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 The streaming media measurement company's figures showed that around 2 million people globally tuned into radio on the Web during the month, with the most avid listeners residing in the United States, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Mexico. Around 70 percent of listeners were men and more than half were under 35. The figures also showed that the bulk of on-line radio listening is done during work hours.
Topping the charts for the most popular station on-line were two London-based broadcasters: Virgin Radio, which streamed 739,651 hours of music to 99,878 people, and JazzFm, which took second place by streaming 682,224 hours to 157,225 listeners. The Internet-only broadcaster Cablemusic Christmas Classic came in third with 506,197 hours streamed to 81,914 people.
No Irish broadcasters figured in the month's top 50 list, which also included sports talk radio from ESPN.
Overall, for the year 2001 Measurecast reported a massive increase in the take-up of the Internet for radio listening, with the total time spent listening on-line quadrupling between January and December.
The figures are further evidence of the growing popularity of Web-streamed audio, a market that hardware manufacturers are also embracing now with more enthusiasm. This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Philips officially launched its Streamium MC-i 200, a new home hi-fi stereo that connects to the Internet.
Philips said it would partner with audio streaming companies including MP3.com, AOL Music and Radio Free Virgin to provide content for the micro hi-fi, which is chiefly aimed at users with a broadband connection.
Philips said users would be able to choose their on-line listening from personalised radio stations or playlists of personally selected MP3s, stored in a secure on-line jukebox and then streamed to the system. The Streamium also plays standard CDs and MP3-CDs.
Guy Demuynck, senior vice-president of Royal Philips Electronics and also chief executive officer of Philips Consumer Electronics, said the Streamium was a key part of Philip's plan to encourage the use of the Internet beyond the PC. "We are taking on-line music and, for the first time, streaming it via a dedicated micro hi-fi system, with all the sound quality and audio enjoyment that will entail," Demuynck said.
The Streamium shows track and artist information on a five-line LCD display, details that will be provided by the service providers streaming the content. The product was one of the 12 for which Philips won an Innovations 2002 Award this year from the Consumer Electronics Association.
Philips said the Streamium will be introduced in the second half of 2002 in the United States, Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region although local pricing and availability will not be announced until nearer the date of introduction.
The device is Philip's second system designed to connect to a broadband home gateway, following the introduction of the FW-i1000 Internet Audio hi-fi in 2000.
Also at the show this week Philips is demonstrating wireless digital content delivery via an Internet Audio system streaming music content via a WiFi 802.11b local area network. Demuynck said Philips has also formed a dedicated business group responsible for developing and applying wireless technologies in specific appliances.
More information is at http://www.audio.philips.com.
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