metrics

Webcasters (including broadcasters regarding their online streaming) need to rid themselves of the CPM-driven advertising style of broadcast, and instead offer buyers the real-time insight into campaigns' performance that digital technology enables.

That's the point Ken Dardis makes in a recent Audio Graphics blog. He writes, "As long as advertising is sold the same way online as it's sold over-the-air, there is no business model for streaming."

Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey recently told BloombergTV, "We don't see a business model for streaming." Dardis says this is because most broadcasters are looking for "bulk" so they can sell CPM ("cost per thousand") campaigns.

But online radio doesn't have the massive listenership for this style of advertising. What online radio does have is the ability to monitor the effectiveness of campaigns in real time, and tailor messages "on the fly" to maximize effectiveness.

"What Google, MSN's Bing (which now includes Yahoo! Search), and any of the numerous ad serving platforms like Zedo, Adconion, ValueClick, etc, are presenting advertisers with is campaign metrics," Dardis writes. This style of advertising "allows savvy media buyers to dissect the numbers as their clients' needs require to improve campaign response. In many cases this campaign improvement can be done in the middle of the campaign."

Read more from Audio Graphics here.

Industry-leading webcaster Pandora this week announced its listening hours, share of total U.S. radio listening, and number of "active listeners" all grew in December.

Pandora reports streaming 1.39 billion hours of content last month. That's up from both November (1.27 billion) and December 2011 (906 million).

This means, says Pandora, that its share of all U.S. radio listening is now 7.19%. The webcaster reported its U.S. radio share as 7.09% in November, and 4.71% for the previous December.

Finally, Pandora's pool of "active listeners" grew to 67.1 million by the end of last month, up from 62.4 million in November and 47.6 million a year earlier.

You can see our coverage of Pandora's November 2012 listening here.

The leading webcaster, which regularly reports its own audience measurements, says its share of total U.S. radio listening reached 6.75% in October. That figure had fallen to 6.55% by the end of the month following Hurricane Sandy, according to Pandora.

Pandora also reported streaming 1.25 billion hours of content during the month, up from both September (1.15 billion hours) (keep in mind September has one fewer day) and October 2011 (754 million). The service claims 59.2 million "active listeners" now. It had 58.3 million a month earlier, and 40.3 million a year ago.

Arbitron's long-awaited cross-platform ratings service (more here) is "still in the works," according to company EVP/COO Sean Creamer on the Arbitron Q3 conference call yesterday. "It's not a question of if, but when, we launch this service."

Creamer said, "the goal is an integrated service so (radio) stations get total credit" for listening, regardless of the platform on which it happens. FMQB reports that for Internet-delivered radio content, the Arbitron service "would use online logs to measure Internet radio listenership and include all types of Web radio, from terrestrial stations' streams to services such as Pandora."

As we reported last month (here), Arbtitron announced an arrangement with comScore and ESPN to measure the sports network's audience for audio, video, and display content across radio, television, the web, and mobile platforms. Mediapost quotes Creamer saying on yesterday's conference call, "This (ESPN) project underscores radio’s importance and relevance in a cross-platform world."

Read more from FMBQ here and Mediapost here.

While we were waiting for Arbitron to finally unveil their long-awaited unified on-air/online radio measurement (see RAIN here), they've announced a deal with comScore and ESPN to measure audio, video, and display across radio, tv, the web, and mobile.

The goal here is to create audience measurement using common metrics on a national and continuous basis, so content providers and marketers can gauge the reach, engagement, and cross-platform duplication of audience.

"The unprecedented size and scope of the project is being driven by the multiplatform measurement requirements of ESPN, which delivers video, audio and display content via television (both in-home and out-of-home), online and mobile video, PC web, mobile web, apps, tablets, digital audio and terrestrial radio" (see yesterday's top story in RAIN here), the companies' announcement read.

The initiative (characterized as "five-platform" as it separates "smartphones" adn "tablets") will integrate "the census and panel-based PC, mobile and TV set-top box measurement capabilities of comScore along with enhanced, single-source, multiplatform measurement capabilities of the Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) technology," according to the statement.

Though no roll-out date has been announced, ESPN, comScore and Arbitron will unveil more details October 1-3 at the upcoming Advertising Week convention in New York.

Read the press release here.

Internet radio listening as a whole traditionally slows during the summer months (see our coverage of the July Webcast Metrics here), and Pandora's August numbers show they're not an exception. But their year-to-year growth remains a positive.

The webcaster says it streamed 1.16 billion aggregate "listener hours" for the month, a 70% increase from the 682 million it streamed in August of 2011 -- but actually down slightly from 1.2 billion in July (see RAIN here). Pandora also says it has 56.2 million "active listeners" (that is, the number of accounts that've signed in during the last 30 days) now, up 48% from August of last year (38 million), and but up only slightly over July's 55 million.

Finally, Pandora says its "share of total U.S. radio listening" is now up to 6.30%, an increase from 3.67% at the same time last year (and from 6.13% in July).