Everybody knows that internet streaming music services have claimed a huge chunk of the radio listening market over the last decade. But a survey released by Edison Research spells out the extent of the transition and Pandora online radio's share of it. The report, titled "The American Youth Study 2010," suggests that over the last ten years most young listeners have largely migrated to the 'Net.
For example, 20 percent of consumers age 12 to 24 say they listened to Pandora radio over the last month, according to the study, which polled 1,533 respondents from September 8-13, 2010. And one in three have tried the service. In comparison, only six percent of the same cohort told Edison that they listened to online streams from AM/FM radio over the last week.*
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The study does offer some rays of hope for over-the-air radio, which is still 'the leading source for learning about new music,' Edison reports"Pandora has a self-reported 13 percent weekly cume, more than all other Internet and AM/FM streams combined," Edison notes. "Cume" is the discrete number of people who listen to a radio station over a given duration, usually a week or a month. Pandora's monthly cume is a startling 20 percent among streamers.
But this is just the tip of the digital iceberg compared to broader trends over the last decade. The Edison study says that in 2000, young listeners self-reported hanging around on the Internet about one hour a day, while listening to terrestrial radio about two hours and 43 minutes a day.
This year that ratio more than reversed itself. Young media consumers now spend 2:52 every day on the Internet, and just 1:14 listening to radio. Only television watching comes close to on line use among this group: 2:47 a day.
And young listeners have abandoned morning radio in droves. 74 percent tuned in in 2000. Only 41 percent listen now.
What is Pandora's huge draw, according to this survey? Fifty-five percent of respondents told Edison that they like being able to create their own radio stations based on their favorite artists or songs. A little over 50 percent appreciate being able to skip songs. 46 percent stayed with the service because it has fewer commercials than AM/FM radio. And 42 percent strongly agreed with the statement that "Pandora seems to play a wider selection of songs than AM/FM radio stations."
The study does offer some rays of hope for over-the-air radio. Note that although terrestrial audio has been outpaced by the 'Net, young people are actually listening to it more than they did in 2000.
And radio is still "the leading source for learning about new music," Edison reports. Asked "How often do you learn about new music by"—here are the percentages they gave for doing so "frequently":
- Listening to the radio, 51 percent
- Friends, 46
- YouTube, 31
- Music video channels, 23
- Music featured on television shows, 18
- Appearances by artists on television, 17
- Social networking Web sites, 16
- Internet radio stations like Pandora, Last.fm or Yahoo Music, 14
Why does old school radio still dominate this kind of service? Perhaps because, unlike Pandora, it still has a few deejays around (especially at college radio stations) who make human rather than genome/database decisions about music. You're more likely to encounter something new from a deejay than from a channel that you create based on your own preferences.
Similarly, radio continues to beat social media as the main source for concert information. "Of those concerts you attended, where did you most often first hear about them?" Edison asked. Seventeen percent said they heard the news on an AM/FM radio station; only 10 percent from a social networking site.
And the National Association of Broadcasters is doubtless buoyed about the disclosure that one third of 12-24 year olds say that "putting an FM tuner on their cell phones would lead to more listening." How much more, the survey doesn't say; nor does it ask the cohort whether they would support Congress mandating FM chips on mobiles, which is what the NAB wants.
In the end, despite radio's declining use among the young, 64 percent agreed with this statement: "You would be very disappointed if the AM/FM radio stations you listen to no longer existed."
It's a complex period of transition we are in—with no clear sense of how it's all going to play out.
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