Webcast listening in April continued its upward trajectory, growing by 2% compared to March, and notched a 16% year-over-year climb. These numbers courtesy of Triton Digital’s monthly Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker, released this morning. Stream listening grew 12% in 2016 to date, led by double-digit percentage gains for the top three outlets measured in the Ranker — Pandora (+11%), Spotify (+17%), and iHeartRadio (+12%).
The Triton Digital Ranker includes most major webcasters, both pureplay (Pandora and Spotify being the leaders) and broadcast radio streams (where iHeartRadio leads). As always in RAIN News tracking, we use Average Active Sessions (AAS) as the key metric, through the lens of 6:00am – 12:00am listening, Monday through Sunday.
After performing a separate analysis of Triton’s monthly report, internet radio service AccuRadio sent this note to RAIN News: “April 2016 marks the tenth consecutive month that AccuRadio has been the fastest-growing webcaster in America and the nineteenth consecutive month that AccuRadio has been the fastest-growing music webcaster.” That analysis looks at sequential year-over-year percentage gain in listening, starting with October, 2014. In April, AccuRadio’s month-over-month gain was 84%, leading second-place gainer Spotify (+44%). AccuRadio attributes its Ranker success to a clearer positioning as a music service for the 35-64 demographic, and better marketing of that position. (AccuRadio Founder/CEO Kurt Hanson is the Founding Editor of RAIN News.)
In its commentary, Triton broke out pureplay gains year-to-date (that’s the Q1 measurement) and year-over-year, for pureplay streamers and broadcast streamers. The graphic shows an interesting reversal: While pureplays are doing better year-to-date, broadcasters are doing better year-over-year:
Below is the historical chart of the Ranker leaders dating back to September, 2009, showing the overall dramatic trajectory of streaming audio (Slacker dropped out of Triton measurement in November, but is included in this chart):
Here is the graphic year-over-year comparison of the entire Top 20 group:
