Just as consumers are increasingly purchasing their music in digital form, from online music stores like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic (a trend digital music distributors like us rely on for the future of our business), radio audiences are moving online. A study published recently by Bridge Rating, company that:
“provides guidance services to media companies and investment firms seeking immediate and timely behavioral data related to media use.”
covering consumer use of satellite radio, Internet radio, MP3 players, Podcasting and mobile media consumption. They forecast that online ‘radio’ audience will grow to 77m by 2015. Their figures draw from both online only stations like Pandora and Yahoo Music, and simulcast stations (those that also broadcast over the airwaves) – see their graph for comparative growth rates.
So why are users migrating? The cost of a radio is minimal, compared to the cost of a computer, or even to a broadband subscription, and anywhere you can pick up the internet, you can pick up an FM signal. If it were the case that people were just using their computers as a convenient method of accessing the radio content, because their speakers are hooked up to it, signal is poor or they’re out of range, then simulcast stations wouldn’t be seeing a stagnation of or negative growth. Instead it seems likely that users are usign alternative music streaming services becaused of the greater interactivity and enhaned services like forums and playlist sharing that surround the musical core of the online channels, just as they surround music stores like Spotify (which runs it’s own nascent radio platform). If it is this rather than the inherent quality of the radio content itself that is drawing users online, then what does the future hold for premium airwave radio providers like Sirius XM? Will their hold on the car dashboard be enough to save them from their competitors? Not if Pandora have anything to do with it, as their contract with Ford to build in-dash controls to interact with their service shows. The increasing prevalence of smart phones and mobile internet devices also means that anyone with a stereo jack cable can use their existing car stereo to access their own music collection and playlists.
Vevo was born of the collaboration between YouTube and the major labels, after the long argument about revenues from YouTube’s streaming of copyrighted music and videos. Vevo has been streaming music video since December ’09, and in that one short month, has overtaken Myspace music as the No.1 music video site in the US. Techcrunch reports the following figures, with a more detailed analysis.
Top U.S. Music Services On The Web (in unique visitors, December, 2009)
- Vevo: 35.4 million
- MySpace Music: 33.1 million
- AOL Music: 29.0 million
- Warner Music: 23.3 million
- MTV Networks Music: 17.6 million
- Yahoo! Music: 16.4 million
- Jango Music Network: 9.6 million
- ToneFuse Music Network: 8.3 million
- MSN Music: 6.6 million
- Rhapsody: 6.5 million
Most of the traffic on Vevo was driven there from YouTube, and the service isn’t available outside the States yet, but given the warm reception Vevo has recieved, look for roll-out into Europe and Asia in the near future, as well as startled reactions from their competitors.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/13/youtube-vevo-overtake-myspace-music/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Netvibes
Internet radio has had a couple of boosts recently, first the deals that Pandora struck with Ford and Pioneer to get their service into thousands of car dashboards, and now web radio/streaming service Jelli getting funding from a group of tech savvy investors including Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, Zappos.com COO Alfred Lin and Apollo Group founder Peter Sperling. Jelli streams music online through its own ‘stations’ 24/7, and already has content deals in place with a large number of FM and AM stations, mostly through a partnership with Triton Digital, whose air-transmitted station affiliations leading into 2010 now exceed 5,000 – up 50 percent from a year ago. Jelli’s system allows users to upvote or downvote songs on a particular channel, the most popular of which get onto the playlist and go out in real time. This has been proven to work on the web, and now Jelli are taking over slots on air stations, such as San Francisco’s 105.3 fm. Users do have to be logged in to vote on tracks though, so if you’re in the car listening you need to have someone to put your votes in using your iPhone…
Pandora founder Tim Westergren said in an interview at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, that Pandora had not only more than doubed its revenue in 2009, but turned in a black balance sheet for the first time in its 10-year history during the fourth quarter.
Pandora has signed deals with both Pioneer and Ford Motor Co., to ensure their service will be placed into thousands of car dashboards over the coming year, “Maybe a year ago people would have said Pandora is a computer thing,” said Westergren. “Now they’re beginning to realize that Internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing.” This news is bound to be good for Pandora’s bottom line, but mobile internet will be another thorn in the side of satellite radio providers like Sirius, who are already under fire from the NASDAQ to get their stock price above $1.
