Webcast listening rose 5% in December; 2014 “incredible year for audio” (Triton)

Month-over-month webcast listening grew by five percent in December, according to Triton Digital’s monthly Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. The lift came despite lower listening during Christmas week, compared to the three previous weeks.

Mobile consumption of webcast streams continued to drive growth: 37% of stream consumption transpired over iOS and Android devices.

Triton’s commentary accompanying this month’s report looks back at 2014, noting a 35% increase in Average Active Sessions (AAS) from Q1 to Q4 (Mon-Sun, 6:00am to midnight, domestic U.S. streaming).

 

 

 

 

 

 

When digging into the December metrics, we see that the Top 20 group as a whole enjoyed a 5% AAS growth from November (which suffered from reduced Thanksgiving listening). Individual percentage leaders were AccuRadio (+30%), ESPN (+22%), and Slacker Radio (+11%). As always, Pandora had the biggest session count, coming close to the 2-million milestone (1.97-million), a 5% month-over-month gain.

Year-over-year, the Top 20 group gained 12% from December, 2013.

A subset of Triton’s Top 20 is labeled Katz Digital Audio, and represents 11 radio groups. That cohort gained 7% month-over-month, and 6% year-over-year.

Here is RAIN’s historic trendline of the top-20 leaders:

 

 

This chart illustrates year-over-year growth of webcasting: