Who’s listening to Internet streams and why are they popular?
Advertising agency group owner GroupM executives say their research shows about 35 to 42% of the population has been exposed to Internet radio. These listeners are affluent, do not avoid ads and they purchase, says Steve Sherfy and Jesse Wolfsberger.
The average Internet radio user reaches affluence at age 34, as opposed to age 47 for the rest of the population, according to the duo during a presentation at the RAIN Summit in Orlando, Fla.
Asked what they think about the iTunesRadio launch, respondents told GroupM it might be more integrated and easier to use than Spotify, and either they hated Apple products or loved them. “This could be a game-changer, or not. We’ll see,” said the executives.
They call the connected car a game-changer, too. EMarketer predicts there will be some 40 million “connected” cars by 2014.
“Once everyone can hit a button in their car and turn on Pandora just like a local station, then we’ll see the impact to traditional radio,” the GroupM researchers predicted.
