Daily Research News Online no. 2542 - Internet Radio Rankings

Internet Radio Rankings

August 13 2003

There are a bewildering variety of Internet-based radio stations and broadcasters, so it may be enlightening for DRNO readers to get an idea of who is listening to what, courtesy of Arbitron's Internet Broadcast Ratings. Recently published data for the week of July 21st shows Virgin Radio as the number one commercial Internet Broadcast Station but AOL stations make up 11 of the top 20.

Arbitron conducts research in the US, Mexico and Europe. In the week in question, 77 per cent of listening took place between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific time, which indicates either US listeners during the day or evening listeners in Europe. US-based stations dominate but three UK stations butt into the top 20, JazzFM and two separate Virgin offerings. Arguably, Internet radio is still a guy thing - 70 per cent of listeners were men.

To understand the ratings themselves, it's necessary first to tackle the TLAs and AWFLs (Three Letter Abbreviations and Accronyms With Four Letters). TTSL stands for Total Time Spent Listening and is sometimes, according to Arbitron, referred to as Aggregate Tuning Hours (ATH) - this is the total number of hours tuned to a given station or network in the reported time period by all persons listening. CUME Persons is an estimate of the total number of unique listeners who had one or more listening sessions lasting five minutes or longer during the reported time period.

Virgin had 269,166 hours of Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) for the week of July 21, while MUSICMATCH Artist Match was the top non-commercial Internet Broadcast Station with 544,310 TTSL.

Radio@AOL Network and LAUNCH were the top ranked commercial Internet broadcasters with 5,659,970 and 2,692,144 hours of TTSL respectively. MUSICMATCH was the top ranked non-commercial Internet Broadcaster with 1,664,531 hours of TTSL.

The top 20 broadcasters and the top 20 stations are each listed below, with the key stats for each - note that the rankings are based on TTFL and that CUME-based rankings would be very different. Note also the rather alarmingly named 'Killer Oldies' which is no.14 among broadcasters and number 22 in the longer list of stations. Encouragingly dead oldies like Beethoven[.com] still have their place in the 20 - obviously not a rollover week...

Internet Broadcasters and Sales Networks Weekly Top 20 (July 21- July 27)
Rank	Company	Type	TTSL	CUME
1	AOL Radio@Network	commercial	5,659,970	1,513,480
2	LAUNCH	commercial	2,692,144	646,339
3	MUSICMATCH	non-commercial	1,664,531	401,404
4	The Adsertion Network	sales network	1,162,165	132,828
5	Warp Radio	sales network	751,939	126,466
6	Moontaxi	commercial	484,503	66,315
7	Virgin Radio	commercial	473,729	77,502
8	ABC Radio Network	commercial	312,888	67,612
9	Standard Broadcasting	commercial	252,997	25,007
10	New York Times	commercial	214,596	28,240
11	JazzFM	commercial	178,356	25,682
12	Beethoven.com	commercial	141,313	25,291
13	AccuRadio	commercial	137,290	56,018
14	KillerOldies.com	commercial	114,493	21,228
15	WXPN-FM	non-commercial	79,464	10,741
16	3WK	commercial	69,670	20,424
17	KING-FM	non-commercial	69,532	9,404
18	WOXY-FM	commercial	63,270	9,635
19	KPLU	non-commercial	60,027	7,643
20	Radio.BeOnAir.com	commercial	30,565	2,808

Arbitron Internet Broadcast Stations Weekly Top 50 (July 21- July 27)
Rank	Station	Type	Format	Owner/Network	URL	TTSL	Cume
1	MUSICMATCH Artist Match	(non-commercial)	Miscellaneous	MUSICMATCH	www.musicmatch.com	544,310	179,735
2	Virgin Radio/1215 AM & 105.8 FM	(commercial)	Adult Contemporary	Virgin Radio	www.virginradio.co.uk	269,166	55,926
3	AOL Top Country	(commercial)	Country	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	257,565	106,462
4	AOL Top Pop	(commercial)	Top 40	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	252,784	161,182
5	AOL Smooth Jazz	(commercial)	Smooth Jazz	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	239,137	55,872
6	WQXR-FM/96.3	(commercial)	Classical	New York Times	www.wqxr.com	214,596	28,240
7	AOL Top Jams	(commercial)	Miscellaneous	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	213,091	172,315
8	AOL Awesome 80s	(commercial)	80s	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	207,252	71,753
9	AOL Lite Rock	(commercial)	Soft Rock	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	204,324	39,790
10	AOL Classic Rock	(commercial)	Classic Rock	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	183,642	61,931
11	JazzFM/102.2 FM & 100.4 FM	(commercial)	Jazz	Guardian Media Group	www.jazzfm.com	178,356	25,682
12	AOL Love Songs	(commercial)	Love Songs	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	176,972	57,832
13	AOL Oldies	(commercial)	Oldies	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	175,086	74,489
14	WLS-AM/890	(commercial)	News / Talk	ABC Radio Networks	music.netscape.com/radio/	165,999	27,152
15	MUSICMATCH Artist On Demand	(non-commercial)	Miscellaneous	MUSICMATCH	www.musicmatch.com	153,681	53,326
16	MUSICMATCH Top Hits	(non-commercial)	Contemporary Hit Radio / Top 40	MUSICMATCH	www.musicmatch.com	152,947	73,163
17	AOL Super 70s	(commercial)	70s	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	149,406	50,461
18	AOL Pop Rock	(commercial)	Rock	AOL Radio@Network	music.netscape.com/radio/	144,518	52,937
19	Beethoven.com	(commercial)	Classical	Beethoven.com	www.beethoven.com	141,313	25,291
20	Virgin Radio Classic Rock	(commercial)	Classic Rock	Virgin Radio	www.virginradio.co.uk	133,636	22,897

NB As Arbitron Internet Broadcast Ratings (powered by MeasureCast technology) transitions to a subscription-only service, some stations previously reported in the ratings have elected not to subscribe to the service and will no longer be included. Minor parts of the AOL and Virgin audience are not included in the above due to non-collection during part of one day (AOL) and non-measurement of some specialist services (Virgin).

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.