At RadioDays Asia last month, All In Media’s (AIM) Senior Digital Producer Richard Phelps shared learnings from the company’s extensive work on radio apps around the world.

Station apps have now overtaken website streaming as the number one source of online listening, according to Edison Research data.

“Station apps are loved by your P1 audience. They are using station apps more than ever before,” says Phelps. They have overtaken station websites, 3rd party apps and smart speakers.

 “Where you go, they go. Station apps are always in the hands of your audience, thanks to their smartphone…

 “A number of my clients report that most of their podcast consumption also comes from their station app.”

There are plenty of good apps, but some things make a radio app great, says Phelps: “A great app simplifies complexity, it’s intuitive and it’s easy to use… Measure effectively, collect only meaningful audience data that helps you meet your objectives.”

AIM has found that the top features in radio apps that drive consumption are:

1. Live Streams. Not everyone has a radio anymore.
2. Podcasts, and the ability to favourite, or subscribe to it
3. Notifications to alert users to new episodes from their favourite podcasts
4. Log ins, they let stations personalise app experiences, resulting in more time spent listening
5. Ability for the app to connect to their favourite cast-enabled devices, and in-car via Android Auto and Apple CarPlay
6. Users love the convenience of hearing the latest news bulletin easily by touching the news function in the app
7. Dynamic Linking lets users share stations, podcasts or episodes to friends, which amplifies the content and increases consumption

Stations that use apps with those features are finding that there is an increase in live radio listening, that new, trackable, listening habits are forming and that apps are a great way to launch and promote new podcasts. He also warns that stations should not try to include every possible feature, rather they should keep the app as simple as possible and only incorporate most used functions.

A changing trend, observed by AIM, is that listeners are no longer downloading  podcasts in advance, they just expect to tap and listen immediately in countries where data plans are cheap and reliable. The download function is being removed from the station apps by many companies when they notice this trend.

AIM is an Xperi company. Since 2007 it has built apps for over 3,000 stations and provided mobile and broadcast solutions for more than 8,500 stations around the world.