JOINT NATIONAL RADIO listenership (JNLR) figures compiled by the research group TNS MRBI for Irish radion stations and advertisers reveal a near two-fold increase in iPod ownership among 15- to 34-year-olds over the past 12 months. The number of 15- to 34-year-olds who own digital music players has increased from 30% to 58% over that same period. My anecdotal evidence supports these data. Moreover, although third level students in my classes may have phones with FM radios, they won't use them as readily as those carrying combo phone/MP3 players.
The results surprise Irish advertising agencies. What might surprise them even more is the data that shows an increase in personal subscriptions to podcasts and the playing of podsae music by the 15-to-34-year-olds in Ireland.
There are a lot of reasons not to listen to the radio any more, starting with the fact that you've got your own playlist compiled already and it's free from interruption.
On top of that, Conn O Muineachain points to Nokia's podcatcher that lets you download your fav podcasts directly to your phone using 3G or WiFi. By using O2's Gigaplan, I can harvest all Irish podcasts right onto my Nokia N70, listen to them as I wish, and pay a flat fee of €48 monthly. You can set up your harvest by manually setting the URLs or by importing an OPML listing of podcast feeds directly onto the phone.
Conor Brophy -- "Digital music revolution gets underway as iPod ownership doubles" in the Sunday Tribune, September 3, 2006.
