Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland
I had a fearsome argument the other week on Facebook. It was about radio, which before we go any further, we ought to define – in this context – as “live, linear radio”. Like what you get from FM or AM, only online.
The gist of the argument was a claim by Mr X, as I’ll call him, that radio listening has now almost entirely moved online. Mr X claimed that online apps have “taken over”. It’s a refrain I hear relatively often, normally from non-radio people.
I was curious. “Interesting that you claim that apps are now the main way to listen to radio”, I said. “All the data I’ve ever seen would seem to show that it accounts for around 10% of broadcast radio’s TSL. Do you have any data you can share?” He didn’t, though he had a good line of personal abuse (which was surprisingly vitriolic).
As you might have guessed, Mr X runs an online-only radio station: 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.
The data, however, would seem to dispel his theory.
In the UK, online accounts for just 7.8% of total TSL (time spent listening); that figure’s 18% in Norway (a country with not much FM radio to go round). TSL figures are hard to come by; cume’s easier – in Germany, 28%; in Australia, I’m told, around 10%. The amount of TSL is much lower than these cume figures. Moreover, none of these show that online radio has “taken over”. (US figures also include non-linear services, so aren’t comparable).
Online radio simulcasts may be a useful way to reach at-work audiences – and out-of-area listeners, if you care about those. It is an important part of our multi-platform future: turning every mobile phone into a transistor radio does add genuine benefit to a small part of your audience. It clearly works for some broadcasters.
But the truth is that, right now, online is not a replacement for the AM/FM transmitter. Audiences are mostly tiny; competition is massive; and it costs significantly more to reach them online – whether that’s raw bandwidth costs or music fees.
Where people like Mr X need to be careful is that, in many cases, their own streaming stats are on display to anyone who cares to look. Mr X’s own streaming server, used by his website, apps and third-party websites, showed a potential maximum of 200 concurrent listeners; a historical peak of just 22; and at the time I looked he had, um, two. But I’m sure they were both enjoying it.
I’m still unconvinced that, long-term, live linear radio will thrive online. It would seem that the future is personalised services like NPR One, My Capital Xtra, or the likes of Pandora. Chucking a live stream online seems a bit lazy and not very exciting.
But one thing’s for certain: online and apps haven’t “taken over”.
About The Author
James Cridland is a radio futurologist, and is Managing Director of media.info, a companion website to radioinfo and AsiaRadioToday.
He has served as a judge for a number of industry awards including the Australian ABC Local Radio Awards, the UK Student Radio Awards, and the UK’s Radio Academy Awards, where he has also served on the committee. He was a founder of the hybrid radio technology association RadioDNS.
James is one of the organisers of nextrad.io, the radio ideas conference each September, and is also on the committee of RadioDays Europe. He writes for publications including his own media.info, Radio World International and RAIN News.
James recently moved from North London to Brisbane with his partner and a two year-old radio-loving toddler. He very, very much likes beer.
"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.