On TiVo, users can create a new free Pandora account, or sign-in with an existing Pandora accounts and access their current station on television. Users can access Pandora stations created on TiVo or any other platform where they listen to Pandora, including PCs, smartphones and other connected devices.

“The Pandora application brings additional music customization to the all-in-one TiVo box," said Jim Denney, VP and GM of Product Marketing for TiVo.

"With Pandora now available on TiVo Premiere, we offer customers even more options when it comes to music including personalized on-demand radio, audio podcasts, music videos, music from your PC, and more through the TV and with just one remote."

Pandora joins TiVo’s current musical lineup of Rhapsody, Live365, Music Choice and songs connected from a PC or Mac music library.

The site was created by Nikhil Shah and Nico Perez with the intention of creating a space where DJs and radio presenters can share and promote their mixes and shows without having to use file sharing sites, according to Wikipedia. Mat Clayton is named as a third co-founder on the site.

"We’re friends old and new (many of whom met at Cambridge University) connected by our love for radio, problem solving and building exciting new projects," the team says. "It was through this intersection of interests that we realised there’s an obvious problem on the Internet that we need to fix – that of connecting radio shows, DJ mixes and Podcasts to listeners."

"We think all these forms of content offer a very similar listening experience – a ‘Cloudcast’ – that is curated by a human enthusiast or expert," the Mixcloud team adds. "That’s the important bit – we’ve always discovered great new things through people we respect, so we want to help guide listeners to those people more easily."

Mixcloud is still in beta, and has a ways to go in terms of content if it wants to become the "YouTube" of radio. The concept is a good one though, and it will be interesting to see if it becomes successful. It’s going to take a lot of users jumping on board, and if the buzz it is already starting to generate is any indicator, it just may have a shot. Either way, it’s one to keep an eye on.

"In 2006, we launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation to create a new revenue stream for broadcast radio, produce more relevant advertising for listeners and streamline the buying and selling of radio ads," says Google’s Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management. "While we’ve devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven’t had the impact we hoped for."

However, don’t count Google out of the audio world entirely. They are simply shifting focus to streaming audio.

"We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space," explains Wojcicki. "In addition, we will continue to invest in our growing TV advertising business, where we can measure audience response and help advertisers understand how effective their ads are."

The fact that she calls the TV advertising business "growing" is probably a good sign that that part of Google’s advertising business is not going down the same path as the radio one yet. Frankly, I can’t see an AdWords-based television advertising platform not being popular enough to keep.

Advertisers will continue to be able to use Google Audio Ads until May 31. Broadcasters will also be able to publish inventory to Google until then.

The report, "Online Music Spins and Media Spend: 2003 – 2012," found that AOL’s Shoutcast platform remains the most popular destination for online music, accounting for 52.5 percent of total time spent listening, followed by Clear Channel sites with 7.8 percent.

Shoutcast cumulative music hours grew from 47 percent in 2008 compared to 27.9 percent for music listening hours supported by ads, up from 10.6 percent growth in 2007, a year revised royalty guidelines were put into place.

Paul Palumbo

An analysis of ad-supported music listening found Clear Channel to be the market leader, with a 16.5 percent share, followed by AOL Radio with 13.2 percent share. The two major radio subscription services have a combined 6.7 percent share.

Ad-supported music hours as a percentage of total online listening has decreased each year since 2005, making up 44.2 percent in 2008; a trend expected to continue.

Sell-out rates improved in 2008 to an estimated 45 percent, up from 35 percent in 2007, and are forecast to reach 50 percent in 2009. Webcasters are allocating anywhere from 6 – 9 avails per listening hour, and CPMs range from $3 – $10+ for in-stream audio, $20 for video.

An analysis of the online music royalty structure adopted in 2007 suggest that by taking the average estimated hourly listeners of 341,509 (based on 2.9 billion hours), and applying licensing rates equally across site s generating $84 million in 2008 media sales, that about $40 million would be owed to rights organizations, or 48.3 percent of the gross.

"Online music programmers are passionate about radio, and adapting their businesses to an inspired yet challenging marketplace. In 2009 their focus is on running lean, efficient operations, capping international streams while pitching local, regional and national avails," said Paul A. Palumbo, research director, AccuStream Research.

The new player is powered by CBS Radio, and allows users to skip songs, add unlimited channel presets and share streams with AIM users.

Browsers that support Adobe Flash v.9 can access AOL Radio with no sign-up required and users of AIM 6.0 and higher can listen to AOL Radio through the mini-player in their buddy list. Integration with AIM is included in the browser-based player through the “share this” tab, allowing users to share stations they are listening to with their buddies.

AOL Radio users will be able to access a collection of CBS Radio programming including WFAN-AM, 1010 WINS in New York, KLSX and KRQQ in Los Angeles, WXRT in Chicago, and WVEE in Atlanta. AOL Radio includes more than 200 stations in 25 musical categories.

Along with the new player, AOL plans to release downloadable versions of AOL Radio for Winamp and the Mac in the coming weeks, and is working on widgets that will let users access stations directly from other AOL and third-party applications.

“The new AOL Radio underscores AOL’s ongoing commitment to provide users with the best all encompassing radio experience available,” said Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President, AOL. “With over 350 streams, 150 of them from CBS Radio, AOL Radio is unmatched in breadth of streaming audio content available online.”
 

The number of people who listen to the radio online has increased from 12 percent in 2007 to 20 percent in 2008. During the same period the number of workers listening to traditional radio dropped from 88 percent to 80 percent.

The research revealed that education played a big role in workers choosing to listen to radio online. Thirty percent of college graduates listen to online radio most often compared to 12 percent of non-college graduates.

"For a growing number of people, obviously especially among those whose work is in front of a computer all day, the Internet is simply a better solution for ‘radio’ listening than a traditional AM/FM Radio," said Larry Rosin, president of Edison Media Research.

"Thus radio stations need to think about the quality of their streams, and promote their streams. After all, on the Internet, the competition is not just the other stations in town; instead the possibilities are essentially infinite."

Marketers should be able to take advantage of the growing online radio audience listening during working hours.