Digital Radio Rising Fast, Audio Streaming Up 26%

Digital radio audiences are growing by double-digit percentages year over year, according to the latest metrics figures from Triton Digital, detailing the audience for streaming audio in October 2014.

The number of average active streaming audio sessions increased 25.8% compared to last year during the weekday 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daypart, to 3,832,845. The equivalent figure for the full week 6 a.m. to midnight daypart was up 30.1% to 3,235,716, Triton found.

The categories showing the biggest audience increases on a month-to-month basis included news and talk radio, with the number of active streaming sessions up 5.3% from September to October of this year, followed by sports, up 5.1%, and adult contemporary, up 2.4%.

The largest segment of listening during the weekdays came from iOS devices, at 32% of total streaming sessions, followed by Android at 28%, Flash Player at 9%, Google Chrome at 7%, Internet Explorer at 5%, and Firefox at 3%, leaving 16% delivered via other channels.

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Pandora continued to dominate digital radio listening, accounting for just over 2.2 million average active sessions during weekdays, or 58% of the total measured by Triton in October 2014. The next biggest digital audio platform, iHeartMedia’s iHeartRadio, had around 340,000 average active sessions, followed by CBS Radio at 60,000 and Cumulus Streaming Network at 58,000.

The Katz Digital Audio network, which includes iHeartMedia, Cumulus, Cox Radio, and others, had a total of around 443,000 average active sessions.

Although music remains the most popular type of content on digital radio, spoken word programming is enjoying strong growth, as reflected in the figures above. Earlier this week, CBS Radio and CBS Local Digital Media unveiled a new podcast network, Play.it, a network aggregating over 300 podcasts delivering news, lifestyle, business, sports and entertainment content from big publishers, as well as CBS Radio.

1 comment about "Digital Radio Rising Fast, Audio Streaming Up 26%".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics, January 13, 2015 at 10:24 a.m.

    There is no doubt that Internet radio is playing an increasingly important role. We just finished estimating the amount of time that an average adult devotes to the various media for our upcoming annual, "Intermedia Dimensions 2015", and it was quite clear that while over-the-air radio is slowly losing its audience "tonnage" ----note, I said slowly----- Internet radio is more than making up for any lost listening occasions. Moreover, it is improving the medium's overall demographics, which is another plus, by adding more younger impressions.

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