By Jeff Vidler – SVP & Managing Director, Radio, Vision Critical

As borders open up in today’s global marketplace, research can help you size up the opportunities lying on the other side of the fence. By seeing how other markets behave, global research can also help you get a fresh perspective on the hidden opportunities in your home market.

We recently conducted a study using Vision Critical’s global access panels that drives both of these points home. Radio Futures 2010 was a three-country study to help the radio industry develop a better understanding of how the audio landscape is changing. A representative sample of more than 3,000 online consumers (1000+ in each of the US, UK and Canada) were surveyed on penetration of Internet radio, music streaming services, satellite radio, mp3 players and broadcast radio on a variety of platforms including online and mobile.

On the whole, the study showed a lot of similarity in results between the three countries – suggesting that the radio industry can frame similar strategies in each country.

However, the most interesting findings were those surrounding Internet radio and web-based music streaming services. Music copyright issues have had the effect of forging a different competitive environment for Internet radio and web-based music streaming in each of the three countries. Two of the leading services, Pandora and Spotify, have negotiated royalties with music companies in their home countries, the US and UK respectively, but are not available in any of the other jurisdictions. As a result, each of the three countries acts as something of a test market, showcasing the impact of various types of web-based radio and streaming services.

Most notably, Pandora has managed to be a game-changer in the US market. Pandora, which offers its listeners personalized radio using a recommendation engine based on their music preferences, is the dominant player in the US, with 27% of web-only radio or music streaming service listeners naming it their favourite web-based radio or music service. Pandora also serves as a rising tide that lifts all boats, with the US leading all three markets in Internet radio penetration, particularly on smartphones where Pandora’s app has proved to be one of the most popular of all iPhone apps.

Spotify’s impact in the UK is also evident from the research. This web-based streaming service allows listeners to stream specific songs on demand and build iTunes-like playlists. Although Spotify is not as dominant in the UK as Pandora has been in the US, its presence is clearly demonstrated in past week penetration results—the UK market leads both the US and Canada in past week access to on-demand music streaming services.

But what about Canada where neither Pandora nor Spotify are legally available? Past week usage of both web-only radio and music streaming services lags well behind that of the US and the UK, with only 16% of online consumers saying they have listened to either type of service in the past week vs. 32% who have listened in the US and UK. This not only reinforces the dramatic impact that Pandora and Spotify have had in the US and UK, but also the opportunity that exists for either type of service in Canada.

Radio Futures 2010 is just one example of how strategic research often requires a wider perspective than a targeted customer base, or even a broad-based sample within a single market. In this case, market representative global panels allowed us to compare listening trends by country, highlighting both global opportunities and providing strategic context on the state of the market in individual countries. What could your company learn from comparing brand and category performance in multiple markets? When was the last time you took a truly wide-angle, view of consumer trends?