Online Radio Reaches 33MM a Week, Listeners Tend to Be Social Networkers

Some 33 million Americans age 12 or older listen to a radio station over the internet during an average week - up from 29 million listeners one year ago - estimates the annual “Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms” report by Arbitron and Edison Media Research, MarketingCharts reports.

There is also a strong connection between online radio listening and social networking sites, according to the study, which will be released in April.

Among the findings:

• 13 percent of Americans age 12 or older (an estimated 33 million people) had listened to online radio in the previous week - an increase of two percentage points from January 2007.
• Though nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of all Americans age 12 or older have a profile on a social-networking site such as MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of online radio listeners have a profile on such sites.
• One-third of online radio listeners with a social network profile visit their social networking site nearly every day or several times per day.
• The top social-networking sites among online radio listeners are MySpace and the business professional networking service LinkedIn:
  • 28 percent of online radio listeners have a MySpace page
  • Nearly one-quarter (24 percent) have a profile on LinkedIn.

“Social networking is clearly not about creating exclusive, self-enclosed communities,” said Diane Williams, senior analyst, custom research for Arbitron.

“We found that online radio listeners are more than one-and-one-half times more likely to have a profile on a social networking site as compared to average Americans and that they tend to be power-users, with one-third of online radio listeners logging on to their social networking site nearly every day or even multiple times per day.”