People, Not Algorithms, Do It Better

People do it better. That’s what AccuRadio has discovered as it’s looked at the data around skips. The streaming music service’s hundreds of channels are curated by human beings, many of whom are musicians and seasoned programmers. While Spotify’s skip rate is approximately 40-50% overall (and Pandora’s free tier limits skips), AccuRadio’s skip rate is a mere 4% and their average listening session is more than 3x the competition, logging in at over 2 hours.

“We have always thought people made better programmers than algorithms working alone,” says Kurt Hanson, radio veteran and AccuRadio founder and CEO.

“Listening sessions times and skip rates can arguably be used as an engagement benchmark. Our engagement is more sustained and reliable, and that’s thanks to our curation, which puts experienced, music-loving humans in the driver’s seat.”

AccuRadio disproves the notion that digital music consumption has led to shorter attention spans, more browsing, and less interest in listening for longer periods. Digital listening sessions can be long and habitual, the service discovered, by harnessing the best aspects of broadcast radio with certain key personalization features and a large number of highly specialized (and often wonderfully quirky) channels.

“Human programmers make sure the music makes sense, that there are no bizarre or jarring moments, but also that nothing is too banal or tired,” Hanson notes. “They’ve already put the work into the music and themes they’re programming, so listeners can lean back and enjoy it.”