Seven months ago Ando Media announced that they would be seeking Media Rating Council accreditation. At the time, Paul Krasinski the company’s COO, stated:
Accreditation will not only validate our metrics, but it will give the Internet audio industry a measurement standard that's been validated at the very highest level.
Responding to Ando’s announcement, MRC’s executive director George Ivie declared:
(Ando Media's) participation in the audit and accreditation process demonstrates its leadership in bringing greater transparency and accountability to this emerging media space.
We wonder how the accreditation process is going.
The reputation of Internet radio’s gold standard in online metrics might be a little tarnished. It has been over two months since Ando released its monthly Internet Audio Top 20 ratings. The February ratings were announced on April 1st, and since then nothing.
Years ago when Arbitron tried to embargo their top line numbers, radio trades (justifiably) rose up in righteous indignation.There hasn’t been a similar reaction to Ando Media’s disappearance.
Maybe because no one noticed?
The reason we’ve been waiting for the release is the growing evidence that Internet radio consumption has peaked.
It was an issue we first raised in April when we noted that according to Arbitron research, Internet radio stalled in 2009. We revisited the issue in May using Ando Media trends that raised further questions about the future of Internet radio.
We had hoped to do additional analysis with Ando’s March ratings, but Ando Media ratings seem to be MIA. We attempted to contact the company regarding the missing ratings with no response.
Last time this happened, Ando Media was changing their methodology to boost the apparent ratings of their clients. Perhaps the company is once again tweaking the numbers to make sure Internet radio continues to grow.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Comments