Harker Research Asks 'Is Online Listening Declining?'

Looking At Online Listening

In their latest post on Radio Insights, HARKER RESEARCH's RICHARD HARKER and GLENDA SHRADER BOS ponder the latest online radio ratings, which they write "raise serious questions about the future of digital radio. Aside from a couple of exceptions, online listening growth is at best anemic, and in some cases even declining. Broadcast groups that are betting everything on streaming and an app may be making a very bad bet."

HARKER notes, "PANDORA alone makes up 75% of listening reported by TRITON DIGITAL. Not only does PANDORA dominate TRITON ratings, the service's share is increasing, up from 66% a year ago. But even PANDORA's growth is slowing."

They continue, "CLEAR CHANNEL is the best performing broadcast group, but it too is showing decelerating growth. It’s growth rate is similar to PANDORA's but with a fraction of its total hours of listening," and find "Terrestrial groups have grown 8.3% in the past year, but this too is distorted by one outlier, CLEAR CHANNEL. Take CLEAR CHANNEL out, and terrestrial radio stream listening has declined 24%."

Read the full post here.

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