The Trend of Internet Radio
The new 2018 Global Digital suite of reports from We Are Social and Hootsuite reveals that there are now more than 4 billion people around the world using the Internet. That means, more than 50% of the world's population has used the Internet.
With the radio application which has already integrated on smartphones, networked computers and other hand-held visual audio devices, it comes as no surprise that many people wonder whether Internet radio can replace traditional radio or not.
The answer is: “The number of Internet radio audiences is growing and the time they spend for the media is increasing rapidly. Internet radio and streaming services are not completely capable of replacing broadcast radio, but it is changing the listening time and also creating incremental audio consumption” (Xapp Media, 2015, p.13).
Thus, according to experts, although it is not able to replace completely traditional radio, Internet radio will reset the listening time, listening method and at the same time listening content.
The research by XAPP Media (USA) indicated: 44% of listeners supposed that the time previously reserved for AM / FM radio was replaced by time for Internet Radio (Xapp Media, 2015). In the US, in 2007, 12% of people listened to online radio at least once a month. Six years later, the number of Americans listening online was 33%, approximately 86 million. To 2016, this number was 50% and one year later - in 2017, there were more than half of the US population, which is equivalent to 53% of people listening to radio online every week. There were 57% of the US population using online radio (Statistics, 2018) (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Share of weekly online radio listeners in the United States from 2000 to 2018
Thus, the time Americans spend listening to Internet radio broadcasting increases gradually each year, specifically shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Share of monthly online radio listeners in the United States from 2000 to 2017
In 2017, Americans spent 879 minutes (equivalently to 14.65 hours) each month listening to online radio (Statistics, 2018). “The audience is expected to grow to 183 million by 2018, significantly outpacing population growth” (Xaap Media, 2015, p.5). The popular Internet radio device in the US is smartphone. In 2015, 95% of the public received Internet radio via cellphones, only 5% listened via computers (Xapp Media, 2015).
The appearance of the Internet, the popularity of smartphones, computers and the benefits of using Internet radio have explained the increase in the number of listeners of this type of communication. Internet radio has broken the inherent limitations of receiving via traditional radio like: listening only once, following time regulation (linear time); completely passive reception; storage –information inability... Moreover, Internet radio brings huge economic benefits in compare to broadcasting on traditional electromagnetic waves.
“The large and growing public will provide value to advertisers in coming years (…) Internet radio has become an important distribution channel for the music industry willing to become an important advertising channel for marketers” (Xapp, 2015, p.4) (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Total revenue from Internet radio ad has gradually increased over the years
BIA/KELSEY's survey showed that Internet radio revenue has increased gradually over the years in the US. Therefore, developing Internet radio is not only the trend for radio and consumers, but also for advertisers and businesses.