Study: Online TSL Leaps to 2B Total Listening Hours.

Story by Inside Radio

After two years of declines, Time Spent Listening to online radio—both broadcast radio streams and internet pureplays—rose sharply in 2017. TSL for the 140 million Americans who listen weekly to online radio rose to 14 hours, 39 minutes a week in 2017, up from 12:08 in 2016.

Put another way, online radio expanded from 1.65 billion aggregate listening hours in 2016 to just over 2 billion in 2017. The turnaround amounts to 24% growth in just one year.

These are among the findings from the 20th annual Infinite Dial survey of digital media behavior in the U.S., fielded in January and February by Edison Research and Triton Digital. Online radio is defined in the survey as online listening of AM/FM radio station streams or listening to streamed audio content available only on the internet, such as internet music services. This part of the study looked only at live listening—podcasting isn’t included in these numbers.

The sizeable TSL increase is backed up by Triton Digital’s own census-based data, which shows a 23% jump in listening hours over the same period. But time spent isn’t the only online radio metric on the rise. Cume, both monthly and weekly, also continued its upward trajectory. Online radio now reaches 61% of the 12+ population every month, up 4% from last year and 22% from five years ago. “Looking all the way back to 2008, the year the iPhone was introduced, monthly reach has almost tripled, from 21% to 61%,” John Rosso, president of market development at Triton Digital, said Thursday during a webinar, pointing to a “close correlation” between smartphone ownership and online audio consumption. More than eight in ten Americans, or an estimated 226 million, now own a smartphone. Based on Triton data, Rosso attributed “all of the growth” in online listening during the last five years to mobile devices and predicted the rise of smart speaker systems such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home will further accelerate growth in the coming years.

The data shows online radio has become a weekly habit for 53% of the total 12+ population (about 140 million Americans), up from 50% in 2016. The demo with the biggest increase in weekly listening is 12-24, which shot up to 83% in 2017 from 73% last year. But online radio has also become a more regular habit for a growing number of persons aged 55+, climbing from 24% to 32%, and for 25-54-year-olds (56% to 59%).

Meanwhile, the number of cellphone owners that have connected their phone to a car audio system to listen to internet radio also continued to creep up. Four in ten cellphone owners report having ever done so.

When drilling down into individual audio brands, the Edison-Triton study identified a small group of market leaders among a larger universe of players, most of which are growing. Pandora and iHeartRadio had the highest awareness levels at 86% and 71%, respectively. Edison Research VP of strategy and marketing, Tom Webster, called the elevated familiarity with iHeart a “testament to the power of radio in general since broadcast radio promotion has done much to build that particular brand.” Bunched up tightly after iHeart are Spotify (62% awareness), Apple Music (60%) and Amazon Music (60%). “While there are category leaders, the space is supporting a lot of brands and companies right now,” Webster said, with 14 different audio brands enjoying double-digit awareness percentages.

Nearly one-third of monthly online radio listeners (32%) used Pandora in the past month, followed by a surging Spotify (18%) and iHeartRadio (13%). Among these market leaders, Spotify had the largest year-over-year gain, up from 13% in 2016, followed by iHeart (up from 12% in 2016). Pandora was flat while Apple Music lost some ground, going from 12% in 2016 to 8% in 2017.



Spotify’s rapid growth is being fueled in large part by 12-24-year-olds—45% listened to the service in the last month, up from 30% one year ago. Meanwhile, iHeart grew from 14% to 19% while Pandora lost ground in the demo for a third-consecutive year (55%-54%-43%-39%) and Apple Music dipped 22%-20%. Spotify also grew with 25-54s but by a smaller percentage (12%-16%) while Pandora (39%) and iHeart (15%) were both flat and Apple dropped 11% to 7%.

“The big picture here for this universe of brands is that the space is continuing to grow,” Webster said. “There is still a market leader here in Pandora but the space is maturing and stabilizing into a medium that supports several strong players. These players don’t necessarily cannibalize one another as much as you might think because the overall listening is growing quite steadily.”

When internet radio listeners were asked which audio brand they used most often, Pandora remained out front at 40%, but down considerably from 48% in 2016. Over the same period, Spotify jumped by one-third (14% to 21%) and iHeartRadio inched up to 10% from 9%. But perhaps the most significant change came in the growth of “others” from 19% in 2016 to 23% this year. Said Webster, “There’s plenty of room on the Infinite Dial for many of these players.”