Is Internet Radio the future of Newspapers?

“Five years from now, internet radio will be the predominant leader in radio.”
-Jennifer Bertetto Trib Total Media

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has launched an Internet Sports Talk Station. Trib Total Media, the parent company of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has announced the debut of sports talk on Trib Live Radio.

The new internet sports talk station features a number of Pittsburgh sports media personalities and athletes including former Penguins player Chris Tocchet and former Steelers cornerback Deshea Townsend.  Trib Total Media VP and COO Jennifer Bertetto says more shows are being planned to make the station a 24-hour operation.

Internet Radio is Here!

Behold the future of Internet Radio Listening.

Contour Internet-connected digital radio from Pure

The new Contour Internet-connected digital radio that Pure previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show.

This player comes with Pure’s Clearsound technology which, the company said, ensures clear dynamic audio, higher volume levels and, what everyone is waiting for…low power consumption. The Contour also features the company’s Flow technology, “using Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet wirelessly and access thousands of Internet radio stations, podcasts, a library of unique Pure Sounds as well as stream music stored on a home computer or network storage device.”

Producers of Internet audio content can pin their ears back and go for it because companies like Pure have created the much needed distribution beyond PC devices. Once the prices for these devices come down to earth,  listenership to the wide and creative variety of Internet programming should explode.

Next issue for programmers is separating from the very crowded Internet space and grabbing a loyal audience.

Stay tuned…this is a very exciting time to be a leader in Media and Communications!

Mike

Is your Business advertising and PR keeping up with Consumers?

Forrester: Americans Continue To Adopt Digital Lifestyle

Largest Annual Consumer Survey Offers Insight For Consumer Market Research Professionals

Cambridge, Mass., September 2, 2009 . . . Americans of all ages continue to adopt a digital lifestyle according to the largest annual survey of consumers’ technology adoption and attitudes by Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR). “The State Of Consumers And Technology: Benchmark 2009, US” is a graphical analysis of Forrester’s North American Technographics® Benchmark Survey, 2009 (US, Canada) of nearly 48,000 respondents. A rich data asset for Consumer Market Research professionals’ product planning and go-to-market strategy assessments, the survey includes more than 1,400 data points and data on 378 US brands. It is the largest ongoing survey in the world to explore consumer attitudes, ownership, and use of technology.

Highlights of the report include:

• Devices. High-definition televisions (HDTVs) and home networks were two of the fastest-growing consumer technologies in 2008. Over the next five years, nearly 39 million US households will get their first high-definition set and more than 30 million homes will add network connectivity. Forty-four percent of US households have a laptop, and the average American family owns two personal computers.
• Media consumption. While media consumption among all Americans is split evenly between new and traditional media, on average, consumers younger than 40 spend almost 2 hours a week more with new media than they do with traditional media.
• Mobile. Four in five US households now have a mobile phone; families with older children have nearly three mobile phones per household, the most of any age segment. Eight percent of consumers own a smartphone.

“US consumers are making an inexorable transition to an all-digital, Internet-powered world,” said Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles S. Golvin. “The Internet pervades all aspects of Americans’ lives, from how we shop and buy, how we communicate, how we entertain ourselves, and how we seek out information to how we manage our personal relationships. While today these digital activities are constrained to the home and the office, in the next several years consumers will increasingly rely on a ubiquitous Net that is instantaneously accessible on a wide variety of devices, from mobile phones to laptops to new form factors such as eReaders.”

This is the 12th annual Consumer Technographics Benchmark mail survey. This year, Forrester performed a life stage analysis of the data that looks at technology adoption of singles and families, both young and old.

“The breadth of the survey, in conjunction with its sample sizes, allows Consumer Market Research professionals to examine and trend the behaviors and attitudes of even the most niche target markets,” said Forrester Research Consumer Insights Analyst Jackie Anderson.

Read more about the report on The Forrester Blog For Consumer Market Research Professionals.

About Consumer Technographics

Forrester Consumer Technographics is the largest and longest-running survey of technology’s impact on consumers. Since 1997, Forrester has surveyed more than 2 million households and individuals worldwide and today provides data and insights on consumers in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Marketing and strategy professionals rely on Forrester’s Consumer Technographics data for unique insights into how technology affects the way consumers select, purchase, use, and communicate about products and services.

About Forrester Research

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 20 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 26 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com.

Why broadcasters need to jump onto the Internet Radio tsunami now!

A new national survey of consumers shows 34% would listen to Internet Radio in the Car!

