Is it a radio station, or an internet station?

Public radio, "has it goin' on". During my weeks vacation, while we were in the car, we listened to a lot of traditional radio. You know, the AM/FM type.

On the FM dial, we listened to public radio from South Bend Indiana, Chicago, and Indianapolis, along with our Fort Wayne public radio station.

Nearly every talk show, every interview, even the occasioanl music show on Public Radio would invite you to download a podcast of what you just heard, or a podcast of more of what you just heard.

Have you ever been to NPR.org?

They have taken the steps to drive their radio listeners to their website. You can listen, you can watch, you can read, you can spend money on unique items. They have begun the process of transformation from a radio station to an internet station.

And on a related subject, the Marketing Charts people sent this study to my email:

Online Radio Reaches 33MM a Week, Listeners Tend to Be Social Networkers

Some 33 million Americans age 12 or older listen to a radio station over the internet during an average week - up from 29 million listeners one year ago - estimates the annual “Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms” report by Arbitron and Edison Media Research.

There is also a strong connection between online radio listening and social networking sites, according to the study, which will be released in April.

Among the findings:

• 13% of Americans age 12 or older (an estimated 33 million people) had listened to online radio in the previous week - an increase of two percentage points from January 2007.
• Though nearly one-quarter (24%) of all Americans age 12 or older have a profile on a social-networking site such as MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, nearly two-thirds (63%) of online radio listeners have a profile on such sites.
• One-third of online radio listeners with a social network profile visit their social networking site nearly every day or several times per day.
• The top social-networking sites among online radio listeners are MySpace and the business professional networking service LinkedIn:
  • 28% of online radio listeners have a MySpace page
  • Nearly one-quarter (24%) have a profile on LinkedIn.

“Social networking is clearly not about creating exclusive, self-enclosed communities,” said Diane Williams, senior analyst, custom research for Arbitron.

“We found that online radio listeners are more than one-and-one-half times more likely to have a profile on a social networking site as compared to average Americans and that they tend to be power-users, with one-third of online radio listeners logging on to their social networking site nearly every day or even multiple times per day.”

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