RAIN 10/29: NPR Member Stations charge into Internet radio ratings Top 10
Triton Digital's September Internet Audio Top 20 ratings reflect some pretty significant growth for the aggregation of NPR Member Stations. The group has taken the #10 spot for Average Active Sessions (AAS) 6a-12M Monday-Sunday in the September Domestic Ranker (see chart below). The 12,236 AAS for NPR Member Stations is 58% higher than its August number. (While Triton'spress release gives no indication, we'd guess it likely that at least some of this growth reflects the addition of more stations to this group.)
Religious/conservative broadcaster Salem Communications, #14 for the same ranker, saw its AAS rise 24% since last month.
The largest webcasters saw little to now growth month-to-month. Pandora's AAS was up 3%; CBS's continued to slide, down 11% since August (CBS online listening in this particular ranker is down 54% in the past 12 months. Compare that to Clear Channel, which is up 94% over the same time period).
Finally, something seems to have changed for Digitally Imported some time in August. Traditionally leader among Internet-only webcasters, DI dropped 57% in this ranker in the past month alone. It's likely a change like this reflects a measurement error of some sort. [UPDATE: Digitally Imported has indeed informed us that not all of its streams were counted in these most recent ratings periods. -- PM]
See all of Triton Digital's Internet Audio Top 20 Rankers here.
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A researcher for Forrester says their new data reflects the growing sense among many consumers that being online is a "fluid concept." That is, many (especially younger) people no longer think of many of their online activities as "using the Internet."
"The Internet has become such a normal part of their lives that consumers don’t register that they are using the Internet when they’re on Facebook, for example. It’s only when they are actively doing a specific task, like search, that they consider this to be time that they’re spending online," writes the Forrester researcher, Gina Sverdlov.
She thinks this trend is why she's seen a recentdecline in "time spent using the Internet" among subjects in a recent study. Forrester's research is here. Sverdlov's blog is here.
Techdirt drives the point home further for media: "Withonline connectivity as the default for the mediachoices people make, it would be expected that people would be less likely to consider that 'online' behavior. As the rising generation grows up with such online-by-default choices, they will be even more likely to not consider it online activity."
Think about it: the experience of listening to Internet radio used to consist of "logging on, pointing browser to webcast site, clicking listen link." Now, it's more simply just launching an app -- as easy as "turning on a radio." You don't think about "going online" anymore, because it's in the background. If you needed to head out back and fire up the generator each time you wanted to use an electrical device in your home, you'd be far more conscious of "plugging in" than you are in the typical American 21st Century lifestyle.
Techdirt warns traditional media: "If your services do not take advantage of the connected devices the current and rising generation own and use, then you might find yourself out of business. We see this happening now. Despite what some legacy industries might believe or want, that decline in offline activity is not going to reverse itself. The more the legacy industries fight that shift in consumer behavior, the faster they will find themselves irrelevant. The best thing for these industries to do is to embrace that fluid online concept and capture the attention of the rising generation."
Read Techdirt here.
Inside Radio is reporting the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet will gather for a hearing on how Internet radio royalties are determined (there's no date or witness list yet).
Reforming the process for setting Internet radio royalties is at the heart of the Internet Radio Fairness Act(see RAIN here), recently introduced to both houses of Congress. The IRFA would require copyright judges to use the same "801(b)" standard in setting the royalty rates for Internet radio it uses for other forms of digital radio, like cable and satellite.
The House bill, H.R.6480, is co-sponsored by subcommittee members Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). The subcommittee is chaired by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte.
Last week (in RAIN here) the Internet Radio Fairness Coalition, a group of interested webcasters, broadcasters, and technology groups, launched to support passage of the bill.
