It should according to Doug Hyde, Senior Director, National & Local Insights at Westwood One/Cumulus. Hyde has accumulated data that he says shows that streaming now represents 10% of radio listening.
Hyde says before the pandemic, streaming only represented 5% of AM/FM radio listening. That jumped to 8% during the pandemic lockdown period of April and May 2020. And, according to Hyde, when Nielsen introduced the new headphone adjustment methodology enhancement in October 2020, the share of listening to encoded streams jumped to 10% and has held ever since. Hyde says that number is even higher (14.6%) for the 25-54 demo, citing Edison Research’s Share of Ear study.
Hyde says, for advertisers, the implication is clear, AM/FM radio streaming needs to part of every “AM/FM radio” buy. “With nearly 15% of all adult 25-54 AM/FM radio listening occurring online, AM/FM radio streaming can no longer be ignored.”
Hyde goes on to compare AM/FM to Pandora and Spotify and says radio should be considered first when advertisers place buys online. “AM/FM radio is nine times bigger than ad-supported Pandora and 23 times bigger than ad-supported Spotify. Edison Research’s “Share of Ear” distinguishes between audiences for subscription audio streaming services that are commercial free and listening to ad-supported streaming services. What advertisers focus on is the audience where they can actually run their ads.
Some advertisers run on Pandora and Spotify and think they’re done with their audio buy. That is like buying two cable networks, one ranked 39 and the other ranked 87 and declaring your TV buy is complete! Per “Share of Ear,” Pandora and Spotify represent only a tiny part of ad-supported audio.”
What Hyde completely avoided in his post was the unbearably long radio stopsets which distinguishes the online streamers from radio. An advertiser’s commercial stands out more when it is in a much shorter pod of commercials or a stand-alone ad.
excellent article!!!