9-9-2014
During his annual ?State of the Industry? address in Indianapolis Tuesday, RAIN Publisher Kurt Hanson said it?s a slow decline, but AM/FM radio is indeed declining as consumers move more toward personalized radio (Hanson is also CEO of AccuRadio -- a personalized online radio company). Breaking it down to basic numbers, Hanson says there are about 3 million online listeners compared to about 25 million to 30 million AM/FM listeners. And he says that if the pace of moving from traditional radio over to online radio continues, online listening will equal AM/FM listening in six to eight years.
Hanson noted that online listening is growing 15-20 percent every year, and he singled out the growth of Pandora, which he says, will eventually generate $1 billion in annual revenue. He had one comment about AM radio: ?It seems like it?s in its final years.? Hanson has been hosting the annual RAIN Summit since 2000.
