Webcast listening slipped in November due to Thanksgiving effect (Triton)

Month-over-month webcast listening slipped by three percent in November, according to Triton Digital’s monthly Webcast Metrics Top 20 Ranker. Triton’s analysis of the dip cites a “Thanksgiving Effect,” which produced an 11% slide in Average Active Sessions (AAS) in the M-F 6am – 8pm focus. Almost all of that slippage happened in desktop listening, while mobile remained flat. That makes sense, assuming people abandon their computers during holidays. Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving week saw a severe drop of 30% in listening, compared to November’s other Thu-Fri periods.

Mobile consumption of webcast streams was strongly up in November, Triton has been tracking mobile use all year, and it has persistently climbed upward from 62.5% in January to 69.2% in November. In the top ten listening markets, Houston is the most mobile, with 79% of listening streaming through mobile devices.

When digging into the November metrics, as always we looked at Average Active Sessions for Mon-Sun, 6am-midnight. In that view, nearly the entire top-20 list of Triton clients lost ground month-over-month, ranging from one percent to 38% (ESPN). AccuRadio gained two percent. EMF was flat from October.

Comparing Nov2014 to Nov2013 shows a 7% listening AAS gain overall, but within the group it’s a mixed bag. A compilation of terrestrial streams represented by Katz Digital Audio (11 of the top 20) slipped three percent year-over-year. Pandora, the dominant leader is session volume, gained 11% from November, 2013. The year-over-year leaders were two pureplays: Idobi (+42%) and AccuRadio (+31%).

As this metrics snapshot draws closer to year’s end for 2013, year-to-date numbers resemble year-over-year numbers. Accordingly, the entire group gained 6% over January.

Here is RAIN’s historic trendline of the top-20 leaders. The “Thanksgiving Effect” is notable.

 

 

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