According to a new report by broadcasting research firm Arbritron, iPods and portable media players are one of the fastest-growing audio platforms, but the audience for traditional radio remains strong.

While Arbitron’s analysis paints a fairly rosy picture of the state of radio, their stats confirm several industry trends that may cause concern for traditional radio broadcasters:

• More and more people are getting portable media players. The percent of Americans that have portable media players grew from 22% to 30% in the last year.
• Many portable media player owners listen to less radio. Arbitron reports that about a third of those that own iPods or other portable media players listen to less radio as a result.
• Podcasting is one of the few audio platforms seeing significant growth. Awareness of podcasting has lept ahead of HD radio, and its audience is catching up with Internet radio’s audience.
• The audience that traditional media is losing to Internet media tends to be young and affluent.

Report highlights:

• iPod/Portable MP3 player ownership continues to rise. Thirty percent of Americans age 12 and older own an iPod or other brand of portable MP3 player; this figure has risen from 22 percent in 2006 and 14 percent in 2005. More than half (54 percent) of those age 12-17 own a digital audio player.
• iPod/Portable MP3 player owners listening to less radio. About one in three Americans that own a portable media player reports listening to less radio as a result. About half report that the device has had no impact on their radio listening habits.
• AM/FM radio continues to have a big impact on people‚Äôs lives. The study asked consumers to rate the impact different digital audio platforms has on their lives. Nearly one in five (19 percent) consumers said radio has a big impact on their lives; ranking second only to mobile phones (35 percent) as the audio platform/device that has the biggest impact on the lives of its users.
• Podcasting use is up 18%, but trails awareness. Awareness of podcasting has jumped from 22 percent in 2006 to 37 percent in 2007. In that time, those having ever listened to an audio podcast have risen from 11 percent to 13 percent.
• Digital radio is not stealing the traditional radio audience. Those who listen to digital radio platforms do not spend less time listening to AM/FM radio. Among all persons 12 and older who participated in the study, the average time spent listening per day to AM/FM radio was 2 hours, 37 minutes compared with 2 hours, 45 minutes a day among those who use radio‚Äôs newer digital platforms (listened to online radio in the last month, or subscribe to satellite radio, or have ever listened to an audio podcast).
• The weekly Internet radio audience remains steady over the past year at an estimated 29 million. Eleven percent of the U.S. population age 12 and older have listened to Internet radio in the past week; 16 percent of persons age 18-34 and 14 percent of persons 18-49 have done so.
• Awareness of HD Radio nearly doubled in the past year. In January 2007, 26 percent said they had heard or read about HD Radio recently, compared to 14 percent in January 2006; however, only 6 percent said they were ‚Äúvery‚Äù interested in HD Radio.

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