What Do People Listen To On Their Smartphones?

Edison Research recently completed a study on smartphone usage and discovered that the listening habits of users isn't quite what we believed it to be. in fact, the results were pretty surprising.

• 54% listened to a radio channel
• 16% listened to music they own
• 15% listened to Pandora or other radio-like streaming services
• 7% listen to Sirius XM
• 5% to TV music channels
• 2% listen to podcasting

Heavy listeners (those defined by listening to 2 hours or more per day) have a slightly different consumption pattern.

• 43% listen to music they've downloaded and own
• 37% listen to streaming audio
• 9% listen to AM/FM radio
• 7% listen to podcasts

Finally, 87% of adults from 18 to 34 never let their smartphones leave their sides.

All that said, we're under the impression that the listening world belongs to exclusively to streaming, but that's far from the case, according to the study. While radio listening and downloads may be dropping, they're still a vital portion of our listening day.

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168 Radio Stations Play Only Christmas Music

Christmas is a powerful time of the year for many people and for many reasons. So powerful in fact that 168 radio stations in the United States have converted their formats to full-time Holiday music, according to Nielsen.

That's not all. Hundreds of other stations across the country have also converted their formats to part-time Christmas music.

One of the downsides to this is the fact that there's less space than ever on already crowded playlists, to the point that superstars like Adele and Taylor Swift even get boxed out by the Xmas classics.

Speaking of which, even though most music stars try to cash in on the Christmas cheer with a Holiday release, they find it hard to break the stranglehold that songs from the 40s and 50s seem to have on radio at this time of year.

That said, I was recently on a cruise ship for a week where they didn't once play a familiar Christmas song by Bing Crosby, Burl Ives or Brenda Lee and never repeated a song the entire week, so there's lots of great Holiday music out there if only stations were willing to look.

In the meantime, take heart in the fact that on December 26th there will be 168 more radio stations back playing their regular formats, and Christmas music will be forgotten for another year.

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Is Smooth Jazz Dead?

For a while there in 1990s and early 2000s "smooth jazz" was front and center in radio stations in every major city across the country. Many former rock stations switch to the smooth jazz format in an effort to boost ratings, and for a while it worked.

That trend has drastically changed however, and we might have seen the last of the format for a while, at least on radio.

Stations that featured smooth jazz have seen their ratings plummet recently, causing most to bolt to another format to attract more advertisers.

But why? One theory is that smooth jazz stations struggled to attract younger listeners, which is the most desirable demographic for advertisers. Still, there seemed to be plenty of listeners in the almost-as-desirable 25-54 age demo.

Which means that the demise of the radio format may in fact be due to bad data supplied by Nielsen, who's the dominant ratings provider for both radio and television. The idea is that people were still listening, but they weren't being counted due to being in the wrong demographic.

I'm not a proponent or listener of the smooth jazz format, but the lesson here is that if it happens to one format, it can happen to others as well. Having listeners doesn't equal having the right kind of listeners for many advertisers, and by extension the station groups that own the radio stations. No wonder radio content is worst than ever. Thank you very much Madison Avenue.

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Most Music Discovery Still Comes From Radio

While we're increasingly living in a streaming world, radio is still our go-to source when it comes to discovering new music, according to the latest study from Nielsen Music. 51% of Americans still discover most of the new music they listen to via radio, even though on-demand streaming increased by a whopping 54% last year to over 164 billion streams.

The study also found that 243 million people age 12 and over tune into radio every week, which is 91% of the population within the top 250 markets. Of that, 23% listen in the car, while 16% listen to the radio at work.

What are the top radio formats? No surprises here, according tot he survey.

1. Pop Contemporary Hits Radio (CHR) - 12.3%
2. Country - 9.8%
3. Hot Adult Contemporary (AC) - 7.1%
4. Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio - 6.7%
5. Adult Contemporary - 5.9%
6. Urban Contemporary - 5.8%
7. Mexican Regional - 5.2%
8. Alternative - 5.0%
9. Classic Rock - 3.9%
10. News Talk Information  - 3.5%

Of these 10 formats, Country Music grew the most significantly in the first half of last year, especially for listeners in the 18 to 34 age group.

It appears that radio is very music like the music business in that its demise is consistently predicted, yet it never seems to go away. Just like the music business, it continues to evolve and roll with the times.

Music Tastes Of Americans

Nielsen's Music 360 report is always a good read, and the 2014 version has some great info on the music listening habits, preferences and tastes of Americans. It's a great way to spot the latest trends and get some meaningful insight in how we consume music. Here are some of things we learned.

• Americans really do like music, as 93% listens to it, spending more than 25 hours a week doing so.
• 75% of Americans would rather listen to music than watch television.

Where do we listen to music most?
   - In the car - 23%
   - While working - 16%
   - While doing chores at home - 15%
   - While doing other activities - 13%
   - While exercising - 12%

• Radio is the top music delivery system, with 59% consuming their music that way.
• 48% consume most of their music from their own libraries
• 41% from on-demand streaming services like Spotify and YouTube
• 36% from radio-like streaming like Pandora or iTunes Radio
• A surprising and important stat is that 18% have purchased a song while streaming it.

The phone is really important when it comes to music delivery, although it only comes in their behind radios and computers when it comes to listening devices. That said, 39% of smartphone owners purchased music on their devices, which was up from 34% a year ago.

Americans appetite for music is not diminishing as many fear, but although streaming and smartphones are coming on strong, it's still good old fashioned radio that we still love the most.

