MediaLife: Just who listens to web radio - Call 'em streamies. Call 'em the medium's future.

"Cable began as nothing more than a system that would make local signals more available. Then some smart cable broadcasters took independent systems and put them on cable'" says Rose, who is vice president and general manager of webcast services at Arbitron. "Webcasting is following the cable model."

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Streamies are richer and better educated than the average broadcast radio listener. They also spend substantially more time online and tend to be early adopters of technology. Streamies are somewhat more likely to be men, but definitely likely to be young. "Very few people over 55 have streaming audio on a consistent basis'"says Rose.