Internet radio audience measurement is any method used to determine the number of people listening to an Internet radio broadcast. This information is usually obtained from the broadcaster's audio streaming server. Icecast, Nicecast, and SHOUTcast are examples of audio streaming servers that can provide listener statistics for audience measurement. [1] These numbers often include information such as listeners' IP addresses, the media player they are using, how long they listened, and their computer's operating system.
This approach differs greatly from terrestrial radio audience measurement. Demographic and psychographic information cannot be easily collected due to geographically diverse nature of typical Internet radio audiences. [1] [2] Arbitron, a research company in the United States which collects listener data on terrestrial radio audiences, has begun collecting listener data for Internet radio stations based on a panel of 200,000 users. The statistics collected from those users is then projected against the estimated 52 million actual Internet radio listeners. [3]
DigitalRadioTracker.com (DRT) [4] has developed a proprietary system that monitors Internet Radio as well as select Terrestrial FM, College & Non-Commercial radio compiling the airplay of songs around the globe. They monitor 5000+ radio stations. DRT Reports provides users with detailed information of when, where and how often songs are being played on the radio as well as what version of the song (vital for remixes and mash ups). They offer free weekly charts for Top 200, Top 125 Independent, Top International, Top 50 Pop, Top 50 R&B/HipHop, Top 50 Country, Top 50 Christian/Gospel, Top 50 Adult Contemporary, and Top 50 Rock.
Another company named Triton Digital, a software company in the United States also measures worldwide Internet radio audience. It uses actual data collected from streaming servers rather than estimated data. [5]
StreamAnalyst is a web-based service (SaaS) that generates audience statistics reports for Internet radio and other streamed contents. [6]
NeuroMedia Software, also offer CasterStats, [7] a cloud based analytics as well as an on-premises version that can combine audience of podcasts and also radio on TV. The tool is currently in comparative studies such as CIM RSM [8] and the Danish Podcastindex. [9]
RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can be used as a streaming audio format, that is played at the same time as it is downloaded.
Nielsen may refer to:
Shoutcast is a service for streaming media over the internet to media players, using its own cross-platform proprietary software. It allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding format. The most common use of Shoutcast is for creating or listening to Internet audio broadcasts; however, there are also video streams. The software is available to use for free or as a paid cloud service with additional professional features.
Nielsen Audio is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging with Los Angeles–based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company's initial business was the collection of broadcast television ratings.
Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/January 1999 by Jack Moffitt and Barath Raghavan to provide an open-source audio streaming server that anyone could modify, use, and tinker with. Version 2, a ground-up rewrite aimed at multi-format support and scalability, was started in 2001 and released in January 2004.
LIVE365 is an Internet radio network which enables users to create their own online radio stations and listen to thousands of human curated stations. Online radio stations on the Live365 network were created and managed by music and talk enthusiasts, including both hobbyists and professional broadcasters. Live365 also has many well established AM and FM stations that use Live365 broadcasting platform to simulcast their terrestrial radio streams. The Live365 network also features radio stations from artists such as Johnny Cash, David Byrne, Pat Metheny, Jethro Tull, and Frank Zappa. Live365 was created in 1999, and remains one of the longest running internet radio websites for listeners and broadcasters.
Altacast is a free and open-source audio encoder that can be used to create Internet streams of varying types. Many independent and commercial broadcasters use Altacast to create Internet radio stations, such as those listed on the Icecast, Loudcaster and Shoutcast station directories.
Audience measurement calculates how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic. The term is sometimes used with regard to practices that help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening, rather than how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting numbers are referred to as audience share; in other places, the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also known as audience research. Measurements are broken down by media market, which corresponds to large and small metropolitan areas.
The Turtle Beach AudioTron AT-100 and AT-101 are 1U rack-mountable, hi-fi network music players. An AudioTron can stream digital music files from personal computers or NAS devices without the need to install server software on these storage devices since the AudioTron is based on Windows CE and is therefore a computer that looks like audio hardware. Supported file formats include Wave, WMA, MP3 and MP3 playlists. These files can reside on a Microsoft Windows network share or on a Samba server. AudioTron reads music files over Ethernet or HPNA network, and generates analog audio via RCA connectors as well as digital audio via S/PDIF.
The term ripping can also apply to radio. New software, techniques and cloud services now makes it possible to extract the songs played on the radio and digitally save them on separate audio tracks. Available techniques make it possible to rip the music from Internet radio broadcasts, satellite radio broadcasts and FM radio broadcasts.
The Portable People Meter (PPM), also known as the Nielsen Meter, was a system developed by Arbitron to measure how many people are exposed to individual radio stations and television stations. This also includes cable television. The PPM is worn like a pager and detects hidden audio tones within a station or network's audio stream, logging each time it finds a signal.
Médiamétrie, established in 1985, is a public limited company specialising in audience measurement and research into audio-visual and digital media usage in France. It is especially well known for its Audimat brand whose name is now part of everyday language; today, however, that brand is named Médiamat.
Internet radio, also known as Online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted broadly through wireless means. It can either be used as a stand-alone device running through the Internet, or as a software running through a single computer.
RadioIO is a New York–based internet radio and streaming media service owned by RadioIO, Inc. (RAIO) started in 1998. It was the first Internet radio company to be publicly traded.
TopHit is an internet service for musicians founded in 2003. Originating from Ukraine and Russia, it now works on global scale. It offers a variety of functions, main of them regular statistical music charts based on data from radio broadcasts and musical internet services such as YouTube and Spotify. Musicians are able to upload their songs and promote them via TopHit. The songs from Russian and worldwide singers become aggregated, tested, distributed and rotated on radio using TopHit's capabilities. Promotion of music videos is also available, as well as donations collecting system for supporting artists. Permanent users and partners of TopHit include over 5700 musicians, music groups, DJs and tens of record labels, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, BMG, Black Star Inc., Velvet Music and others.
Triton Digital, LLC, formerly Triton Media Group, is a digital audio technology and advertising company based in Los Angeles. The group was formerly owned by E. W. Scripps Company, which sold Triton to IHeartMedia in October 2020. The company works with audio publishers in over 35 countries including brands such as Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, AccuRadio, CBS Radio, and ESPN Radio.
OpenBroadcaster is a web-based, open-source system to run community radio and television broadcast transmitters with a simple web interface.
Radionomy was an online platform that provided tools for operating online radio stations. It was part of Radionomy Group, a company which later acquired the online streaming platform SHOUTcast from Nullsoft, and eventually consolidated Radionomy into its SHOUTcast service.