A new analysis of Internet radio usage has been released by JP Morgan, finding incredible growth over the past year. Analyst John Blackledge notes that the audience for Internet radio has grown from around 20 million listeners per week a year ago to 30 million listeners now. Additionally, Internet radio's monthly audience has grown by around 27 percent annually since 2000. Unique visitors to all Internet radio sites grew by 22 percent over the past year, to approximately 59 million people.

Blackledge also notes that Internet radio is beginning to bring in significant ad dollars, with around $500 million in advertising in 2006. This adds up to about 2.5 percent of the traditional radio ad market. Roughly $100-$150 million came from traditional 30 and 60 second spots, while the rest of the Internet ad spending came from either bundled terrestrial and Internet radio ads or banner ads.

He adds that Internet radio is seeing an increasing ROI (return on investment) for a number of reasons. Internet radio can provide audience data to its advertisers more quickly and accurately than terrestrial radio, such as number of impressions an ad makes and audience demographics.