BY PAUL MALONEY
Internet radio listening showed significant growth in January's Webcast Metrics Internet radio ratings over December, according to the report released yesterday.

Webcast Metrics' Top 20 highest-rated webcasters gained an 18% aggregate "Average Quarter Hour" (AQH) last month. Electronic/Dance-formatted DigitallyImported Radio held the top slot, followed by RAIN's multi-format AccuRadio, multi-format RadioIO, progressive talk broadcast network AirAmerica, and multi-format EnergyRadio.

These gains should be tempered by the fact that December was a "holiday" month.

Webcasters have consistently found that the bulk of their listening takes place in the office during regular work hours. There were 21 weekdays in January -- and while some webcasters that feature holiday music see listening growth in December, listening traditionally suffers because of irregular holiday work schedules (even though December had 22 weekdays).

See RAIN's coverage of the Webcast Metrics ratings for December 2004 here.

Additionally, AccuRadio's 36% AQH gain was over a month in which a significant amount of AccuRadio listening data was not received by Webcast Metrics in time for the report. As a result, AccuRadio’s December listening estimates were significantly underreported.

However, AirAmerica's online AQH jumped 32% in December, and hit music radio WolfFM's AQH leapt an amazing 72%, with a "cumulative audience" (cume) gain of 36%, after remaining generally flat since Webcast Metric's first report, for October 2004 (in RAIN here).

Also of note, multi-format ChoiceRadio debuted at #12, with a cume (19,516) less than 25% that of other stations with similar AQH! Jazz artist Dave Koz's RadioKoz service also debuted in the Top 20 this month.

By comparison, both Yahoo! LAUNCHcast (now Yahoo! Music) and Radio@AOL have weekly cumes of slightly more than 2,000,000 listeners; LAUNCHcast's Mon-Sun 6A-12M AQH is 167,200 while AOL's is 103,300.

For comparison purposes, RAIN's coverage of the Arbitron/comScore Internet radio ratings, which measure weekly listening of the industry's biggest webcasters (Yahoo! Music, Radio@AOL, and WindowsMedia), is here.

Top 20 Stations (January '05)
Rank	Station	Name (Format)	Monthly Cume (M-Su 12M-12M)	AQH 6a-12M
1		DigitallyImported Radio (Electronic/Dance)	n/a	19,554
2		AccuRadio (Multiple formats)	784,649	11,874
3		RadioIO (Multiple formats)	254,159	5,654
4		AirAmerica Radio (Political talk)	226,186	3,420
5		EnergyRadio.fm (Multiple formats)	210,547	2,226
6		Wolf FM (Hits radio)	85,913	2,198
7		BoomerRadio (Multiple formats)	74,916	1,989
8		Beethoven.com (Classical)	96,810	1,782
9		3WK Underground (Alternative rock)	82,283	1,547
10		90s FM (90s Hits)	86,358	1,161
11		ClubFM Radio (Dance)	89,430	786
12		Choice Radio (Multiple formats)	19,516	737
13		80sFM.com (1980s Pop)	81,447	729
14		Howlin' Oldies (Classic Rock/Soul)	15,946	601
15		MVYRadio.com (Adult Alternative)	23,246	398
16		Club977.com* (80s Hits)	16,169	384
17		Country Gold 56k (Classic Country)	22,058	330
18		80s.fm (80s Hits)	24,786	324
19		RadioKoz (Smooth Jazz)	8,164	201
20		GotRadio** (Multiple formats)	14,863	183
* Only Club977's WindowsMedia streams were measured ** Some listening data not reported for GotRadio

From Silicon.com: "Hello, radio Moto...

"Motorola previewed a new service on Monday that will use mobile phones to make Internet radio portable. The company's new iRadio technology, demonstrated at the Demo conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, tweaks existing hardware and services to make the music streams offered by sites such as Yahoo! Music and AOL Music ready for on-the-go listening...

"A PC set up with iRadio software will automatically record selected Internet music streams onto the phone whenever it's connected to the PC. The software can also download songs purchased from participating online stores... You can listen to them over headphones straight from the phone or through a car stereo equipped with Motorola's new iRadio Bluetooth adapter [screenshot at left] for wireless connectivity...

"Mike Gaumond, vice president of media solutions for Motorola, said the main idea behind iRadio is to piggyback on technology people are already familiar with, instead of requiring them to adopt expensive new gadgets and services...

"For iRadio, Motorola is forging alliances with most popular streaming music sites and has already worked out some of the thornier issues surrounding copyrights. Streaming music stored on your phone will only play once; songs you own are unlimited.

"Motorola plans to start a trial version of iRadio in a few months, with iRadio-compatible devices, software and services set to arrive in the final quarter of 2005."

Read this entire Silicon.com article online here.

From the San Jose Mercury News' SiliconValley.com: "So what about that dream of the perfect 'digital living room,' where you can access TV, Internet, radio, music, video -- all things digital, all the time? What happened to the nirvana of being able to listen to great music, from the Internet, over your home stereo -- or of being able to record great movies and transfer them to your PC or TV at whim? And all by pushing a button.

"That dream hasn't been realized yet, but scores of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are investing money in a quest to get there soon.

"They're pouring money into companies such as Emeryville's Orb Networks and San Mateo's Sling Media, whose technology platforms seek to allow people to wirelessly transfer data -- such as video and music -- to any device inside or outside the home.

"They're also backing technologies that will work with such platforms. Those include chipset companies such as Mountain View's Video54, which provides a more reliable WiFi network for video transfers within a home, and companies like 2Wire and Arroyo, which make the multimedia routers and servers for content coming into the house...

"The valley's secret sauce, experts say, is its ability to invent sophisticated chips, software and services that the incumbents simply can't...

"Some venture capitalists concede that it's tough to make money in the digital consumer sector, but the geek trait of many VCs draws them anyway...

"Last year, venture capitalists pumped $538 million into digital consumer technologies -- multimedia networking software, display technologies, consumer electronics and home software start-ups -- with 60% to 70% of that focused on the home, estimates VentureOne, a VC research group. That's the most since 2001, when VCS poured $829.9 million into such startups

"The consumer market is driving growth... now that people are moving beyond the PC and buying cell phones, better TV sets, digital video recorders and other devices and hooking them up in the home."

Read this entire SiliconValley.com article here.