Satellite Radio Playground

By Tom Taylor

The following article comes from Tom Taylor’s newsletter, Taylor on Radio-Info.

Headline of the latest Arbitron-Edison “Infinite Dial” – a 30% jump in weekly online radio audience.

This is the 20th edition of a study of new media that dates way back to 1998, when there wasn’t even an accepted vocabulary for some of the behavior. (Arbitron used to refer to streaming radio listeners as “streamies.”) The latest data confirms the rapid rush toward broadband at home (now in 70% of homes), increasing reliance on the Internet (46% say it’s “the medium most essential to my life”), and the adoption of smartphones. Arbitron’s Bill Rose and Edison’s Tom Webster also take pains to point out that old media isn’t going into the dumpster. One of their bullet points – “Heavy usage of one medium is not necessarily associated with less time with other media.” Americans’ average daily time with AM/FM radio is 2 hours and 7 minutes. For heavy Internet users, it’s 2 hours and 14 minutes. Even heavy TV users, who gulp down 7-8 hours a day of tube time, use radio an average of one hour and 56 minutes. There’s other stuff that points to increased media time by Americans. “Digital device users are slightly more likely to have listened to AM/FM radio in the past week.” Bill Rose says “ten years ago, people were using seven hours a day of radio/TV/Internet. Now it’s eight hours and 18 minutes.” Overall, digital has increased “the ubiquity of media.” Check the just-released Infinite Dial “Navigating Digital Platforms” study on the Arbitron website here or the Edison site here. Here’s more — Read More