 RAIN 6/17: Top webcasters up 35% over last year in April Webcast Metrics ·Jun 17, 11:17 AM LIKE LAST YEAR, MOST WEBCASTERS FLAT OR SLIGHTLY DOWN MARCH TO APRILAs we saw last year in the lead-up to summer, most webcasters were either flat or suffered slight month-to-month audience declines in April, according to Triton Digital’s new Webcast Metrics. A few webcasters (including Pandora), bucked that trend, however, with modest growth.
The combined AAS (Average Active Sessions, which is essentially equivalent to AQH — i.e., average simultaneous listeners) of the Top 20 webcasters in Triton Digital’s Metrics report is up around 35% over April 2010. Pandora, Digitally Imported and EMF Corporate showed month-to-month AAS growth in April 2011. Pandora grew 3% (though their numbers are still affected by the omission of tracking code in some of the company’s mobile apps), while Digitally Imported grew 5% and EMF was up 1%. Slacker was down 2% from March. That’s the webcaster’s first decline since September 2010. They’re ranked at #5 in the domestic chart. CBS Radio and Clear Channel — holding the #2 and #3 spots in the domestic ranker, respectively — both saw month-to-month audience declines of 7%. The combined AAS of the top 5 terrestrial broadcasters in Triton Digital’s Webcast Metrics dropped 6% month-to-month and is down 5% from April 2010. The audience declines may be due to the relatively high percentage of weekends and holidays in April compared to weekdays (Easter, for example). You can find our coverage of March 2011’s Webcast Metrics here. Find the Domestic and All Streams Mon-Sun 6a-12m rankings below. Triton Digital’s full April 2011 Webcast Metrics can be found here (PDF).
NPR MARKETS NEW DIGITAL SERVICES TO MEMBER STATIONSNational Public Radio has built a suite of digital services it’s marketing to affiliates — tools it says will help member stations not only raise more money, but greatly increase the functionality and value of their websites.
Representatives of NPR are on a 10-week, 18-city “road show” to work the plan to affiliates. The Wall Street Journal notes “the toll the weak economy has taken on corporate underwriting and support from foundations, (which) threaten(s) to make it harder for stations to pay for NPR’s shows will also producing local programming.” The Wall Street Journal reports NPR will partially or fully cover the cost of the digital services until 2014 (after that, stations pay their own way). The system will cost stations, depending on members’ revenue, from $1,800 to $100,000 a year. Subscribers can read full coverage from The Wall Street Journal here. ALL THINGS DIGITAL: LOOK PAST PANDORA’S STOCK PRICE TO ITS FUTUREIn the days after going public, Pandora’s stock has struggled and dropped below its IPO price. But All Things Digital writes, “Unless you’re day-trading, Pandora’s temporary gyrations shouldn’t be that interesting. More interesting: What do the company’s next couple years look like?”
According to Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy (pictured), the future includes boosting mobile monetization and continuing to build partnerships with car-makers. “Today, mobile advertising is more nascent than desktop advertising, which took 10 to 15 years to develop,” he tells All Things Digital. “But mobile is growing far faster. Key pieces of the puzzle, like third-party measurement, are just coming in.” What about expanding to offer on-demand services to compete with Spotify and other services? “Our focus is on radio,” said Kennedy. “We’d rather be best in the world at one thing that’s a great big piece of the market than be less-than-best in the world at several things.” You can read All Things Digital‘s interview with Kennedy here. MOBILE “DATA TSUNAMI” CONTINUES: USAGE UP 89%, COSTS DOWN 46% Smartphone data usage has grown 89% since Q1 2010, according to Nielsen. At the same time, the average cost per megabyte of mobile data has dropped 46%.
Nearly 40% of mobile subscribers in the U.S. own a smartphone. Find out more from Nielsen here.
YAHOO LAUNCHES PERSONALIZED APP RECOMMENDATION SERVICEYahoo has launched a new app called AppSpot that delivers personalized app recommendations to iPhone and Android users. It aims to help users sort through the hundreds of thousands of apps now stuffed into mobile app stores. MediaPost has more coverage here.If this works well, it’s good news for Internet radio. Though Apple offers an app “Genius” service, mobile app stores mostly offer little in the way of personalized recommendations. Anything that could pair a users with their local radio station app or uncover a niche streaming radio service would be of great benefit to users and webcasters. — MS share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
