800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 Radio remains top music discovery method, Nielsen reports. Even with the number of ways to listen to music growing exponentially, radio remains the top method of music discovery according to a new report from Nielsen. In its 2014 Music U.S. Report, Nielsen calculates 51% of consumers use radio to discover new music and that 59% of music listeners use a combination of over-the-air AM/FM radio and online radio streams to hear music. The biggest music consumption trend of 2014 was the rapid growth of streaming audio. Nielsen reports on-demand streaming audio of music grew 60% last year to a record 78.6 billion streams. Counting both audio and video, Nielsen tracked 163.9 billion on-demand music streams in 2014. In a typical week, two-thirds of music consumers (67%) listen to music online via any form of streaming, the study found. But how music fans consume music varies greatly, depending on genre. Nielsen’s 2014 music recap found R&B/hip- hop is the dominant genre for streaming, accounting for nearly three in ten streams (28.5%), followed by rock (24.7%) and pop (21.1%). Music genres stacked up differently in 2014 when it came to radio listening. Across Nielsen’s PPM markets, CHR (8.3%) and country (8.2%) were the leading music formats among all listeners, followed by AC, (7.1%), hot AC (6.2%) and classic hits (5.2%). Among 18-34 year olds it was CHR (12.3%), followed by country (9.8%), hot AC (7.1%), rhythmic CHR (6.7%) and AC (5.9%). Sirius XM agrees: web radio listening isn’t hurting FM/AM. Broadcast radio executives have told advertisers and investors alike: streaming pureplays like Pandora and Spotify are handy tools, but they replace a record collection, not radio. Now the industry is getting some support from a Sirius XM Radio executive who agrees streaming isn’t eating away at radio. “It hasn’t really affected radio listening whether it’s satellite radio listening, which is still growing very robustly or terrestrial radio which is maintaining its audience,” SiriusXM CFO David Frear said. He told an investor conference that streaming music services represent more of a “format shift” on par with the move from records to CDs or from CDs to digital downloads. “It’s just another way to distribute a personal music library,” he told the Citi Media Conference in Las Vegas. Frear also drew on the satellite company’s long history with carmakers to deliver a message of patience, telling investors the connected car won’t be showing up on dealer lots as quickly as they believe. “The car companies have been talking about connected car technology — but the industry is probably 25% penetrated three to five years into the dialogue,” he pointed out. Some analysts worry SiriusXM, like broadcast radio, will be under competitive pressure as more streaming music options show up in the dashboard. Majority of drivers crave streaming radio while behind the wheel. What would you pay to listen to streaming radio in your car? A slight majority of Americans say they’d fork over as much as $1,499 extra when buying a new vehicle in order to get new connected car features. That’s according to a Harris Poll, commissioned by the car selling website AutoTrader. com. One of the things helping to push demand for the connected car forward is a growing interest in streaming radio. The survey shows a majority (55%) of car owners say that being able to access streaming radio services while in the car is something that makes the driving experience more enjoyable. That should help convince the car companies to put digital radio upfront in their connected dashboard. “We’re in the information era and shoppers are informed and they are adamant about the features they want,” says AutoTrader analyst Michelle Krebs. The Harris survey also suggests a closing of the gap in public opinion may be underway into whether consumers want a built-in system or prefer to plug in their own smartphone. The report shows 52% would prefer new cars to come equipped with the automaker’s own entertainment system while 48% would prefer car companies make it easier to integrate smartphones into a generic system. “Consumers are spending more [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 time and money on car technology and they are particular about what they’re buying,” Krebs says. The survey found that only 3% of drivers report having Wi-Fi in their cars, but among that group nearly two-thirds use the connection on a daily basis. The Harris online survey was conducted October 15-20 among 1,033 car owners aged 18 or older. Hyundai remakes its dashboard for a simpler, easier-to-use content experience. In a move to make the dashboard entertainment experience simpler and more user-friendly, Hyundai has redesigned its entertainment system and will start making the update available on 2016 models in the coming months. The new system works with Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto. In a move to unclutter the dashboard, it will come without a CD player or embedded navigation system. Mapping on the seven-inch color touch-screen display will instead come from the features already built into CarPlay or Android Auto. Hyundai says all the apps are already integrated into each service, such as iHeartRadio, CBS News Radio, Stitcher, Pandora and Spotify. The carmaker’s engineers say their Display Audio technology will essentially “project” onto the dashboard whatever a driver has on the connected smartphone. While new technology typically first appears on the high-end models, Hyundai says this will show up initially in entry-level models arriving on dealer lots. “As affordable car buyers are often younger, Hyundai aims to provide what they want most in their car — all the latest smartphone-enabled technologies at a lower price,” says Hyundai senior group manager Cason Grover. While the CD player is vanishing, FM and AM radio will stay put, along with HD Radio and Sirius XM Radio. Hyundai spokesman Rob Lescaille says the automaker is working closely with Apple and Google to bring the features to consumers as quickly as they can. The company expects Display Auto will “quickly” become part of most new cars rolling off the assembly line over the next few years. Apple and Google have also been working with other car companies on similar changes. ESPN podcast downloads soared in 2014. Will 2015 be the year that podcasts go mainstream? That’s the prediction some are making. But many in the podcast community point to growth numbers and buzzed about series like “Serial” from WBEZ, Chicago (91.5) as proof that podcasts are already bigger than what broadcasters give them credit for. The latest evidence comes from ESPN. The sports media giant says its portfolio of dozens of podcasts posted a 50% jump in downloads in 2014 to a record 302 million downloads. Suggesting on-demand audio is accelerating, ESPN says nearly a third of 2014’s podcast downloads came during the final three months of the year when 95 million downloads were recorded. Edison Research’s most recent report on podcasting found just 1.7% of the average American’s audio day is spent listening to podcasts. But those consumers who do partake in the format spend more than a quarter (25.9%) of their audio time with on-demand audio. In that crowd it’s nearly as big as FM/AM radio listening, which accounts for 27.5% of their daily audio diet. The firm’s 2014 Infinite Dial study showed weekly podcast consumers listen to an average of six podcasts per week, although 11% of users report they listen to more than 10 podcasts. For radio stations worried about losing on-air listening, Edison says podcast users are “super listeners” consuming 1 hour and 45 minutes more audio per day than the average American. MRC blesses Nielsen’s fusing of PPM data into CNN’s TV ratings. Nielsen is taking one step closer to adding the PPM to the methodology it uses to measure TV audiences. The Media Rating Council (MRC) has verified the data fusion process Nielsen employs to combine in-home and out-of-home television ratings for cable TV network CNN. While the MRC evaluation applies just to the All Screen custom reports Nielsen creates for CNN, it bodes well for Nielsen integrating away-from-home viewing data captured by the PPM into its TV ratings. Radio broadcasters are hoping that could lead to larger PPM sample sizes. In a statement, the MRC noted it hasn’t done a “full-scope accreditation examination” of Nielsen Audio’s PPM television data, because Nielsen PPM 360 hasn’t submitted it for accreditation consideration. Instead the evaluation focused solely on how Nielsen fuses PPM data with that collected by its National People Meters. MRC says the data fusion process would “need significant methods changes” should Nielsen expand it to measure other TV programming or make it part of a syndicated service. That’s something Nielsen is keen on doing. In a statement, Nielsen EVP Megan Clarken yesterday called the MRC statement “an [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 important step” in developing an industry standard syndicated service to measure out-of-home TV viewing. Not tracking away-from-home audiences caused CNBC to stop using Nielsen to measure its daytime audience.