This guest column is contributed by Larry Rosin, President of Edison Research. It was first published on The Infinite Dial blog.
Yesterday was a great day for Edison Research, as we unveiled the 2015 Infinite Dial survey. Over the next many weeks we will be bringing out a raft of additional data and insights from the study that we couldn’t cram into our premiere presentation. But today I want to highlight something that WAS shown, but is a little more subtle.
The presentation made very clear how much online audio usage (defined as listening to the streams of AM/FM stations or listening to pureplays) has grown. Both monthly and weekly usage were up significantly.
What might not have been as clear is that weekly usage is growing faster than monthly usage. Note this table showing those results from the last six reports:
There is a significant story here. Note the numbers in the rightmost column growing. Over time, the weekly percentage is getting closer and closer to the monthly number. This means that users of the technology are getting more habituated to it and that it is becoming a more regular part of people’s lives.
Today, even as the number of people who use online audio at all continues to rise, about five in every six monthly users also use online radio regularly. This is the mark of a rapidly diffusing technology that is becoming every day more and more a part of Americans’ lives.