Internet Music Radio and Track Plays Chart 4.8 Billion Listening Hours in 2007

According to AccuStream Research: online music radio (live streaming channels and streamed individual track plays) generated 4.85 billion total listening hours in 2007:

Total listening hours averaged 404.2 million hours per month (excluding downloaded music), compared to a 320.5 million hour average in 2006, including leading music subscription services such as Napster, Yahoo Music and Rhapsody.

In 2007, SomaFM averaged about 5 million listener hours a month. (We've been averaging 6.4 million per month since December 2007.) If those numbers are right, then 1.23% of all net radio listening is to SomaFM!

They go on to say:

The two leading subscription services combined captured approximately 4% of listening hour share in 2007.

The two leading subscription services is apparently includes Napster, Yahoo Music and Rhapsody.

Now I think these numbers are for US only listeners. If that's the case, our US numbers are only about 40% of our total listeners. Still that gives us about half a percent of all US radio listeners, and one can extrapolate that we have about 1/4th the audience that Napster, Yahoo Music and Rhapsody each have.

Frankly, I find that a bit hard to believe, unless you factor in that most people listen to us for much longer times than they listen to the subscription services, or else the subscription services don't have that many customers.

Regardless, it's very exciting to see that we've been able to make such a dent in net radio listening. I hope we can keep playing the music our listeners love, and hope we continue to find new listeners and grow.

via Yahoo Biz