If you recall 2017, you probably remember Maroon 5, fidget spinners, and Pandora — none of which, it turns out, are as popular now as they were then. That’s especially the case for ad-supported Pandora, as noted in Westwood One’s weekly blog.
“Ad-supported Pandora’s daily reach has been cut in half [since 2017],” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says, citing a side-by-side comparison of Edison Research’s quarterly “Share of Ear” report for Q2 2017 with Q2 2024, showing that the double-digit share of persons 18+ listening daily to ad-supported Pandora during the former period has dropped to just 6%. Plus, as Bouvard notes, “At a 63% daily reach, AM/FM radio’s audience is ten times larger than Pandora, [and] the 11% daily reach of AM/FM radio streaming is double that of ad-supported Pandora (6%).”
Over those seven years, audience shares for ad-supported Pandora have seen double-digit declines in nearly every key demographic — with the exception of persons 65+. The drops are most notable among demo cells in ages ranging from 13 to 44.
A look at Google search trends shows that overall, interest in Pandora has steadily declined since 2012, with a sharp fall over the past 16 years. “Pandora’s current consumer interest levels are just 5% of its 2008 heyday,” Bouvard says.
Virtually across the board, according to Edison, AM/FM radio’s dominance among all ad-supported media dwarfs that of Pandora — 69% vs. 5% overall, 86% vs. 2% in cars, and, perhaps most important for advertisers this year, 69% vs. 4% among registered voters.
Yet, the reality of those shares still doesn’t match what most marketers with media budget decision-making responsibility believe, based on the findings of Advertiser Perceptions’ August survey of more than 300 agencies and advertisers. AM/FM radio’s estimated audience share averaged 27% vs. the actual 69%, while the estimate for ad-supported Pandora, at 18%, more than tripled the actual 5%. Even ad-supported Spotify averaged a perceived 25% vs. its actual 4%.
“Perceptions came nowhere close to actual audience shares, [as] advertisers and agencies wildly overestimate Spotify and Pandora’s audiences and dramatically understate AM/FM radio audiences,” Bouvard notes. “To create informed planning decisions, marketers and agencies should take the ‘me’ out of ‘media’ and fully understand today’s media behaviors.”
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