2023-11-10

Spoken Word Audio Consumption Hits New Highs, With More Listening Done At Home


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Story by Inside Radio

Broadcast radio talk shows still dominate in the car, but overall, new research finds podcasting accounts for a growing amount of audio time spent listening to spoken word content. The number of Americans that listen to spoken word content each day has climbed to 135 million, according to Edison Research, or just under half (48%) the population aged 13 and older.

“Spoken word audience size and listening time have once again attained record highs,” Edison VP Megan Lazovick said Thursday during a webinar presentation of the Spoken Word Audio Report, which Edison produced in partnership with NPR.

Spoken word’s share of audio listening has increased by 55% over the last nine years, per the report, with just under a third (31%) of daily listening time going to non-music content. Among those that that listen to at least some spoken word audio each day, half dedicates more time with spoken word content than they do with music.

“Once people join the group of spoken word listeners and they understand the magic that spoken word radio, podcasts and audiobooks can provide, they give a lot of time to spoken word,” Lazovick said.

The report, now in its fifth year, finds that more listening is done across more times of the day. Morning commuting hours remain the most popular for spoken word listening, but there is no clear-cut second peak as in the past when afternoon drive brought in a second wave of listeners.

“There is still a large peak for spoken word consumption in the morning drive time. But in this post-pandemic era, the afternoon drive time seems to have been flattened out over several hours,” Lazovick said, noting Americans are more likely to be listening to non-music content between 10am and 3pm than in the past.

The report shows non-music audio consumption is most common in the home with 60% of spoken word listening time – or 41 minutes on average each day – done there, compared to 24% in the car and 13% at work. But how that listening is divided up among audio options – radio, podcast, or audiobooks – varies greatly depending on the listening locations.

“At home, 41% of spoken word audio time goes to AM/FM radio and 40% goes to podcasts,” National Public Media VP Lamar Johnson said. “But in the car, spoken word on AM/FM radio dominates, earning 62% of spoken word time. Podcasts share is much smaller at 19%. However, podcasts have the largest share in the workplace at 45%.”

For the first time ever, Edison says mobile devices are the primary way people listen to spoken word: 39% of spoken word audio consumed daily is on a mobile device, followed by 35% on an AM/FM receiver. But which device is used in each location is also eye-opening.

The mobile phone accounts for nearly half of spoken word listening at work, but in the car, it accounts for just a quarter. The car is where a traditional radio still dominates, with 60% of spoken word listening done via AM/FM. Radio’s share in the home now trails mobile by a 41% to 30% split.

“Surprisingly, internet-connected TV surpasses both computer and smart speakers at 10%,” Lazovick said. “These devices are already a hub for entertainment in the home. And it's interesting to see them being so heavily utilized for spoken word.”

Edison says podcasts represent a large and growing share of spoken word listening, now responsible for more than a third (36%) of time spent with non-music audio. At home, 40% of spoken word audio listening goes to podcasts.

With more people than ever listening to podcasts, there is also more time spent with the medium. In 2014, 78% of time spent listening to spoken word audio was with AM/FM and 13% was spent with podcasts. Today, AM/FM radio still commands the most spoken word listening time. But podcasts have gained significantly, now capturing 36% of time spent with spoken word.

“We know radio content has found success in the podcast space as well. People are listening to their favorite shows on demand via podcasts,” Lazovick said.

Johnson said that NPR reaches a total of 44 million people weekly across platforms, with “fairly distinct” audiences. He said only 9% of NPR podcast users also listen to its public radio stations, while only 14% of public radio listeners also download podcasts.

The Spoken Word Audio Report is based on Edison’s Share of Ear quarterly survey of Americans aged 13 and older who are asked to keep a detailed one-day diary of their audio usage. The sample for this study was 4,193. Download the report HERE.

