20 million app downloads, 30,000 stations and 10 brands: radio.net takes stock and gives an outlook on the web radio market in 2016

• Arrived in Europe: rollout of international websites has accelerated growth;
• Well positioned for the future: web radio usage continues to increase; advertising budgets are migrating from FM to digital
• Web radio is mobile: already more than 75% of the platform’s traffic via mobile devices, app downloads reach the 20 million mark

Hamburg, 25 February 2016, As radio.net, Europe’s leading web radio aggregator, announced today, 2015 was the most successful year in the company’s now nine-year history. The relaunch in February last year and the simultaneous rollout of a number of further European brands have accelerated growth. With ten regional presences, from radio.de in Germany and radio.fr in France to radio.pt in Portugal, radio.net is represented in just as many countries and achieved 31.5 million web and mobile visits in December 2015.

Usage of radio.de

In terms of usage in Germany, two strong trends are emerging: the classic brands from the FM sector are following users onto the web, as the use of the internet as a transmission channel for radio services is steadily increasing. The same is true of the differentiation into specific genres and target groups in the web radio sector. Particularly successful genres such as Schlager and electronic music are covered primarily by web radios, while they hardly find any space on classic FM. The combination of both trends is exemplified by Antenne Bayern, a strong player in classic radio, which also makes it into the top 10 web radios on radio.de with specialized offerings such as “Antenne Bayern 80er” or “Top40”. radio.net aggregates 30,000 stations, web radios and podcasts from Germany and around the world. These include many well-known media brands, but also specialized niche offerings.

Top10 stations 2015 / radio.de

1. 1LIVE
2. SWR 3
3. Antenne Bayern
4. N-JOY
5. NDR 2
6. Top100Station
7. JAM FM
8. 1LIVE diggi
9. WDR 2
10. Bayern 3

Well positioned for the future

Two market movements are adding up to a positive overall trend for the web radio market: according to MA Radio II 2015, 28 million Germans already listen to radio via the internet often or occasionally. And the use of web radio continues to increase, strongly driven by apps and mobile website traffic. At radio.de, a good 75 percent of traffic is already mobile. Furthermore, advertising budgets are shifting from FM to digital: while budgets for classic radio have been shrinking slightly for years, the market for digital audio advertising continues to grow unabated, by a good 20 percent in 2015. Bernhard Bahners, Managing Director of radio.net, comments: “We foresee a pleasing development for the web radio market and for ourselves, with continued growth in listener numbers and double-digit growth in advertising revenue. Last year, we consolidated our position through our relaunch and international expansion, and we aim to continue growing above market level.”

About radio.net // radio.de GmbH

radio.de GmbH is the operator of the international service radio.net, as well as the regional services radio.de, radio.at, radio.fr, radio.es, radio.pt, radio.it, radio.pl, radio.se and radio.dk. After the successful launch of radio.de in 2007, the Europe-wide expansion began in 2008 and was continued outside Europe in 2015 with the launch of the international service radio.net. With just one click, the service offers access to more than 30,000 national and international stations, web radios and podcasts. The right station is always at hand on the go, too – the free app is available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, Windows Phones and BlackBerry10 devices. With the radio player, users can find purely internet-based stations as well as the online streams of well-known FM stations. In addition to editorial and personal listening tips, stations can be sorted by popularity, music genre, topic, city, country or language. According to IVW, radio.de is the largest radio platform in Germany with more than 20.3 million website and mobile visits per month.