Smart speaker listening helps SCA to live radio streaming high

Southern Cross Austereo is reporting a new high of listeners tuning into live radio streams, with 1.5 million Aussies listening during August.

That represents an 88% jump year on year, while audiences are also listening 46% longer, to total 10 million listening hours in the month.

Growth in the uptake of Aussies tuning in on smart speakers has helped to fuel the numbers, with the 2.2 million listening hours reported, up 95% on last year.

Now almost a quarter of total live radio streaming (22%) happens on smart speakers.

“Digital audio in all its facets continues to explode and SCA is at the forefront of this transformational market. Audiences are embracing all digital audio and we are seeing massive growth in new, addressable advertising inventory that provides audiences at scale,” SCA chief sales officer, Brian Gallagher, said.

“It’s a compelling new opportunity for advertisers and enhances the ability for agencies and advertisers to target campaigns.”

SCA’s PodcastOne Australia also reported significant listener growth in the period from March 1 to August 31. Listening rose 167% over that time.

“As we enter spring, clients want campaigns that activate with changes to the weather such as ‘Pollen Count’, or that target specific radius catchment areas or post codes to deliver hyper-personalised brand messages,” Gallagher said.

“SCA’s significant mobile app audience also creates new opportunities for call to action for brands with our ShakeMe audio creative.

“By developing a script to encourage the audience to ‘Shake your phone now’, the creative drives website traffic, app downloads or can even place a call to a brand’s customer service line.

“Many of our clients in August saw the benefits with the new attributable audio creative generating high interaction rates with ad completion of more than 97%.”

SCA launched refreshed Hit and Triple M listening apps in July.