Triton Digital has released its monthly Internet audio rankings for December 2011, noting that listenership was affected during the last month of the year by to the holiday season. Triton notes, "As to be expected, we often see drops in listenership around the holiday season. The holiday impact typically results in a decline toward the end of the month due to the reduction of in-office listening. To give a closer look at the effects of the holiday season, we have compared the Total Listening Hours (TLH) of the holiday week to an average, non-holiday week."

TLH fell for broadcast streamers by 42 percent and for PurePlays by 15 percent for the Christmas week, compared to an average non-holiday week. Broken down by mobile vs. desktop streaming, broadcast mobile streaming was off by 28 percent, with desktop streaming down 48 percent. Interestingly, PurePlay mobile streaming only fell one percent, while desktop streaming dropped off 41 percent.

Triton says, "The data displayed supports two conclusions, the first being that 'in-office' desktop listening does not necessarily translate to 'in-home' listening. The second conclusion is that the holiday season trend softens as mobile becomes a more typical listening method. Mobile listening remains the most consistent throughout the week with the
lightest drop in all instances."

Regardless, Pandora ranked at #1 in Average Active Sessions (AAS) for Monday - Friday (6a-8p) in the Domestic Rankings, with a new high in AAS of 1,757,310, up from just over a million in November. Its Domestic Ranker Session Starts also leapt to over 805 million, from 416 million a month earlier. Clear Channel was ranked second for the Domestic Ranker, with an increase to 266,937 AAS and over 109.5 million Session Starts.

CBS Radio was ranked third in AAS, with Cumulus just over 2,000 AAS behind in fourth, and Slacker very close in fifth place. EMF Corporate, Cox Radio, NPR Member Stations, Entercom and ESPN fill out the top ten.

Looking at the All Streams Ranker for December during the work week (M-F, 6a-8p), Clear Channel was ranked #1 with 268,965 AAS, followed by Digitally Imported at #2, CBS Radio at #3, Prisa Radio at #4 and Slacker in fifth. The top ten are rounded out by Cumulus, EMF Corporate, Cox, NPR and 977Music.com.

Pandora was also #1 for the Domestic Ranker for the full week (6a-midnight), with 1,518,577 AAS. Clear Channel was ranked second, followed by Slacker, CBS Radio and Cumulus (all still a few thousand AAS apart). The top ten is filled out by NPR, EMF Corporate, Cox, Entercom and ESPN.

For the All Streams Ranker in the full week (6a-midnight), Clear Channel is #1, with Digitally Imported at #2, Slacker in third and CBS Radio in fourth. The top ten is filled out with Prisa Radio, Cumulus, 977Music.com, EMF Corporate, NPR and Cox.