• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 12, 2023

Beginning next week, radio stations and the advertisers and agencies buying them will get the first “market-wide” look of streaming audiences of all stations participating in Nielsen Audio’s portable people meter (PPM) ratings service.

Previously, stations and their clients only were able to see data on the streaming audiences of their own stations, so the new features -- dubbed “market-wide total line reporting” -- will enable them to see how they perform relative to other stations in the market, as well as the market overall.

The first data, which is based on Nielsen Audio’s March survey period, will be available to all of the 48 markets Nielsen measures via PPMs, but only stations that are actively encoding their audio streams will be included.

Currently, all but 18 of Nielsen Audio’s PPM markets are accredited by the Media Rating Council.

Based on trending data, Nielsen Audio estimates encoded station audio streams account for 12% of all radio use in its PPM markets, but that for some audience segments, the streaming accounts for as much as 20% of their listening.

Nielsen said the market-wide streaming audience reports will be available for five demographics segments across seven audio dayparts.