Digital Audio in 2011
Well over fifty years ago audio manufacturers began using the term Hi-Fi, or High Fidelity, to classify audio products that faithfully reproduced sound with the highest quality. Many of you will probably remember the commercial tag line “Is it live or is it Memorex?” High Fidelity was synonymous with music and other recordings that sounded like the real thing. The term Wireless Fidelity or Wi-Fi was first used commercially in 1999 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the range of wireless connection technologies based on the 802.11 standards of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). These now include personal, local, wide and wireless area networks. Today, over 65% of U.S. households access the Internet through a Wi-Fi network setup.
Earlier this year, Arbitron, Inc. and Edison Research reported on a national study which they conducted comparing the digital audio/video landscape today versus that which existed in 2001. Needless to say, there are many more wi-fi-enabled electronic devices in use in the marketplace in 2011 and several more producers whose content is transmitted through these devices. For example, in 2001 broadband Internet usage among Persons 12+ was 20%. Today, 70% of this age cohort subscribes to broadband via one or more Internet service providers. In 2001, online video usage among Americans 12+ was only 23%, while today it is upwards of 54%. Ten years ago online radio usage stood at 28% of the Persons 12+ population. Today, total usage among listeners 12+ is 56%, with about 89 million persons (or 34%) listening in the past month.
Breaking out the 34% on an only-only-both basis, past month online radio usage comprises the following: exclusive listening to AM/FM radio streams (12% of total), exclusive listening to Internet-only streams (13%) and dual listening to both AM/FM and Internet-only radio streams (9%). At 19%, the growth in Internet-only listening over the past half-dozen years has been fairly robust. While the study finds that online radio listening is a complement to over-the-air radio rather than a substitute for it, the time spent listening among weekly online radio users has steadily increased from 6 hours and 13 minutes per week in 2008 to 9 hours and 47 minutes per week as of early 2011, an increase of 57% over the three-year period. On a time spent per week basis, online radio listening represents roughly one-quarter of that for total television viewing over the same period—and it’s growing.
For several years now, media pundits have predicted the demise of radio as a medium. First, with the advent of television in the 1950’s, then with cable TV in the 1980’s and, more recently with the Internet in the 1990’s. Radio, as a medium, is a survivor and keeps reinventing itself as new communication technologies are introduced into the marketplace. Gugelplex TV believes that Internet radio services such as Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker as well as a variety of Internet radio stations from around the world will virtually guarantee radio’s long-term survival. Think of it. Today it is possible to listen to audio content from sources that were not available to us even twenty years ago. In addition, nearly half of Americans 12+ (47%) have now heard of or are now familiar with services such as Pandora which allow listeners to control what they want to hear, when they want to hear it. Today, the success of media programming is all about personal choice. What better vehicle to give us that personal choice than radio—the personal medium.
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