2023-11-08

Joe Frazier Story

2023-11-06

How AI Could Change The Way Radio Stations Operate In The Future

 

AI

Story by Inside Radio 

While the kinks are still being ironed out, artificial intelligence can fabricate on-air voices, write commercial scripts, automate labor-intensive tasks, and perform a laundry list of other everyday chores at radio stations across the globe. In short, AI has the potential to fundamentally change the way radio is created, distributed, and monetized.

“There is no question that the tectonic plates under our industry are shifting and we are going to have a very different experience working in this industry over the next five years, compared to the last five,” says Daniel Anstandig, founder and CEO of Futuri, one of the audio tech providers developing AI products for radio. ”This is a critical moment in the future of radio.”

Increased Productivity

Zack Zalon, CEO and co-founder of Super Hi-Fi, sees AI being used in radio for productivity and enhancement, rather than for replacing air talent. “The idea that you can replace your morning show hosts with AI is just not true,” he says. “It's not ready for primetime, it's not believable [to the listeners].” Super Hi-Fi, whose audio clients include iHeartMedia, Sonos and Westwood One, is “working to build products that will help to transform the radio industry in a pretty significant way from the inside out,” Zalon says.

While AI is seen by some as a radio job killer, Anstandig says that’s not the case. “We're going to grow with AI because there's a lot that we can do to extend ourselves and ultimately create better, higher quality content with it,” he asserts. “We believe that more unique local programming for winning broadcasters is ultimately going to be the most important thing that we do as an industry.”

Overhauling Radio’s Operating System

While Zalon believes machines cannot do a better job than humans at providing companionship and entertainment, or curating music, he says AI will play a pivotal role in how the entire radio ecosystem works. “The operating system for how radio is actually built and managed is an antique,” he contends. “The tools are very powerful, very flexible, very reliable, and very old. Most were built for Windows 95 and have barely been updated since.” Many radio stations stitch together a patchwork of disparate systems to perform critical functions like ad trafficking, music scheduling, and digital ad insertion. “The whole thing is still an extremely manual version of automation,” Zalon says.

Anstandig sees AI as a way to end the practice of what he calls “chair swiveling” in the industry. “You have a person who sits in one system, receives information as a human and then they act like the API and swivel over to another system and enter that same information,” he says. “We don't need to do that now with AI.”

While Futuri’s foray into AI may be best known for RadioGPT – billed as the world’s first AI-driven localized radio content solution and recently rebranded as AudioAI – the company has been integrating the technology into its offerings for years. Over time, Anstandig sees it being woven into the very fabric of the industry. “We'll use it to optimize our processes, to automate certain things that we do on a day-to-day basis, and to create content,” he said last month at NAB Show New York. “We’ll use it as our first line producer, to communicate with our audiences, to create personalized content.”

Super Hi-Fi says its AI-powered Program Director operating system can produce “world-class radio stations” and countdown shows in minutes, using AI-assisted playlisting, rotations, daypart scheduling, show creation, automated AI production and online playout. This and other tools it’s developing can reduce station overhead by 75-80%, Zalon claims, and do in milliseconds what it now takes hours to accomplish.

Creating Better Content Experiences

Both Super Hi-Fi and Futuri see their technology as a way for broadcasters to improve their profit margins and plow the savings into better content experiences for listeners. “As we think about the voracious appetite for content that our audiences have, AI is capable of extending our unique ability to create content of higher quality and more volume,” says Anstandig.

Zalon says Super Hi-Fi aims to “update and modernize the entire ecosystem of radio from a tech stack standpoint, so that radio companies can get back to doing what they do really well, which is building great, compelling, engaging, lean-back listening experiences.”

Using AI to improve productivity and efficiency is only the beginning. The fast evolving technology also has the potential to transform radio for the digital age, allowing radio to deliver linear content that can be personalized by listeners online. “There's a giant chasm between the digital-only experiences that Spotify offers and the really rewarding entertainment experiences that radio people know how to do,” Zalon says. “At some point, our hope is that in addition to saving radio companies an enormous amount of operating expense, we can help provide a natural, easy bridge to the online space.”