A great opportunity to both (A) socialize with the movers and shakers of the terrestrial radio industry and (B) support a worthy cause is next week’s “Radio Roast” of longtime Jefferson-Pilot Communication CEO Clarke Brown. The black-tie dinner in support of the Bayliss Radio Scholarship Fund will be held at Cipriani in Manhattan next Wednesday night (3/16). Details at http://www.baylissfoundation.org. xx

BY PAUL MALONEY
An "up" month at Yahoo! Music's Launchcast and the addition of Live365 numbers bolstered the comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings for January enough for positive aggregate numbers, but just barely.

"Average Quarter Hour" listening at the Yahoo! service was up in both the full-time (M-Su 6a-12M) and workday (M-F 6a-7p) dayparts, though weekly "cumulative" listening dropped slightly (the Arbitron/comScore December ratings are in RAIN here).

Yahoo! easily maintained its top slot in the ratings over America Online's Radio@AOL and Microsoft's WindowsMedia/MSN Radio, both of which slipped significantly from December's cume and AQH numbers. Microsoft seemed to be especially hard hit, dropping 43% of its AQH in both dayparts, and 24% of its cume compared to December. AOL and Microsoft kept their second and third rankings, respectively.

Without Live365's addition to the ratings panel, AQH and cume totals for the panel would surely have gone down (in fact, the workday cume for the panel is off slightly from December, a month with fewer workdays). Keep in mind that total cume audience estimates are not simply the individual networks added, since listeners shared by more than one network would be counted more than once.

The Arbitron/comScore December ratings are in RAIN here. We covered the January Webcast Metrics ratings here. Links to our coverage of the latest ratings are also available in the left-hand margin of the RAIN homepage under "RAIN Resources."

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings
January 2005, Persons 12+, Monday-Sunday 6AM-Midnight
Rank	Station / network		Weekly Cume	AQH
1			2,074,400	189,100
2			1,995,700	83,500
3			473,300	23,500
4			438,000	20,500
Total:			4,892,300	316,800

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings
January 2005, Persons 12+, Monday-Friday 6AM-7PM
Rank	Station / network		Weekly Cume	AQH
1			1,154,300	282,200
2			1,094,100	117,800
3			385,500	40,700
4			290,000	31,400
Total:			2,798,800	472,400

...

... Several observations on these numbers: (1) There continues to be remarkably little overlap between the four webcasters’ audiences – in other words, almost no LAUNCHcast cumers spend any time in the same week sampling Radio@AOL or Live365 or MSN Radio, or vice versa. (How we know this: The sum of the four webcasters’ cumes is only 2% larger than the total unduplicated network cume.) (2) Live365's debut weekly cume rating does not readily jibe with its claimed "2.6 million monthly visitors" we published last week (here). (Remember, a station’s monthly cume is smaller than four times its weekly cume, since some individuals listen across multiple weeks.) However, keep in mind that a "cume" number would naturally be smaller than a "site visits" number. (Arbitron doesn’t look at website traffic, it looks at listening occasions of at least 5 minutes in duration. Also, Live365’s claim would include international visitors, who are not included in Arbitron’s estimate. Finally, remember that Arbitron’s estimate is just that – an estimate based on a sample of respondents, and thus has a certain margin of error associated with it.) (3) Microsoft's drop might be attributed to the increasing adoption of the company's Windows Media Player 10 application, which very much de-emphasizes radio. (A prominent and popular feature of WMP9 was its "Radio Tuner" button, which is absent from WPM10.) As the adoption rate of WMP10 goes up, it’s logical that traffic to MSN Radio and WindowsMedia.com’s radio stations would go down. (4) Internet radio is now just one of many features found at “AOL Music,” which is increasingly featuring music videos, downloads, and so on. It is also has been our experience recently that it seems increasingly difficult for non-AOL subscribers to be able to access the Radio@AOL streams (though this may just be our own experience). (5) Yahoo! LAUNCHcast is a product with (A) consistent promotion and (B) specific features unique to Internet-delivered radio – e.g., a “pause” and a “skip” button, the ability to build a custom stream, and so on. Its popularity and growth is not surprising. -- KH ...

From Radio Ink: "Infinity Broadcasting has announced that Sandy Smallens has joined the company as vice president, Interactive Marketing and Sales...

"'As more and more advertisers look for creative approaches to drive business, the integration of radio with online has proven to be a dynamite combination as evidenced by recent programs done for Monster.com and DaimlerChrysler,' said (Infinity Solutions & Beyond executive VP Rich) Lobel. 'Sandy's new media experience makes him an unparalleled weapon for Infinity helping us deliver superior programs to our advertisers.'

"From 1999-2001, Smallens was executive vice president for Vivendi Universal Net USA where he was responsible for the creation, development, licensing, marketing and delivery of all content for GetMusic, Rollingstone.com and Farmclub.com."

Read Radio Ink's complete story here.

...

... Now both Infinity and Clear Channel, the two largest U.S. radio broadcast groups, are beginning to seriously address the online/interactive space. With Smallens' appointment, both have VP-level heads of their interactive divisions (former AOL Music exec Evan Harrison is now at Clear Channel). Clear Channel is reportedly set to unveil a company-wide content sharing service for its station websites. And Infinity, long the last major streaming holdout among broadcasters, announced last week (here) that 12 of its largest talk stations would begin online streaming, with others to follow. This is on top of their half-dozen or so music stations that are online, part of a co-promotional agreement with America Online. -- PM ...

From FMQB: "Advertising expenditures were up in 2004 over 2003, according to data released by TNS Media Intelligence, showing an increase of 9.8% to $141.1 billion.

"The Internet led growth areas in ad spending, with the sector posting a 21.4% increase over 2003 for a total of $7.4 billion in 2004...

"The Internet and outdoor pose to reap even greater rewards in 2005 as The Media Audit reports that both sectors are among the most used by affluent, two-income households.

"'The media habits of the two-income family continue to evolve,' said The Media Audit President of International Demographics Bob Jordan, with 'the Internet, radio and outdoor being the only media that indexed more than 100.' An index of 100 is the average of all adults in the markets surveyed.

"While radio may be among the most used media of upper income working families, it didn't fare as well in the TNS Media Intelligence report. Local radio showed only a 1.1% growth and was surpassed by the Internet. Network radio was up a mere 2.7% in 2004 from 2003, while national spot radio dropped 0.7%. The $11 billion total of the three radio sectors still outpaced the Internet's $7.4 billion."

Read this entire article in FMQB online here.