Pandora personalized radio has been hiring salespeople in traditional radio’s top local markets and now says it has the audience figures to back up its claims that it’s making inroads in those local radio markets.
Pandora says it now has an Average Quarter Hour rating of 1.0 or more among adults age 18-34 in the top radio markets. An AQH rating of 1.0 means an average of one percent of a target population listened to Pandora for at least five minutes within a quarter hour window between 6 a.m. and midnight.
For the period between Jan. 6, 2011 and Jan. 4, 2012, Pandora claims it experienced 50 to 100 percent growth in AQH ratings in all of the top radio markets for adults ages 18-34 and 18-49, with the largest AQH gains of 100 percent in the New York, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Boston metro survey areas.
The company released listenership information for the following markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston and Portland, Ore.
Pandora says it posted 44 to 75 percent cume increases in each local market with the Atlanta and Dallas-Ft. Worth areas posting the largest cume gains. Cume is the weekly measure of the total number of unique listeners in each market.
Company Chief Revenue Officer John Trimble said the 2011 audience results demonstrate Pandora’s local radio market penetration and will enable advertisers to understand the scope and scale of the company’s audience.
Edison Research analyzed Pandora data to determine how many listeners tuned in, how long each listened, and then converted that into Average Quarter Hour and weekly cume metrics using what it says was industry accepted methodology for metro survey areas. For this analysis, Edison did not include Pandora One subscribers who are not served any advertisements.
