revenue

Pandora reports that not only are they better monetizing their growing mobile listening, but both its last quarter and fiscal 2013 mobile revenue grew faster than mobile listening during the same time periods.

Pandora revealed last week it grew its overall annual revenue 56% over the previous year. In a separate announcement, Pandora announced its February 2013 total listening hours, active listeners total, and share of total U.S. radio listening.

Pandora's fourth quarter total mobile revenue, $80.3 million, was up 111% year-over-year, will mobile listening grew 70% during the same period. For fiscal 2013, total mobile revenue was $255.9 million, up 105% year-to-year, and also outpacing strong mobile listening growth of 89%.

The leading web radio service says its overall fiscal 2013 revenue was $427.1 million. It also reported the year's final quarter's revenue totaled $125.1 million, 54% higher than the same quarter in fiscal year 2012.

During February, Pandora streamed 1.38 billion hours of content, a 42% jump from February of last year (it was 1.39 billion in January, a month with 3 more days). Active listeners were 67.7 million at the end of February 2013, up from 65.6 million in January, and a 37% increase over the same time period last year. Pandora says its share of total U.S. radio listening in February 2013 was 8.48%, an increase from 8.03% in January and 5.74% in February 2012.

Borrell Associates, in new research for the RAB, says radio's local digital ad revenues grew 22% in 2012 over the previous year -- slightly higher than the local media average of 20%. This follows news (in RAIN here) that radio's overall digital revenue was up 11%.

However, for the past three years radio has been losing local online market share to newspaper, TV, yellow pages and Internet companies, and radio's share of local online sits at just 2%.

"It looks like quite a few groups are breaking out and challenging their newspaper and TV competitors for a slice of that very large digital pie," said Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell (pictured). He expects online ad revenue to pass $420 million this year for radio.

RAB CEO and president Erica Farber (also pictured) said, "Revenue opportunities continue to grow for those who are pushing the digital limits with online and mobile initiatives." Farber, by the way, will keynote RAIN Summit West April 7 in Las Vegas. Please see more information here.

The new report is called "Benchmarking: Local Radio Stations’ Online Revenues," and is available to RAB members here. The RAB and Gordon Borrell will present the findings with a free webinar Thursday, March 7 (more info here).

Read more in NetNewsCheck here.

Ad buyers say they're going to be looking to digital media -- especially mobile and social -- at the expense of traditional media like print (and radio) in 2013. This however does not mean, eMarketer reports, that we'll see a huge migration of dollars away from traditional and towards digital this year.

The vast majority (82%) of U.S. marketers in a new study say they expect to "increase their focus" on mobile media, and only slightly less (76%) on social media (broken out separately from "social networking sites").

Those media that will lose marketers' focus the most: newspapers (32% said they expect to focus less), consumer magazines (28%), and radio (24%).

However, "while marketers expressed a clear understanding of the importance of digital media... they also expressed trepidation about the speed at which marketing can now change. Just over half of respondents, 54%, felt that their marketing team was unable to handle new technologies and trends."

Inavero conducted the poll of U.S. marketing professionals from October through November 2012 for staffing firm Aquent and the American Marketing Association (AMA). Read eMarketers coverage here. H/T to the jacAPPS blog.

Radio's digital revenue was part of the good news the Radio Advertising Bureau had for broadcasters on Friday.

The RAB's earnings report shows radio's Q4 2012 was up 4% (highest over the past eight quarters), and full-year spending rose for the third consecutive year. Digital revenue for radio was up 11% ($206 million) in the fourth quarter, and 8% in 2012 overall ($767 million). According to the RAB figures, digital now accounts for about 4.7% of radio's revenue.

RAB president & CEO Erica Farber will keynote RAIN Summit West April 7 in Las Vegas.

The RAB earnings press release is here.

A forecast from a new eMarketer report, "Internet Radio: Marketers Move In," has the U.S. Internet radio audience growing 11.1% to 147.3 million this year. "Expansion will continue for the next several years, though rates will taper off to single-digit percentages," says eMarketer.

During that time, eMarketer expects U.S. Internet radio ad revenues to hit $970 million, then grow to $1.31 billion by 2016 (this includes all streaming, website, text, e-mail, and mobile advertising, and advertising on HD Radio). The news source points out that while positive, these growth forecasts are more modest than those for other digital media.

"Still, advertisers are eager to attach their brands to internet broadcasting and other music-streaming properties. There are several reasons for this, among them: the appeal of associating a brand with a particular genre or artist; the extent to which internet radio is driven primarily by ads; and the appeal of in-steam audio ads, which are harder to avoid or skip than other forms of digital advertising," reads the eMarketer press release.

See more, including a link to purchase the report, here.

Pandora revealed its third quarter financial figures yesterday, and can now say growth in mobile revenues have caught (and is outpacing) growth of its mobile audience.

[We reported this week that comScore figures show Pandora, with 77% of its total listening hours now from mobile, is the Internet's most "mobile-centric" company here.]

And while earnings (as well as audience growth -- Pandora reports 3Q13 total listener hours of 3.56 billion, up 67% year-over-year; with 59.2 million "active users," up 47% year-over-year) appear quite healthy, Pandora's stock dropped once again in after-hours trading, as the service battles with the music industry to secure a more favorable royalty structure.

For the three months ending October 31, 2012 (Pandora's fiscal 2013 third-quarter), Pandora made $120 million ($106.3 million from advertising; $13.7 million from subscriptions -- both up from last year). While that's up 60% from the same period last year, the company's "content acquisition costs" (aka royalties) rose 75%.

As mentioned, the gem in its revenue news is mobile. Pandora reports 3Q13 total mobile revenue of $73.9 million, 112% growth year-over-year. It was at the end of this time period that the service launched Pandora 4.0, its most significant mobile app redesign ever (here). The aim, of course, is that by enhancing the usability of the app, and increasing the value of interacting with it, it also increases the value of accompanying advertising.

Pandora now says it employs sales managers in 27 of the country's top 40 radio markets, and has local account execs on the street in 17. Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy told investors yesterday to expect "significant additional hiring" approaching a total of 100 local sellers, Tom Taylor reports.

"Be prepared to hear about 'RPM' – Pandora’s internal metric of advertising revenue earned per thousand listening hours," writes Taylor.

See Pandora's 3Q13 financials here. And read some excellent reporting on this in Tom Taylor Now here.