The Rapidly Growing New Media Market

Online music and video, podcasting, blogging, satellite and Internet radio and television have created new models for how audiences discover, access, and experience the arts.

If you are responsible for arts marketing, the traditional means of delivering your message via newspaper, radio, and direct mail is no longer effective; the good news is that more people are using their computers for information gathering and entertainment purposes. A new model of “self-publishing” has emerged with blogging, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all experiencing explosive growth.

In April 2009, Arbitron and Edison Media Research reported that podcasting audiences expanded from 18 percent of all adults in 2008 to 22 percent in 2009. Forty-three percent of Americans are aware of podcasts, up from 37% last year. Twenty-two percent of Americans have listened to a podcast (up from 18% in 2008), and approximately 27 million (or 11%) have listened to one within in the past month (up from 9% last year). More good news is that our younger audiences are already fluent with these technologies.

Internet video consumption continues to grow at an amazing pace, with approximately 69 million, or 27% of people, watching online video sometime in the past week. That figure is up from 18% in 2008.

The growth of Internet music services and portable audio players has been nothing short of staggering. There are now over 260 million iPods worldwide.  Edison Media Research also reports now that more than four in ten people (42%) own an iPod, iPhone, or other kind of portable media/mp3 player.

In February 2010, the iTunes Music Service announced its 10 billionth download. The New York Times has reported that 12% of all iTunes downloads are of the classical genre.

In April 2010, Twitter announced it has has over 100 million subscribers sending an average of 55 million tweets each day.   And Twitter's search engine receives around 600 million search queries per day.
 
Internet radio continues to grow rapidly. In April 2009, Arbitron and Edison Media Research estimated that 42 million Americans age 12 or older listen to a radio station over the Internet during an average week – up from 33 million listeners one year ago. There is also a strong connection between online radio listening and social networking sites according to the study. Listeners to online radio are more likely to have a profile on a social networking site (like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn), 54%, than the general population, of whom 34% have a social network presence.

Sirius XM satellite radio now has over 19 million subscribers, offering 3 classical music stations. Growth estimates place the number of subscribers in the range of 28 million by 2013.

You can take advantage of these developments and incorporate them into your business as new marketing and revenue enhancement opportunities.