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to web radio
Call 'em streamies. Call 'em the medium's future.
By Heidi Vogt
Internet radio may still be a niche market, but it’s a niche market with a rapidly growing group of devotees.
A recent study found that streaming media use has grown enormously since January. Arbitron’s index of webcast use shows a growth of 172 percent among a sample of streaming radio stations.
That’s only a sample from a group that only makes up 8 to 10 percent of the radio listening public, but Arbitron’s Bill Rose sees it as an indicator of the way webcasts will become truly competitive with traditional radio over the next few years.
“Cable began as nothing more than a system that would make local signals more available. Then some smart cable broadcasters took independent systems and put them on cable,” says Rose, who is vice president and general manager of webcast services at Arbitron. "Webcasting is following the cable model."
After all, while most Americans don’t regularly tune to online radio, 35 percent have watched or listened to some form of streaming media at least once, according to Arbitron’s September study of streaming usage.
The streaming audio listener is a unique breed, according to the Arbitron research.
Streamies are richer and better educated than the average broadcast radio listener. They also spend substantially more time online and tend to be early adopters of technology. Streamies are somewhat more likely to be men, but definitely likely to be young. “Very few people over 55 have streaming audio on a consistent basis,” says Rose.
But what really makes streamies stand out from the traditional radio listener is their pro-active approach to music.
“They are seeking content that they can’t find elsewhere. That makes them much more focused on the content when they get it,” says Rose.
The radio stations that topped the list of the Arbitron study are those that offer formats that are hard to find on traditional broadcast radio. The top station is a jazz station out of London that only reaches the U.S. via internet.
The internet-only “Musicmatch,” which lets users pick out artists and songs, is high on the list as well. Classical, country and bluegrass stations also top the list, showing that many less-popular formats have found a new home on webcast radio.
One of the major issues facing webcast radio is that people have to search out the stations. “There are challenges to making it as easy to tune into the internet as it is to tune in to your TV or radio,” says Rose.
There are still multiple--which is to say incompatible-- media players, and a lack of brand identity in the streaming audio world. Rose says the problem is that no one has a ready answer when asked where is the best place to find streaming audio on the internet.
“Webcasters have a long way to go in creating a leading online brand for content you can’t get elsewhere,” says Rose.
December 2, 2002© 2002 Media Life
-Heidi Vogt is a staff writer for Media Life.
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