JP Morgan estimates that Clear Channel now holds 20.5% of all unique visitors to Internet radio.
“Clear Channel’s growth is instrumental in driving growth for the terrestrial operators as a whole. After growth was negatively impacted for the first few months of the year by what we believe was a change in its methodology for measuring its Web sites, we believe April’s results show that growth is firmly back on track,” JP Morgan wrote.
“Specifically, unique visitors to CCU’s sites jumped 10% from March to 10.8 million. While this accounted for close to 90% of the growth experienced by the terrestrial radio operators as a group, we also make note of solid growth out of CBS Radio, which also experienced a 10% sequential gain.
“While these gains were offset in part by a 26% monthly drop in unique visitors to Entercom’s sites, they were enough to drive monthly growth of 5.6% for the terrestrial group as a whole.”
Terrestrial radio owners now hold the highest share of unique visitors they have held since JP Morgan began tracking the statistics. “We expect the terrestrial operators to continue to build out their presence in Internet radio over the next several years. This could help supplement declining traditional radio audiences.”
Among top terrestrial radio entities in the online radio niche, the leaders are Clear Channel, CBS, NPR and its member stations, and Emmis.
JP Morgan uses data from CommScore Media Metrix; not all online entities are tracked.
