Radio Airplay to Real People vs Social Media Bots & Fake Accounts:

Artists Should Seek Traditional Radio AirPlay While Pursuing Internet Opportunities because Radio Remains a Listening & Discovery Powerhouse !

Nielsen’s Music 360 Report and EMI’s million fan study have reminded us that “radio” is still the place where music is most likely to be “discovered.”

Though research studies often conflict, recent research related to music listening habits make it clear that traditional radio, including traditional radio being streamed on the web, remains a dominant source of streaming music and music discovery. Aggregated data points indicate that musicians should continue to seek traditional radio play while exploring newer internet-based services.

That said, if traditional radio is where music is most likely to be discovered, then radio is still a nut that musicians, singers, music marketers, labels and distributors need to crack.

Internet radio listening is growing, though it’s unclear if discovery via internet radio is growing ( ed; because of the lack of consistent spins )

The latest Arbitron/Edison Research study reveals:

“Weekly online radio listeners report listening for an average of 11 hours 56 minutes per week, up by more than two hours over last year’s listening levels (9 hours 46 minutes ) and nearly double that reported 4yrs prev (6 hours 13 minutes).”

“During the same span of time, Arbitron’s RADAR service indicates that AM/FM Radio has grown to 243 million weekly listeners and time spent listening has remained approximately two hours a day.”

“AM/FM radio is an ‘almost all of the times’ or ‘most of the times’ in-car choice for nearly six in ten adults aged 18 and over; dashboard AM/FM radio (58 percent) far outpaces frequent in-car use of CD players (15 percent), portable digital audio/MP3 players (11 percent) and satellite radio (10 percent).”

“Among the nearly half of Americans (45 percent) who say it is important to learn about and keep up-to-date with new music and singers, AM/FM Radio is the top source for new music discovery at 78 percent.”

Sorting Out The Data:

These data points don’t all fit together nicely. Each represents data gathered using different means, using different questions and interpreted by different researchers filtered through different PR departments.

While online radio listenership is growing, much of radio’s audience remains seated in their cars. For younger people, there is a slowly growing shift to listening to such services as Pandora while driving.

Cody Chesnutt Live @ WORLD CAFE