Mary Beth Garber

Articles by Mary Beth All articles by Mary Beth

• Sorry, Pandora - Radio Is Still Dominant And Growing  in MediaDailyNews on 06/07/2016
  

  Broadcast radio stands alone as America's constant companion, connecting with the community through local news, entertainment and personalities.

Comments by Mary Beth All comments by Mary Beth

• 2016 Presidential Election Shifts From Cookies To Real Voters by Tim Vanderhook (Marketing: Politics on 04/27/2016)
  

  Interesting approach.  Remember, though, that in several markets, politicos and analysts attributed several wins and losses largely to radio Hosts' opinions, support and attacks.  It is important to realize that radio, too, is a personally targeted medium, differentiated by its formats and content into Virtual Neighborhoods.  The combination of targeted digital and the influence of the right radio stations have to be a powerful weapon in winning elections.

• More Consumers Streaming Music (And Paying For It) by Aaron Baar (Marketing Daily on 07/31/2013)
  

  Before you panic and go on a stock-buying binge based on this study, facts first. The people these music streaming services pay to measure their progress (Triton) show nothing like a 200% growth rate in the past 2 years. The newest YOY growth rate for music streamers is 19%. Even factoring in Spotify, which Pew figures to be 1/3 of Pandora's size, growth would not top about 25%. And 200% of very little is still very little. Based on feedback from a 1.2 million plus global panel of music lovers, EMI thinks "streaming and other new dynamics have huge potential, but it’s still very early." Edison Research (the ones that do the Presidential election exit polls for all the networks and news outlets) has been tracking online audio usage for 10 years. They say monthly use of any form of it (including AM/FM streaming) has increased by 50% since 2011. Almost all of that growth is for free usage. Between Pandora, Spotify and XM/Sirius there are maybe 35 million paying subscribers and it has taken 12 years to attract them. The past 2 years show about 40-45% growth in paid subscribers. Make no mistake, online audio usage is growing at a weed-like rate. But paid audio usage is and will always be a limited market. Ask Spotify -- which is building a sales team to put ads on their free service since the free service is now 400% bigger than the paid user base. Don't lose perspective. Or you will likely lose your shirt.

• Audio Killed the Radio Star by John Shelton (MediaDailyNews on 05/21/2013)
  

  Some additional info and an observation. I think most people in radio agree that the category is "audio". Much of the data we post shows radio's [massive] share of the audio category and the growth of streaming (both musicplayer sites and AM/FM streams). The Pew data comes from Edison Research's "Infinite Dial:2012" and deals with "ever" listened to online radio. The weekly figure was 29%. The newest edition, 2013, shows the weekly figure has grown to 33%. It is definitely growing. Our stations find that mobile streaming especially has increased substantially over the past couple of years. But radio's share of audio trends -- total hours listened, % of people who listen weekly -- indicate that your kids are more likely to hear that song on some form of AM/FM radio delivery rather than Pandora.

• Clear Channel Dials Rev Uptick by Erik Sass (MediaDailyNews on 11/05/2012)
  

  How can Sirius XM be a competitor to Clear Channel when less than 2.4% of its Sirius' Q1 2012 revenue came from advertising -- on $18.6 million. That's less than some of the individual stations in CCME's portfolio made in Q1 2012. CCME is not in the paid subscriber business -- which is the source of 97.6% of Sirius' revenue.

• Why The Cross-Channel Measurement Problem Is A Software Problem by Bill Wise (Metrics Insider on 11/11/2011)
  

  You are right, Pandora is a website, and comScore's soon-to-be-available Total Universe metrics should produce the ratings a planner or buyer would need. comScore TU includes mobile and online usage. That should completely cover what Pandora has to offer. And Pandora definitely needs an outside source to produce its ratings because the numbers Mr. Westergren is touting are vastly overstated when compared with accepted industry source data.

• Safe at Any Speed by Joe Mandese (Media Magazine on 04/13/2011)
  

  Joe, I concur, great piece, great issue. But like David, I (and most of my neighbors) have FiOS, and that skip button gets a lot of use. You can't interact with an ad you don't see. But first in the cluster or last ad or promo in the set are likely to get seen, as well as the millisecond spent on an in-between ad once the skip ends and before the next skip begins. Anything that is emotionally grabbing or works off the stored memories you reference will usually earn full viewing. It does make an advertiser's job more complicated.

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