Pierre Bouvard is chief insights officer at Cumulus Media and its national-facing arm Westwood One. This interview is from “Streaming for Radio in 2021.”
Radio World: How do you think broadcasters are doing at leveraging streaming?
Pierre Bouvard: The real accelerator for streaming has been the smart speaker. Years have gone by since stations started streaming, and it was always maybe 5% of total tuning; the arrival of the smart speaker caused radio stations to really wake up to the fact that the smart speaker brings radio back into the home.
Increasingly, homes do not own a radio, but a third now have smart speakers. Radio stations have been aggressively promoting that “You can listen to our station on your Alexa or Google Home.”
Now 15% of 25-to-54 listening in America occurs through the stream. That’s a substantial number. I think an advertiser needs to understand that if you’re going to spend a dollar on radio, 85 cents can be for the over-the-air and 15 cents should be for the stream.
