SCA reports 58% growth in unique digital listeners, again

Unique listeners across the Hit, Triple M and SoundCloud Radio digital assets have grown 58% year-on-year, according to Southern Cross Austereo (SCA).

These figures mimic those released last month, which showed unique listeners were up 58% from September 2019 to September 2020.

In September, unique listeners were 1.5 million, while in October the figure was 1.4 million.

Listening hours were also up 30% year-on-year for October, to 10.5 million, the same total listening hours as the month prior.

Live radio streaming boasted 9.1 million active streams, a climb of 15% on the year prior, but steady with the previous results.

SCA had 2.4 million listening hours from smart speakers, a 65% increase on October 2019, and up from 2.29 million for September. Smart speaker sessions averaged 2 hours and 26 minutes, on par with last month.

Brian Gallagher, SCA’s chief sales officer, said we had reached a watershed moment in Australian broadcasting under the cover of COVID.

“It is exciting to see the continued growth of digital listening occur as Australia recovers from the disruption of COVID,” he said. “We expected to see a return to normalised broadcast listening patterns and we are seeing that in the recently released Survey 7. We are also seeing the impressive growth of digital audiences.

“We have introduced audiences to flexibility in the way they engage with our services and it is apparent that they will continue to embrace this flexible approach well beyond the impact of COVID.”

Advertisers are also increasingly coming on board, he said.

“Pleasingly, these audiences are being embraced by advertisers, demonstrated by the number of active monthly campaigns more than tripling in volume year on year.”