Digital Audio Experiencing Shifts In Usage

Consumers are tuning into digital audio differently now that home is the new office. As fewer listeners commute due to the coronavirus pandemic, downloads for podcasts are declining. But there are bright spots, as genres such as science, cooking, health, news and kids’ music see a surge, AdAge reports.

Advertising is another story. Podcast creators are seeing a rise in media buyers blacklisting shows that discuss coronavirus—a trend first seen with online news publishers. And some brands, particularly those in the retail and service categories, are hitting pause on their digital audio ad spend.

Alexis van de Wyer

“We are either seeing canceling budgets or postponing campaigns,” says Alexis van de Wyer, CEO at Pandora-owned AdsWizz, the largest programmatic audio exchange in the market. “The type of advertisers is also changing: Auto dealerships, brick-and-mortar stores, sports, casinos—all those categories are getting hammered.”

Van de Wyer says there’s been almost a 30 percent drop in second-quarter bookings, citing recently released research from the IAB. “That is massive,” he says.

Erica Farber

Similar to out-of-home, digital audio captures much of its traffic from the 157 million people who make up the U.S. workforce. Of those, nearly 77 percent drove alone to work each day, according to the 2016 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the latest available. “A lot of listening happened during the commute,” van de Wyer says. “We see that almost entirely disappearing.”

U.S. podcast downloads fell each week during the last three weeks of March (down 1 percent, 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively), according to Podtract, which provides measurement data for advertisers. Popular genres also fell, including tech (19 percent), history (17 percent) and sports (10 percent).

The disappearing commute has only somewhat affected traditional radio: 83 percent of those 18 and older said they tuned in the same or more during the pandemic, claims Erica Farber, president and CEO of Radio Advertising Bureau.

Conal Byrne

Still, consumer behaviors have changed, as people tune into digital audio at various parts of the day versus the typical hours associated with a daily commute. About 80 percent of listening is also now happening in homes, which has prompted a 100 percent surge in use of devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, according to van de Wyer.

Conal Byrne, president of iHeartRadio Podcast Network, says the network, which includes some 350 different shows, is actually up 6 percent month-over-month, adding that the figure is even higher in markets where shelter-in-place-orders are in effect such as California (13 percent increase) and New York (8 percent).

iHeartMedia, like Pandora and Spotify, is pitching to advertisers their ability to quickly change a brand’s messaging so it’s not tone-deaf. The fast turnaround is something video can’t offer, audio streaming giants say.

Byrne adds: “I’m not pretending there won’t be disruption to second-quarter revenue, but we are not seeing waves of cancellations like some other media types.”

With so many people are working from their homes, it’s good to know that the importance of radio in listeners lives is strong, the Radio Research Consortium, stated in a report. RRC is an independent, not-for-profit research firm that provides audience data to non-commercial radio stations. “In the challenging days ahead, this will more likely become a stronger bond.”

The latest Nielsen Scarborough USA+ database shows that 90.1% of those persons who always or mostly work at home are reached by AM/FM radio each week compared with 87.5% of the total population

The work from home group also listens longer than the overall population.