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"and his livelihood probably rests on trying to convince enough people that online-only radio (of the live, linear variety) is a viable business with a sensible amount of audience." - I would like to add, the same is true of traditional radio bods.
I often read online in industry press how every mobile phone should have an FM chip (I'm looking at you NEXTRADIO), or how DAB, and now DAB+ is the future of FM. Cold hard truth is, it's too little, too late.
FM works, or should I say worked well for traditional media because the choice to the consumer was so little. But in the era of mobile data, and the likes of Spotify (and Spotify should never ever be classed as internet radio) and TuneIn the traditional position of FM is eroded, as consumers have more choice forcing FM to up its game in-order to win listeners back.
I'm not saying that's the death of radio, it'll adapt, it always has, visual radio is a great example as is podcasting talk shows and interviews. But at the same time internet radio shouldn't be knocked, as the internet is just another platform for the radio industry.
In regards to figures, internet radio stations, like their FM cousins tend to be a little cagey with their figures. And let's face it, RAJAR's figures are compiled from around 100,000 people per year, and then with a combination of math and black magic, they create a report. But you know that.
However, with internet radio these figures can accurately be recorded. I know this, because I do. I created a web analytics platform to record this data in real-time for a few internet, and FM stations I work with. I've got to say, its become addictive looking at the figures each week.
It is a shame though that RAJAR doesn't cover internet radio, or at least I don't believe they do. Nielsen has certified Triton Digital's Webcast Metrics, formerly Ando Media (acquired by Triton 2009), but I haven't seen much in the way of publicly available reports.
Long an short, I think it is about time both traditional radio and internet bury the hatchet, and preferably not in each other, as it is ultimately the listener who we serve, that makes the final choice in the consumption of content, not us.
Hi, Matt - thanks for your comment.
You said: "It is a shame though that RAJAR doesn't cover internet radio, or at least I don't believe they do. Nielsen has certified Triton Digital's Webcast Metrics, formerly Ando Media (acquired by Triton 2009), but I haven't seen much in the way of publicly available reports."
RAJAR does cover internet radio - at least, listening to internet streams of their subscribers. A Capital FM listener is a listener regardless of whether they listen on FM, on DAB, on the TV, or online.
Triton/Ando/Measurecast's figures are reported on every month in RAIN News, which is worth a peek. I'm not sure that Nielsen has certified them: but the MRC has, which is some US kind of standards body. Triton's figures include Pandora, which isn't a "live, linear, radio" station; and iHeart, which is both live/linear and on-demand algorithmic. Their figures for live/linear are virtually flat over the last few years.
You also said: "However, with internet radio these figures can accurately be recorded. I know this, because I do."
Actually, you know, they're not accurate either. Sorry. You're measuring computers streaming to empty rooms; computers streaming to robot stream checkers; you're thinking thirty people listening to a radio stream on a speaker in a coffee shop is just one person; and you've no idea who's listening: boy or girl, old or young, human or robotic. It's fine to deride RAJAR's 100,000 rotating panel (one of the largest pieces of research in Europe, by the way), but watching streaming logs is also just as fraught with inaccuracy. http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/news/Diffs_btwn_audio_stream_and_RAJAR_listeners.pdf is an interesting piece (and so it should be, because I wrote most of it).
"it is ultimately the listener who we serve, that makes the final choice in the consumption of content" - you're right. And the listener is making that choice very, very clear for linear streamed radio: they're not listening online in any mass-market numbers, and online listening is also simply not growing. If there's a hatchet to be buried, it's people claiming that online has "taken over", because it sure as hell hasn't.
Greetings from sunny Queensland. Up the maroons.