"The weekday AQH audience for the measured online radio networks for June 2006 is 1,031,368 people age 12 and older listening Monday-Friday 6AM-7PM. 

"The June 2006 audience to the five networks that were measured in the June 2005 report  increased 38 percent, growing from an AQH audience of 743,500 in 2005  to an AQH audience  of 1,022,400 persons age 12 and older in June 2006."

The graph pictured below shows the comScore Arbitron ratings for paneled webcasters  for the last 12 months in the M-Su daypart.

The "average quarter hour" estimate, or AQH, is defined as the estimated average number of persons tuned to a channel  for at least five minutes during a 15 minute period. It can be understood as "the number of people listening to a station at a specific moment.

June 2006 Ratings

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings

Rank	Station/Network	AQH	Weekly Cume
1		196,300	2,329,300
2		195,100	1,648,200
3		86,000	825,900
4		72,700	906,600
5		60,600	717,200
6		5,000	186,400
Total:		615,717	6,295,229

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings

Rank	Station/Network	AQH	Weekly Cume
1		318,800	1,505,200
2		313,700	1,106,100
3		153,900	617,700
4		130,100	783,500
5		105,900	515,800
6		9,000	124,000
Total:		1,031,368	4,415,135

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings

Rank	Station/Network	AQH	Weekly Cume
1		184,800	2,572,800
2		214,200	1,636,000
3		84,900	992,500
4		78,200	2,589,100
5		45,300	638,400
6		4,700	166,700
Total:		612,116	8,415,796

comScore Arbitron Online Radio Ratings

Rank	Station/Network	AQH	Weekly Cume
1		351,600	1,095,900
2		210,800	1,318,700
3		129,100	613,900
4		91,600	1,347,300
5		76,900	446,400
6		7,300	106,700
Total:		867,480	4,797,656

...

... The true story in last week's simultaneous release of May and June comScore Arbitron numbers for webcasters has no correlation whatsoever to the headline on their press release. It's true that Internet radio listening is up signficantly over the same period a year ago, but that was much more true in the April numbers than it is in May and June. The real stories in the May and June numbers are (1) Yahoo's LAUNCHcast product and the Clear Channel properties both dropped by about 33% from where they were in March and April, while (2) Live365 scored its best numbers ever, jumping 35% from where they were in March and April. (Note: Percentages are based on the M-Su 6a-12m daypart.) LAUNCHcast's drop could be explained by a home page redesign that Yahoo! debuted in May, which may have emphasized "Music" (e.g., videos and downloads) over "Radio." Interestingly, every radio trade publication I've seen so far took the Arbitron spin — an "up" headline even though the actual numbers were down — and ran it virtually verbatim. This is consistent with how Stephen Colbert explained to the White House Correspondents Dinner how journalists today operate: "Here’s how it works. The President makes decisions... The Press Secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again." Overall, the Mon-Sun 6a-12m AQH for Arbitron's five large webcasters dropped from 737,000 in April to about 610,000 each month in May and June. --KH

From Boing Boing, by Fred Von Lohmann: "SoundExchange (which is in charge of collecting and distributing royalties collected from satellite radio and webcasting) can't seem to locate the artists to whom these royalties  are to be paid. If the monies are not disbursed, SoundExchange gets to keep them.

"Apparently SoundExchange was worried about publishing the list for fear that 'middlemen' would try to swipe a piece of the action for connecting artists with their royalties. (Did they ever think to reach out to the fans?)

"They finally published a list of the artists they 'can't find.'

"Check out all the major label artists they can't find: Cassandra Wilson (Blue Note), J. J. Cale (Mercury), Jane Siberry (Warner), Jeff Buckley (Columbia Records — they're still putting out his stuff posthumously...), Loverboy, Booker T & the MGs, Public Enemy,...

"The only silver lining here is that to look at the list is to realize that webcasters are bringing real musical diversity back to America — it's a much richer list than you'd get by aggregating playlists from FM radio!

"For SoundExchange's sake, I hope there's a reasonable explanation for this."

Read the entire article at Boing Boing. Click here to view the entire list of artists owed royalties at the SoundExchange website.