March 11, 2016
Online radio and podcasts are achieving significant mass usage, according to the Infinite Dial 2016, the latest in a long-running series of studies on consumer adoption of digital media from Edison Research and Triton Digital.
The nationally representative telephone survey found that 50% of respondents age 12 and older listened to some sort of online radio in the last week — a rise from 44% last year.
With 57% of Americans using online radio monthly, the conversion of monthly to weekly users is now at 88%. Additionally, the latest Infinite Dial update reports that podcast listening also showed sharp gains on both a monthly basis (17% to 21%) and weekly (10% to 13%).
Those who consume podcasts on a weekly basis listened to an average of five podcasts per week. The complete Infinite Dial 2016 can be downloaded HERE.
I tried to listen to the number one station here in Edmonton the other day. I wanted to see what “everybody” was listening to. When I tuned to that station, I heard a commercial. Then another commercial. Then a very young sounding announcer with a very weak voice introduced a song. The song was incredibly good. At the end of the song, more commercials. One, two, three, and then four commercials! There may have been a fifth, but I turned the radio off at this point, and went back to the Internet podcasts. Yes, they have commercials, but I can skip through them, just like I do on TV. Believe me, once you go podcast, you’ll never go back to live radio. If program directors are looking for reasons as to why their stations are struggling, perhaps this is a reason.
Imagine if there were no commercials. Then, listeners like oh brother would not be able to listen to commercial radio stations at all ! If stupid people don’t like the radio station, why are you tuning in, anyways !