When it comes to Average Active Sessions, Pandora remains king of the audio streaming hill according to the latest stats from Triton Digital. Triton measured results for April 2015.
Spotify was #2, while predictably, iHeart was the leader among companies with significant terrestrial radio assets.
Terrestrial figure into the assets of 14 of the companies listed among Triton’s top 20, but total listening to all 14 doesn’t come remotely close to the total listening of #2 Spotify, which itself isn’t even within shouting distance of #1 Pandora.
According to Triton, digital listening is increasing fastest in Boston, Phoenix, Seattle-Tacoma, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Pittsburgh.
Here are the top 20, ranked by Average Active Sessions and including average time spent listening.
| Rank | Service | AAS | TSL |
| 1 | Pandora | 2,421,047 | 0.59 |
| 2 | Spotify | 904,490 | 0.42 |
| 3 | iHeart | 345,687 | 0.70 |
| 4 | CBS | 57,095 | 0.84 |
| 5 | Slacker | 56,489 | 0.43 |
| 6 | Cumulus | 54,039 | 0.79 |
| 7 | NPR | 45,462 | 0.80 |
| 8 | ESPN | 31,741 | 0.62 |
| 9 | EMF | 21,693 | 1.38 |
| 10 | idobi | 17,451 | 1.98 |
| 11 | Townsquare | 13,058 | 1.61 |
| 12 | Greater Media | 13,029 | 0.94 |
| 13 | Salem | 11,654 | 0.91 |
| 14 | Hubbard | 10,167 | 1.16 |
| 15 | NYPR | 8,449 | 1.07 |
| 16 | AccuRadio | 7,929 | 1.53 |
| 17 | Beasley | 6,898 | 0.82 |
| 18 | Radio One | 6,447 | 1.97 |
| 19 | Bonneville | 6,409 | 0.57 |
| 20 | Prisa | 5,254 | 0.50 |
| Source: Triton |
In the case of Pandora, TSL stands for TIME SPENT LOGGED ON, since Pandora has no way to measure actual listening. Only broadcast radio has a PPM systems that is designed to simulate actual listening.
Pandora has many hours of TSL in the pocket or handbag of their users.
Making a TSL comparison of Pandora to Broadcast TSL is embarrassing to those making the comparison. I would have failed my high school science class had I used this type of logic during my lab project.
As WSJ analyst Richard Greenfield said (BTIG 4-21-14) “In Pandora’s World, the Knicks are Better than the Yankees Because They Score More Points Each Game.”
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