Web gets more listeners than AM/FM

People using the web to listen to radio during the evening now outnumber those using traditional AM or FM receivers, according to Virgin.

Nearly one in four (24 per cent) listens online compared with 21 per cent who tune in to analogue broadcasts. Seventeen per cent use digital (Dab) radio and nine per cent get the programmes via their TV. The remaining 29 per cent represent the proportion of Virgin regulars who do not tune in at all on a given day.

The figures cover listeners outside London where the reception may be weaker. But Virgin digital media director James Cridland said they show radio is flourishing in the new convergent environment.

He dismissed the idea that 'people’s radio' in the form of DIY podcasts could threaten commercial broadcasting. 'People who believe that underestimate the power of the brand,' he said, pointing out that professional podcasts dominate the top 20 downloads of the format.

But Virgin is embracing podcasts as 'essentially an extension of traditional broadcasting,' Cridland said in a keynote at the Internet World show in London’s Earls Court

Virgin believed very much in getting listeners involved in providing content but this worked best as part of a profession programme in which it could be filtered for quality – otherwise you ended up with the kind of empty chatter you get on the teenage socialising site Myspace.

Cridland said there was a place for 'personalised' web based radio that tries to 'learn' your taste or delivers the kind of music you say you like.

But he said people will still want to switch on the radio and listen to whatever comes on. 'You don't need to train your radio to use it,' he said.

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