.
On demand services like Spotify and MOG probably stand to gain the most from these features which allow any user to become a DJ for their friends, and their friends’ friends. At the same time, it’s bound to be building the online listening audience and time spent with the medium..
Slacker Adds Live Sports, Customizable Weather
It’s CES week in Vegas, and that means lots of Internet radio companies are announcing new deals and developments.
Slacker will now offer live streaming of major professional and collegiate sports events from ESPN. The new feature began last night with the live broadcast of the BCS Championship game — No. 1 LSU versus No. 2 Alabama — which was available to all Slacker listeners. Slacker also announced a partnership with The Weather Channel to offer customizable forecasts and updates to Slacker listeners.
Adding real-time updates from The Weather Channel to Slacker’s millions of songs and non-music content further highlights Slacker’s commitment to creating the best Personal Radio experience. “Every person is affected by weather; it’s an important part of our lives,” said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing at Slacker. “Including weather on our stations is one more way that Slacker is offering the most relevant content to listeners, providing the best possible personal radio experience.”
Meanwhile, Targetspot and Livio Radio have announced that TargetSpot will be the exclusive third-party advertising provider for Livio Connect, which allows consumers to access digital radio content while in their vehicles. Through this partnership, TargetSpot’s advertisers will be able to reach an audience of listeners comprised of 65 percent of the automotive Bluetooth market as well as drivers of major auto brands.
“Digital radio in-car is a game changer: until now, morning drive time has been served by over- the-air radio, but as digital access becomes more readily available in auto, this will change,” said Eyal Goldwerger, CEO of TargetSpot. “We are thrilled to offer our advertisers the ability to reach digital audio consumers in their cars. With TargetSpot’s widening network of distribution partners, advertisers can reach their desired target audiences wherever they are listening and whatever their listening preferences may be.”
Arbitron’s Internet Radio Measurement Headache
In 2003 I started a company called Net Radio Sales that was designed, in large part, to offer a sales solution to streaming broadcast radio stations. Later that year I met with an Arbitron executive to discuss their decision to shut down server based streaming measurement and shift to census based measurement through comScore. I told Arbitron that broadcasters in particular would suffer from that because their streaming audiences were small and local, and would never show up on a national panel. At the time, Arbitron told me that they had two clients (AOL and Yahoo) who were pushing them to move to panel based measurement, and since they were the only two paying clients, the decision had been made. They shuttered Measurecast and moved to estimating streaming audiences based on comScore panel behavior. In case you don’t know the rest, a few years later they abandoned that game as well.
I’ll bet Arbitron wishes they had stayed in server based streaming measurement way back then, because what they had was a platform that measured everyone – streaming broadcast and online only stations, all together. Which brings us to the topic of the day. Now, Arbitron has a bunch of clients who want things done a certain way. Again. This time it’s their broadcast radio clients, and they want Arbitron to measure streaming broadcast stations and online only stations separately. Not just separately but differently, so that the ratings cannot be easily combined.
It’s a problem for Arbitron because their broadcast radio clients pay them a lot of money and they don’t want to alienate them. Those clients want Arbitron to measure their streams – in such a way that they can roll up their broadcast and streaming audiences into one and sell that total audience to advertisers. And they don’t want to be compared to online stations.
And then we have Pandora. Pandora has a large audience – large enough that they can now claim to have more listeners in many markets than some broadcast stations. And they are claiming that – by working with research firm Edison Research, who has helped them crunch numbers and make comparisons. Using standard calculations that are not proprietary.
Under pressure from its clients, Arbitron recently sent out a letter intended to dissuade buyers from using the data that Pandora, with the help of Edison, has been releasing, stating: “We strongly advise clients to avoid comparing self-reported audience estimates from Internet music services to Arbitron radio audience estimates…” They offer several reasons why it’s a bad idea, including claiming that there’s no way to know if anyone is really listening. Really. The most overused objection to radio, the objection that every salesperson in the world learned to overcome in Radio 101? I just really think it’s the pot calling the kettle black on that one.
But on to the thing that really concerns me. Arbitron says comparisons between broadcast streams and online streams can’t be made because there is a vast difference between “one to one” and “one to many” streaming audiences. They’ve created an imaginary line to justify measuring the two categories separately and differently. Supposedly, because “one to many” audiences are all exposed to the message simultaneously while “one to one” listeners are exposed to the message during their unique sessions, the data is different and cannot be assimilated.
Huh?
“This is an absolutely meaningless distinction” says Kurt Hanson, Publisher of RAIN: Radio and Internet Newsletter and Founder of AccuRadio, an online station. “Case in point: If Samuel Adams wants to deliver one million impressions of a commercial to listeners in the 4pm hour next Friday (to use a simplified example), they can either buy (A) a couple dozen top AM/FM radio stations, in which case the WAAA listeners will hear it at 4:08pm, the WBBB listeners will hear it at 4:10pm, the WCCC listeners will hear it at 4:13pm, and so forth, or (B) they can buy their desired demographic slice of the audience of a brand like Pandora, in which case some listeners will hear it at 4:01pm, some will hear it at 4:02pm, and so forth. In BOTH scenarios, not all of the target consumers are hearing the spot at the same exact moment! That’s never been important to the advertiser. Both scenarios are precisely the same, in terms if effect, for Samuel Adams.”
