Trulia is starting a $45 Million ad campaign with some calling it a “bet the company” move. Interestingly their choice for audio is Internet radio as noted in a PandoDaily article this morning:
Trulia’s radio spot, destined for Pandora and iHeart Radio, will drive listeners insane before the year is up, with a voiceover relentlessly rapping on the word Trulia: cruelia, foolia, youlia, carpoolia, toolia.
The RAB just released 2013 radio industry revenue information which reflected no growth over 2013 in total. However, while spot radio was down 3%, digital revenue increased 18% over 2012. The percentage of digital revenue is still small, only 5%. Digital represents the greatest hope for increasing radio revenue.
We need better information on the components of digital revenue as there are many;
Angel Street Capital, LLC recently completed an investment in flexReceipts, Inc. based in Orlando, FL.
flexReceipts, the leading enhanced digital receipts solution, offers retailers a post-sale opportunity to communicate with their customers. flexReceipt’s enriched receipts build customer loyalty and drive sales, while allowing retailers to monitor spending habits and shopping trends. The company’s patent-pending software allows retailers to add social media links, videos and customized offers to digital receipts. Go Beyond the Sale! Learn more at www.flexreceipts.com
Watch the product offering video here.
Last week we closed on an investment in Closely. Closely has brought a number of local merchant marketing tools together in one platform.
The Company has just launched Perch 2.0 which brings reviews, social posts and promotions for you and your competition, all in one place. A significant change in this new version is the new Home screen where activity of all watched businesses is shown in a live stream. Popular posts are highlighted, so it’s really easy to understand which activity is most popular with consumers.
Nielsen has announced plans to utilize the same audience panels for website measurement for measurement of Internet radio. As I have espoused for many years why would you use estimates when you can have actual audience data. That is one of the great features of Internet radio and helps advertisers have more confidence in audience data. Of course the other great attribute is an advertiser can actually know that an ad was heard unlike terrestrial radio where affidavits just reflect the fact that the ad was played but no data is available as to how many people heard the ad (other than to apply the estimated audience).
Given Nielsen’s clout they may be able to pull this off but I don’t believe its a good thing for Internet radio.
Ever since the rise of Pandora’s audience there has been an effort to try to position the service as “not radio”. I understand the defensive posture that terrestrial radio would like to take but in my view anything that competes with you is probably quite similar in nature. Consumption of audio takes many forms but in the end there are only so many hours in a day. Listening to Pandora most likely means less time spent listening to terrestrial radio (or did all of the 69.5 million active Pandora users never listen to terrestrial radio?). We can argue about which form listeners prefer. Currently terrestrial radio has the lion share of listening. Pandora’s audience seems to have peaked.
Frankly I’m surprised that Pandora has not attempted more music curation and localization (they certainly have the user data given registration). Could I choose which version I want? Time will tell.
As one of the founders of Ando Media I keenly follow developments in measuring Internet radio audience. As can be seen in the following graph, terrestrial radio’s Internet radio audience has flatlined for some time, no pulse, no signs of life.
This data is taken from Triton Digital’s monthly audience ranker (formerly Ando Media). The slight dip in July 2011 represents a summer seasonal decline as this same listening pattern happened in 2010. Of course Pandora stands out on this graph. The top 5 broadcasters include Clear Channel and CBS. They have a long way to go to catch Pandora. I am hopeful that Clear Channel will close at least some of the gap due to its elimination of all ads in its streams and new customization options announced 9/8/11. The most recent Triton Digital ranker for September is too soon so reflect any impact these moves may have.
I have just read Steve Jobs biography. He stated that “if you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” This is the position the radio industry is in. Many broadcasters are afraid that promoting their stream will result in declines in their over the air audience. Yes it may in the short term but long term it’s either offer the listener what they want or they will go elsewhere. Where did all of that Pandora listening come from?
This is the position the radio industry is in. All stations should cut back substantially on their ad units. This is one tactic that stations can take immediately and increase their audience. Sell two spots per hour make it a premium offering to advertisers. These two advertisers get audio, preroll and display opportunities. Make sure there are a number of different creatives for each ad type to avoid listener fatigue. This is only step one in what terrestrial radio stations that are streaming need to accomplish. Personalization and customization are next.
Yesterday at the Radio Ink Convergence Conference in San Jose Slacker’s CEO stated they had 26 million listeners. In their IPO filing Pandora stated they had over 80 million registered users. I’m sure what Slacker’s CEO meant to say is that they have 26 million registered users. There is a big difference between registered users and audience. A large number of people may register and never use the service. Actual audience is measured by Ando Media (now Triton Digital). For the most recent data released, March 2011, Slacker and Pandora had an AAS of 39,697 and 599,214, respectively for the time period Monday-Friday 6 AM – 8 PM. AAS is defined at Total Listening Hours (TLH) divided by the number of hours in the reported time period. TLH is defined as the total number of hours that the station has streamed during sessions with a duration of at least one minute in total within the reported time period. AAS in general reflects the average number of people listening. For Slacker and Pandora this represents .15% and .75% respectively of their registered users. Both companies cannot monetize registered users, it’s the audience that actually use the service that matters.
Angel Street Capital recently completed an investment in Go Local, LLC, the parent of Go Local Providence, LLC.
GoLocal24 is creating the next model for local digital news and information .
By providing high value local content, GoLocal24 is creating a highly efficient, scalable and highly monetizable mid-sized market model for next generation media.
In GoLocal24’s first market Providence, RI, GoLocalProv.com http://GoLocalProv.com> is the “go to” local Web experience that breaks the biggest local stories – sports, high school sports – GAME ON, weather, news, politics, arts, entertainment – and it allows users to go as deep as they wish. In less than ten months, the platform reached 30% market share.
Leveraging branded, credible, and respected contributors, GoLocal creates the content, social experience and advertising opportunity that is unmatched. Information is delivered through multimedia, written, and video platforms and, thus GoLocal24 is creating the model for local-content media.
Angel Street Capital has invested in CMP.LY’s Series Seed Preferred Stock offering. Tech Crunch coverage of the CMP.LY funding can be viewed at http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/23/cmply-raises-750k-seed-round/
CMP.LY’s patent-pending system of iconic compliance tools is the first, and only, commercial solution to address the unique challenges of disclosure in social media. CMP.LY codes and badges provide clear disclosure on their own and also link back to complete disclosures as required for regulatory needs and documented best practices. CMP.LY makes it easy for marketers to include the disclosures required by the FTC and the OFT in sponsored blog posts, Facebook updates, and even Tweets. The company is developing similar tools to allow companies to comply with FDA, SEC/FINRA and other regulations. The company also provides tools to document and report on compliance and measure campaign-specific ROI.
