Research agencies worldwide such as Arbitron in the USA, are seeing major audience trends changing from FM and AM to listening to radio online whilst surfing the Internet.
Glastonbury International Radio in Somerset began airing in March 2007 and has now gained a solid worldwide following and even attracted former BBC Radio One DJ Paul Burnett as a shareholder and presenter on the station.
MD Ross Hemsworth said today "I said five years ago that this would happen, but was laughed at by industry insiders on sites like Media UK and DigitalSpy, but here we are now making those people eat their own word"!
One site in the USA has agreed with Hemsworth also saying that Internet radio "is the new FM" See http://www.infinitedial.com/
DAB has not had the take-up the UK government had hoped for and is now taking second stage to Internet radios on the shelves of major retails such as PC World. The signal is often poor and listener numbers on DAB generally very low.
Hemsworth continued "We are not governed by the over-seers like OFCOM who dumb down the ability of free speech by licensed FM and AM stations, but the online stations are free to say it how it is. It's REAL radio presented by REAL people and the public love that reality"
Listeners are surfing the web whilst listening to online stations, which means they are also an attractive audience for advertisers who are seeing ACTUAL SALES online rather than just the usual radio "brand awareness"!
IR - the new FM!
