What we learned from Radio 360’s first outing; AI Upfronts speakers revealed
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade.
Today we dig into the first set of the new look radio ratings, and share the AI Upfronts speakers for next month’s humAIn – human creativity x AI conference. Plus, a twitchy day on the Unmade Index as the market reacted to another interest rate hike.
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Announcing the AI Upfronts presenters
Cat McGinn, curator of Unmade’s humAIn – human creativity x AI writes:
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Commercial Radio + Audio has asked to add the following note from Deb Hishton, media measurement director at GfK:
GfK undertakes extensive quality control checks with all the station logs and we can assure you there is no ‘double counting’; we are also cross referencing the streaming insights from the server logs with our GfK Sensic tagging and the wearable panel. We do see large volumes of listening for the AM talk based stations, this aligns with GfK Sensic and with the networks own digital insights.
re the dominance of talk radio on streaming I wonder if this is people at work listening in on PCs or listening on portable devices when commuting, exercising etc. It’s fairly common in my orbit. Also 2GB and 3AW have national profiles and presumably audiences, much like the SMH is widely read out of state
It’s not just the 9 stations – the ABC capital city stations also rate highly in streaming share. My suggestion would be that (a) a lot of these people are listening out of area and (b) people are more likely to be motivated to listen to a speech based station when they’re away from “home” than a music based station. I.e. there’s a chunk of people in Melbourne and Brisbane listening to 2GB/ABC Sydney and a chunk of people in Sydney doing the opposite.
That’s a pretty good theory, Gavin. We were briefed that the streams only count listeners within the city, based on IP address, but I wonder how reliable that is
Probably about 60/70% accurate. Another thought, if this is being done at an IP address level, is how they’ve considered the people who change IP addresses whilst they’re listening. E.g. if I listen online via a device at home, then change to my mobile, which changes IP address when I drop off my home wifi onto the 5G network, then picks up the cafe’s network whilst I buy my coffee, then back to mobile, then the office network…how many “listeners” do I count as? I’m sure this has all been considered, but I don’t believe any solution would be 100% accurate across all portals (station apps, TuneIn, web browsers, etc).
I am in country Victoria and while Neil Mitchell is simulcast on a local radio station, GOLD Central Victoria, Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson and Tom Elliott are not. So if I’m in my car I’ll listen to 3AW when those programmes are on via streaming on RadioApp. That is if Telstra’s spotty country Victoria reception allows for it.
I’ll also listen to all three programmes on my Sonos One as I don’t have a traditional radio in my house. I listen through RadioApp or myTuner Radio on Sonos as the Nine Radio stations 3AW and 2GB cut themselves from TuneIn Radio. Would love for someone to tell me why. My theory is they didn’t like TuneIn playing ads before listeners would listen to the streams. Or maybe they couldn’t get a cut of the ad revenue to their liking.
Also the 3AW and 2GB apps for Android haven’t been working at all for me for the last 4 months on my relatively modern Google Pixel 6 Pro with all the latest firmware and the latest versions of the 3AW and 2GB apps. The apps don’t even get past the splash screens, glitch out in a jittery fit and then go black. Lucky for RadioApp and myTuner Radio. So much for all the 3AW app ads. “Your phone isn’t smart till you’ve got the 3AW app” they proclaim. How about spending some money on app developers to iron out the bugs in your app and less on misleading marketing?
Reminds me of iHeartRadio’s ads on my local commercial radio stations. “Download iHeartRadio, the only streaming app you’ll ever need”. Haha. What a joke! Ever heard of Spotify or Apple Music iHeartRadio? Millions of songs on demand at your fingertips. What do you get with iHeartRadio’s app? A few hokey commercial radio stations with a massive serving of ads. Hmm.
I’m 36 years old btw.
I wonder whether the panel itself skews older? I mean JJJ having low streaming numbers seems odd compared with some of the older AM stations …
That’s an interesting question, Cam. In theory it shouldn’t of course, but with differing methodologies, it must be hard to match that.
I agree, it definitely shouldn’t and I very much doubt it would have been recommended by the data scientists involved, however cobbling together methodologies may inadvertently create bias toward an older demo.