It looks like online news sites were so infuriatingly slow last week, that many people gave up trying and turned to online radio stations instead. That's according to MeasureCast, which found that
some online radio stations saw the total time spent listening (TTSL) to their online stations jump as much as 8,900%.
MeasureCast, which supplies Internet radio broadcasters with next-day
audience size and demographics reports, reported today that AM News/Talk stations measured by MeasureCast saw dramatic increases in audience size and total number of hours streamed on Tuesday,
Sept. 11 - the day terrorists attacked the U.S. - compared to the previous Tuesday.
Here are some examples: KSCO-AM 1080 in Santa Cruz, Ca. streamed 2,254 hours of news to 1,377 people on Sept.
11, a 669% increase over the previous Tuesday. KZNE-AM 1150 in College Station, Texas streamed 2,181 hours of programming to 1,397 listeners, an 8,988% increase over the 24 hours of news and talk
streamed to 19 people the Tuesday before the attack.
WLS-AM 890 in Chicago, an ABC Radio station, streamed 3,064 hours, and had an audience of 2,069. WLS is the beta test station for ABC
Radio's new ad insertion program. The station had not been streaming prior to Tuesday's attack.
"Because major news organization's websites were overwhelmed and operating slowly last Tuesday,
and because many people don't have TVs or radios in their offices, thousands of office workers tuned in to Internet radio to get the latest information of the terrible attacks," said MeasureCast
CEO Ed Hardy, who tuned in to a local Portland, Oregon station - KOTK - because it streamed CNN's programming all day long. Hardy said the data is indicative of the growing importance and growing
popularity of Internet radio.