And that’s good news for radio. The 2019 Smart Audio Report from Edison Research and NPR revealed that the number one request smart speaker owners make to their devices is to play music. That’s followed by the weather report, answering a general question, setting an alarm, and checking the time. Obviously, radio provides three out of five of those skills every day, which should help radio managers understand the need to have a smart speaker skill listeners can easily use — and know about — when they turn on those devices.
Here are some additional stats from the research that was revealed in a webinar, Tuesday.
– There are 53 million smart speaker owners 18+ in the United States today.
– 69% of smart speaker owners use their device daily, and households with children are even more likely to use them daily
– Smart speaker owners who have owned the device for 2+ years use an average seven skills per week, compared to an average 12 skills per week among those who have owned the device for less than three months
– 66% of those who own a smart speaker with a screen say the screen has made it easier to discover new content, and the same number say having a screen makes the smart speaker “easier to use.”
The Smart Audio Report Spring 2019 is based upon a national online survey of 1,641 Americans ages 18+, 812 who indicated that they owned at least one smart speaker and 829 who indicated they did not own a smart speaker. The device owner data was weighted to nationally representative figures on smart speaker users from The Infinite Dial 2019 from Edison Research and Triton Digital.