I asked one of the smartest agency folks I know – Natalie Swed Stone, US Director, National Radio Investment, OMD, what she thought. She pointed me to her write up for RBR, which she wrote a few weeks ago, and I highlight this quote: “The research has to follow the investment patterns. The more uniform the data, the easier it will be–but marketers and agencies will continue to buy what they want and use best available research to evaluate and estimate behavior.” In other words, research firms should offer data based on the ways that buyers want to buy. If the research does not do that, buyers will do what they have to.
Network radio has been adding up time shifted audiences(that are not hearing the message simultaneously) for decades. It’s completely acceptable to represent a network audience’s AQH as the sum of the AQH’s of audiences across the country listening to a program on hundreds of stations at different times. Arbitron’s RADAR product does this. “When we buy national schedules—they can air on different stations at different times—within the prescribed daypart…” Swed Stone told me, “in TV, the currency is currently live plus 3 days (DVR) etc and the currency is the same –even if a person plays back the program 3 days later –it is included in the overall rating.”
To check my thinking on this topic, I spent a lot of time calling and emailing digitally savvy radio people, asking them about this issue. None of my broadcast sources would go on the record, but they uniformly told me that this is a spin game. No one thought the “one to one” and “one to many” distinction holds any water at all. “It’s not intellectually sound.” I was told.
Arbitron is caught in a tough situation. As a research firm, they’re obligated to create products that are fair and objective. But some of their clients don’t want them to do that in a uniform platform. The listening landscape is rapidly evolving into a space that includes new audio platforms. Ultimately, advertisers and listeners will decide the landscape – listeners will listen to what they want to hear and advertisers will spend to reach them.
The audio landscape has never been more diverse and interesting. Pandora, with its enormously popular platform is bringing new advertisers into the space, and this could be a big win for the industry. Grow the pie! Adapting to new dynamics would be time better spent that shoveling sand against the tide..
Last Year’s Biggest Story
Last year was quite a year for Internet radio and related streaming music services, and judging from some of the end of the year activity, this year should be lots of fun as well. I took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, so here’s my just-a-little-late 2011 recap, summed up in what I think were the stories of the year.
1. Pandora went public. They raised $234.9 million in their public offering in June, selling 14.7 million shares at $16. The stock has struggled to regain that kind of price since then, but the service continues to gain listeners, ending the year with well over 100 million registered listeners.
2. Spotify launched in the US. While they would have liked to get their ducks in a row and have launched before Pandora’s public offering, Spotify did launch in July. Europe’s most popular streaming service began serving US listeners and gaining great attention with mobile apps, on-demand and programmed offerings.
3. Facebook made friends with streaming platforms. In September at its f8 developer conference, facebook announced that it would integrate third party streaming music apps into its platform, opening up the gates for those services to gain listeners as folks listen and like songs and share them with their network of friends.
4. iHeartradio revamped and relaunched. The all new iHeartradio includes all the streams offered online by Clear Channel stations as well as streaming channels. Other broadcasters are offering their programming through the platform as well – including Univision, Cumulus/Citadel/ABC, and EMF. These changes signal Clear Channel’s intention that iHeartradio become a portal to streaming broadcast stations.
5. Digital trendspotter and investment analyst Mary Meeker predicts that online audio is the next big thing.
Those are the five things that I think were the biggest stories in online radio in 2011. I think the real story is a combination of all of them – an investment friendly marketplace with increasing competition and opportunities. What do you think?..
Last.fm’s New Site Is a Game Changer
Not to be outdone by recent enhancements by Spotify and Pandora, Last.fm has rolled out a new interface for Last.fm Discover that is easily the best looking offering I’ve seen by a streaming station. It’s based on HTML5 and was developed in tandem with Microsoft to showcase the new capabilities that HTML5 in Internet Explorer 9 can offer.
Last.fm Discover is a customizable, personalizable offering that focuses on new music and artists. Launched a few months ago, the offerings are influenced by Last.fm’s charts of what listeners are scrobbling and listening to on Last.fm.
The site is very playful and inviting – perfectly suited to the Discover theme – rolling green textured hills invite you to explore the various music genres. It’s a fun and inventive look that feels more like a game – listeners can’t help but poke around, relax, hang out and discover new music. Once you select a genre, it shows you some artists and endless options for listening to similar artists, or taking a new direction. It’s addictive – I found it hard to stop clicking. (The screenshot reveals my affection for K pop..)
While much of the new site can be seen in any browser, the experience is enhanced in Internet Explorer 9. In fact, I’m a Chrome user and this got me to open IE for the first time in a while. ”What we want is to see more and more websites using as much of HTML5 as possible and one of the reasons for that is we want websites to be more like apps in the way they feel,” explained Ian Moulster Microsoft product manager.
I really like this new development – I think they’ve done a great job of breaking the mold when it comes to streaming station interfaces, developing a look that matches the station’s theme of discovery. So we’ll see if it gets Last.fm a little more traction in terms of listening. Last.fm has been surprisingly stagnant in terms of audience growth and general awareness here in the US compared to Pandora and Spotify.
