US Monthly Online Radio Listeners, 2013-2019 [CHART]

Although marketers realize digital radio has inherent limitations as a rich media or video medium, they are experimenting with novel ways to use the channel. Brands including Sony PlayStation, Anheuser-Busch and Procter & Gamble have tested a concept in which they “own” an hour of time on Pandora. If the listener opts in to an advertising message at the beginning of a session—say, watching a video ad—the next hour of listening is ad-free.

Automakers have particularly close affinities with digital radio because of the streaming apps’ native integrations with in-dash players. BMW partnered with Spotify to create customized playlists for specific US road trips. The BMW-branded app on Spotify served a video to users upon the initial playlist generation, and the final playlists were shareable on social media. Spotify reported that users created more than 14,000 playlists under the BMW program. Read the rest at eMarketer.