The survey was conducted by Mark Ramsey Media and VIP Research.  As reported by Media Daily News:

“MRM and VIP found that 34% of those surveyed said they would listen less to traditional local broadcast radio stations — long the dominant drive-time medium for advertisers — if they had access to Internet radio in their car.

Given a choice between having Internet radio in their dashboard or a broadcast radio in their iPod, 58% of all respondents opted for Internet radio in the dash.

This isn’t the only data suggesting Internet radio could pose a threat to traditional radio in drive-time listening. A survey by J.D. Powers released earlier this month found that car-buyers’ favorite audio system feature was the ability to play music file formats of their own choosing, such as MP3 files or iTunes.

Separately, in January, Internet audio service Pandora struck a deal with electronics manufacturer Pioneer Corp. that will allow consumers to bring Pandora’s personalized audio content to their automobiles. Pioneer is manufacturing a multipurpose navigation and media device, priced at $1,200, that will allow iPhones customers to stream the online music service to their car stereos — after they download a new app that allows the devices to link up.”

Read the entire article at Media Daily News

Green Rain Marketing is riding the wave of this huge change in consumer listening habits with www.moneytalknetwork.com, a site providing the best personal finance and consumer advice audio programming and featuring some of America’s best broadcast professionals and some you have not heard of…but will soon!

Reach “Unreachable” Consumers through PodCasts

Edison Research and The Association For Downloadable Media (ADM) have released a study looking at consumers’ latest attitudes on podcasting, and their openness to advertising within podcasts.

Respondents to the online study indicated that although they are increasingly turning away from some mass media platforms and advertising approaches, they are receptive to advertising and sponsorship messages in downloadable media.

Respondents showed a significant tendency to consume podcasts on their mobile phones, highlighting the importance of the channel as a truly portable medium.

Edison Research VP Tom Webster commented, “A podcast advertising buy is not a redundant media buy for advertisers and marketers. These are attractive, affluent consumers that mass media is losing.”

Other important findings:

-Ninety percent of respondents indicated that they had taken some kind of action as a result of podcast advertising or sponsorship, and over 40 percent reported purchasing behaviors indicating responsiveness to the right messages.

-Podcasts and downloadable media provide valuable and effective options to reaching the otherwise unreachable.

-An online or offline audio or video buy that does not include a podcasting component will miss a very attractive advertising target.

-Men surveyed were slightly more likely to subscribe to a larger number of podcasts than women.

-Those surveyed between ages 35-44 and ages 45-54 were also more likely to listen to larger numbers of podcasts.

-When asked if advertising within podcasts had affected their behavior, 71 percent said they’d visited a sponsor’s website, while 62 percent said they’d considered that new product or service. Also, 60 percent said they researched more information about the advertiser.

-40 percent said they’d purchased a product advertised

– Nearly 80 percent of podcast consumers surveyed agreed that “when price and quality is equal,” they “prefer to buy products from companies that advertise on or sponsor” the podcasts they regularly enjoy.

– 78 percent agreed (and 21 percent agreed strongly) that their opinion of a company is more positive when they hear it mentioned in one of the podcasts they regularly enjoy.

-72 percent of respondents were at least somewhat receptive to sponsorship messages in the podcasts they regularly enjoy, with five percent indicating that they are generally “interested in them and/or often find them useful.

-1 in 4 Americans have ever listened to a podcast, and 1 in 10 are at least monthly consumers of podcasts, 

Complete study results here.

Green Rain Marketing, through its Money Talk Network Web property, makes some of the top PodCasts available to advertisers who are seeking unique and more effective ways to reach responsive consumers through new media Internet and Mobile Audio applications.

Over 60 Million Americans Listen To Internet Radio!

Bridge Ratings has released the results of a new study, looking at the habits of Internet radio listeners. The study was conducted between December 2009 and January 2010, and concludes that approximately over 60 million Americans listen to some form of Internet radio in an average week. Out of this group, 84 percent regularly listen to online simulcasts of terrestrial radio for at least five minutes a week, while 62 percent regularly listen to Internet-only stations for at least five minutes per week.

Bridge predicts that by January 2015, 77 million Americans will be regular listeners to Internet radio. By 2015, they also predict that 81 percent will be listening to terrestrial radio online while Internet-only listeners will be up to 72 percent. Bridge also predicts that the two categories will essentially be equal by the end of 2016. Green Rain Marketing has been a pioneer in Internet Radio. Visit http://www.moneytalknetwork.com. read the entire story here