Study Shows Online Media Use Growing, Offline Radio Use Declining

New Study

FORRESTER RESEARCH's annual report on U.S. consumers' use of online media showed that for the first time in the company's research, the average consumer spends as much time online as with TV offline, and traditional, offline radio use declining 15% over the past five years as online media consumption continues to grow (121% over the five year period; TV use grew 5%, while newspapers and magazines showed steep declines). 

The study, "Understanding the Changing Needs of the U.S. Online Consumer, 2010," shows that broadband adoption, although slowing, has resulted in a projected 91% of online households using broadband by the end of 2010, but listening to online streaming audio is among a group of activities in which a relative few users participate: 24% of respondents said they listened to streaming audio, up from 17% in 2007 but well behind using e-mail (92%), buying products (60%), sending or receiving photos (49%), social networking (35%), streaming video use (33%), and instant messaging (33%) but ahead of reading blogs (18%).

The study also noted that users' media use is migrating to mobile phones, with the percentage of people using mobile devices to listen to music grew from 5% in 2008 to 17% in 2010.

Arbitron: That's Not What Our Numbers Show

ARBITRON responded to FORRESTER's research with an analysis of its own, noting that, contrary to FORRESTER's assertion that younger demographics in particular had abandoned radio in favor of online media, PPM data shows weekly cume ratings and time spent listening to radio in ten PPM markets steady or slightly up over the past three years.  The numbers show cume ratings for persons 12-24 up 92.8-93.2-94.1 from SEPTEMBER 2008 to SEPTEMBER 2010, and TSL up 8:46-8:54-8:55 in the same three surveys.

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