Webcast Metrics - What to Believe?

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Triton Digital released its December accounting of online radio listening and (for what appears the first time) there's a caveat. Before getting to its data, you'll read this: "The holiday impact typically results in a decline toward the end of the month due to the reduction of in-office listening." There are two ways to take this. 1) As a prelude to "don't be shocked by December declines." 2) As a "we don't want our clients - or others who read this - to be alarmed, but there's a drop in online listening for the majority of our clients." While you'll read in radio industry trades that its #1, here's why why I think it's #2.

"Online, the audience does know the difference between a commercial radio industry player and a pureplay station. From whatever can be inferred from these Webcast Metrics' numbers, one point is that commercial radio is not gaining online as quickly as its trade magazines want you to believe."

A drop in online time is expected during the holidays. It's like clockwork. Only, over the past few years the decline has not been as severe. (In earlier days we'd see upwards of 25% drop. Today, expect it to hover around 5%-10%.) That's not what formed my opinion, though. This is: Look at the chart below and trace each radio industry company that's online. Of the commercial broadcasters, all but EMF have sustained a consistent drop in "Average Active Sessions" since October. Pureplays do not.

Click to Enlarge


September used to be the time when we'd see an increase in internet usage, and that's still true with school starting and folks returning from summer vacations. What we have on this chart - which you may click to enlarge - is a drop in "Average Active Sessions" across all but one of Triton Digital's commercial broadcast clients. Clearly, there's trouble in River City!

Clear Channel, with much bravado, pushed its iHeartRadio concert in September to a point of promotional pain. And we see the building audience in its AAS chart, up 12,230 from August through September. But notice its 14,850 AAS drop between October and December. That can hardly be attributed to a "...decline toward the end of the [holiday] month...."

As mentioned here many times, take this assessment with a grain of salt due to a variety of reasons why Webcast Metrics' numbers go up and down. Example: We can't use Katz Online Network for any comparative, simply because we don't know if the variation is due to adding or deleting client stations from its network.

But take some of the companies assumed to be stable between October and December (all numbers are from the Mon-Fri Domestic AAS table):
CBS Radio has a 10,100 drop
Cumulus is down 21,000
Entercom's off 1,950
ESPN lost 1,200
Cox has 8,000 fewer "Average Active Sessions"
Radio One, minus 2,690
Townsquare Media is 1,250 AAS lower
Greater Media, down 1,379
Salem is missing 3,365
Even the normally strong one, Hubbard, dropped 1,649

Emmis is stable, shedding only a meager 677, and WNYC picked up 777 "AAS."

Pureplays are moving forward.
Pandora is up 195,553 Average Active Sessions (12.5%)
Slacker rose 1,200 (2%)
AccuRadio gains 2,336 (32%)

There are a few companies which cannot have a correlation placed on them. Either they're too new or the data is not available. We'll make our annual adjustments in January, with a couple names joining and a few being dropped.

Online, the audience does know the difference between a commercial radio industry player and a pureplay station. From whatever can be inferred from these Webcast Metrics' numbers, one point is that commercial radio is not gaining online as quickly as its trade magazines want you to believe.

Digest what's there and you're hard pressed to make the argument that this drop in online listening, for broadcasters who get to use terrestrial signals to promote their online presence, is temporary.

If Pandora had the ability to promote itself over-the-air, like Clear Channel, there would be many persons in broadcast who boast about their online initiatives with a tail between their legs.

Receive our free breakout and you’ll see graphs for each of the top companies charted in ways unavailable to you from any othe source. Click here to receive a FREE breakout of this report sent to you for each month it is published. The Audio Graphics compiled numbers includes all groups in the publicly-released Triton Digital Ranker. The capacity to produce numbers is only one side of the digital equation. Understanding exactly what you are not receiving, though, is more important - and this is an explanation you will not see with radio industry trade publications that are trying to make people believe radio is in hot pursuit of a new digital landscape. It's radio's way of keeping the uninformed bemused. Note: For caveats pertaining to this month's release, please view the bottom of Triton Digital's report.

Publisher's Note:
If you still wish to receive Audio Graphics' newsletter after February 1, please register and let me know what type of articles you want to receive. The old list will be deleted.









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