Online Radio Industry Requires Focus

With so much going on in the radio industry, you may or may not have seen them. Triton Digital released its August ranking for the company's top twenty clients. Generally the tale is upbeat; winners and losers in "Average Active Sessions" and "Session Starts" are shown in the charts below.

"Digesting the numbers with an eye on PAASRSS shows nearly all response is in the range of a poorly run online ad campaign." Receive Free Breakouts

If a simple "numbers go up means good" view is satisfying, then the numbers on these charts will make your day. Careful though. An increase may mean a Triton Digital client added stations.

What's the percentage of persons who became active users after starting a stream? This number gives a much better perspective of a station's (or group's) online audience. Remarkably, it is very close to response percentages when advertising online.

Here are the Percentage of Average Active Sessions resulting from Session Starts for the previous three Webcast Metrics reports, based on Monday through Friday stats.



Average Active Sessions - (Average Active Sessions (AAS) is defined as "Total Listening Hours (TLH) divided by hours in the reported time period.")


(These numbers represent cumulative hours of listening - not people.)

Session Starts - (Session Starts (SS) is defined as "the number of different requests for streams (i.e., stream requests) with a duration of at least one minute in total within the reported time period.")

(These numbers are stream starts, lasting more than 1-minute.)



I can increase either by just adding streams to my group. It doesn't mean an online station's audience is growing.

What the online media crowd is measuring has more to do with the percentage of persons your station is able to initiate a relationship with. Of those who experience you, how many want to hang around and call it a date? That's your PAASRSS, the percentage of Average Active Sessions that result from a person sampling your stream.

Digesting the numbers with an eye on PAASRSS shows nearly all response is in the range of a poorly-run online ad campaign.






Notice the percentages in the left column, especially for Pandora and Slacker. Only Clear Channel is close.








Building average active listeners as a percentage of session starts is a realistic goal; measure, focus and improve. However, we still have too many in the radio industry - online and off - using the "numbers go up means good" approach.

The radio industry is still counting people; in a digital world that's using numbers to go beyond counting impressions.







Click here to receive a FREE breakout of this report for each month it is published. Audio Graphics' compiled numbers include all groups in the publicly-released Triton Digital report.





Note: For caveats pertaining to this month's release, please view the bottom of Triton Digital's report.











Today's indie artist introduction is to...

Rock artist: The Donald Anderson Band

sample song

Sun to Son Download Song Tweet

We listen for songs that evoke emotion; fast, slow, female, male, group, it doesn't matter. When an artist has the power to please, they should be given a chance to be heard.

Give The Donald Anderson Band's "Maybe We Should Ask" a listen.

Add it to your playlist, free! Such is the new world of music distribution.

It's time for internet radio programmers to take a chance and reach into a huge pile of new talent. Online is where new hit songs will increasingly be found.





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