Pandora's first set of traditional radio ratings show that the popular streaming music service is doing strong numbers in the Top 10 markets, particularly among listeners 18 to 34 years old, Crain's New York Business reported.
In New York, Pandora garnered a 0.7 average quarterly hour rating among that younger demographic, beating out terrestrial stations Z100 and Hot 97, according to an analysis by the industry website Radio and Internet Newsletter. In New York it had a 0.5 rating among 18 to 49 year olds.
The company released the numbers in an effort to attract more advertising dollars from traditional radio media buyers.
"Radio is radio," Pandora's founder and chief strategy officer, Tim Westergren, said in a statement. "Pandora is simply a smart buy for local advertisers as well as national ones."
The rating represents a percentage of the target audience that listened to Pandora for at least five minutes within a quarter-hour period between 6 a.m. to midnight. The numbers were calculated by Edison Research from data provided by Pandora. Edison's analysis excludes Pandora One subscribers who are not served any ads.
The ratings were even higher in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, where Pandora garnered a 0.9 rating in the younger demo.
The strong numbers don't necessarily mean that advertisers will start pouring money into Pandora. The service, which is a kind of personalized, streaming juke box, has no disc jockeys or on-air personalities, which are considered key to building trust with audiences.
"Terrestrial radio engages with listeners in a unique way that Pandora cannot," said Deborah O' Rell, president of media buying agency Urban Communications. "But those numbers are [good] enough to be considered."
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Matthew Flamm is a reporter for Crain's New York Business.