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We Still Listen To Radio

According to what you'll read in most places online, you'd think that radio is dead, especially when it comes to discovering new music. That's far from the truth, according to a Statista infographic made up from stats from Edison Research. It turns out that radio is still the major way Americans 12 years old and up discover music, even after all these years and new technology.

You will find more statistics at Statista

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How People Listen To Their Music

CBS and Vanity Fair recently conducted a survey about music consumption in the United States that's extremely detailed and interesting. I'll be providing information from that report from time to time in upcoming posts, but let's start off with how most people listen to music.

As you can see from the chart below, the radio is still the way that most people get their music at 49%, followed by a digital music service way behind at 17%.

People still like to listen to songs in their library from a phone or digital player at 15%, 9% still use a CD player, 6% from their computer, and 1% from a record player.

That last figure is surprising in that it's as high as it is. Vinyl has made a comeback, but finding the equipment to play it on isn't all that easy these days. Also, the fact that so many still use CDs shows that the format has a great deal of life left in it as well.

Radio Reaches An Unexpected Audience

We've heard the claims over and over that Millennials are so wrapped up in new technology online that they don't have time for anything old like television and especially radio. A new survey by Nielsen finds that mostly untrue, at least when it comes to radio.

In fact, it found that 65 million Millennials (age 18 to 34) listen to radio each week, which is about half the people in the age group. That amounts to around 11 1/2 hours of listening per week, which is still behind Gen X at 14 hours and Baby Boomers at 14.5, but it's still far more than was generally thought.

An even bigger surprise is that country is the #1 format that Millennials listen to, followed by contemporary pop and contemporary hits. They're much more mainstream that previously thought.

In general, radio is doing fine and is in no danger of going the way of other older technologies. 9 out of 10 people age 10 and up still tune in per week in some way, which amounts to 242 million people!

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A Look At Today's Digital Music Consumer

Today's digital music consumer looks a lot like yesterday's digital music consumer, according to a recent report by industry pundit Mark Mulligan's MIDiA Consulting. The infographic below points out a number interesting issues:

• Even after 10 years of paid digital music distribution, people still consume most of their music from radio and CD.

• Already, more people consume music from streaming sources than downloads.

• Music subscription is a force in the music business, but still only has 4% penetration.

The study goes on to show that 55% of digital music buyers and 45% of subscribers still purchase CDs monthly.

The study illustrates that the more things change, the more they stay the same. New technologies have made an impact on the music business and will always continue to do so, but the old technologies don't fade away as quickly as we might think.

Check out the entire report on the Music Industry Blog.

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Top 10 Played More Than Ever Before

Many of us today think of music life centering around the online world, but that's far from the truth. The fact of the matter is that people still listen to the radio as much as they ever did, and it remains the top way for listeners to discover new music, beating YouTube (the online leader) by a large margin.

That said, the songs that reach the top 40 are played twice as much today than those ten years ago, according to Mediabase, a division of Clear Channel that tracks radio spins for all broadcasters.

For instance, last year's most played song was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," which aired 749,633 times in 180 markets. That comes out to 2,053 times a day on average.

In 2003 the top song was "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down, which was played 443,160 times during the year, or 1,214 time per day on average.

One of the reasons is that there are a lot more Top 40 stations than there used to be, with about 70 new ones created in the last decade in place of more specialized stations that played rock and smooth jazz (which was once heralded as the next new thing in radio programming).

Even on the country stations, the trend is similar, with the top hit of last year, Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel" receiving 229,633 plays. In 2003, Lone Star's "My Front Porch Looking In" received 162,519 spins.

The upshot is that even though people still discover their music from radio, radio has a much tighter playlist overall. It seems to be a case where the 1% of the music industry is profiting more than ever, while the 99% has a harder road to travel yet again.

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A Search Engine For Radio

Have you ever listened to the radio and wished that the station would play a song that you can't wait to hear? You had to wait until either the song was played, or search for another station where the song might be playing and risk missing it on the original channel. Of course, if you're near a computer you can dial that song up in a second on any number of streaming services or YouTube, but if radio is your thing, that meant that you were stuck with the way we've listened for nearly a century. But that's changed now with the a new service called Radio Search Engine.

Radio Search Engine, the brainchild of Michael Robertson (who's also responsible for DAR.fm and way back, MP3.com), allows you to search for a song or artist, and the service will find a station that's currently playing it. It gives you a list of popular songs that are playing, and poses suggestions of other songs and stations after the search engine has found your query. You can think of it sort of like Google for radio.

Radio Search Engine works pretty well but it's not perfect, probably because it depends upon song metadata. If the metadata is incorrect or incomplete, a song could be playing but RSE won't find. That's not RSE's fault, but it's something that does come up. Then there's the fact that, as stated before, you can use one of the many streaming services to do the same thing.

One area where Radio Search Engine can help an artist is by searching to see what songs are being played on radio and where. While there are other ways to measure airplay, there's nothing like hearing it yourself as the ultimate aircheck. Check out the video below on how it works.

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Radio And Streaming Show Different Song Popularity

Both streaming and digital song sales are up this year (downloads by 4% and streaming 24%), which is a good thing, but some interesting new data shows that there's a big difference between the top songs that radio plays and the most streamed songs.

The reason why this is important is that sales come more as a result of radio play, who's playlist is controlled by consultants and program directors, while streaming is based more on the actual popularity of the song or artist. Here's what the comparison looks like, according to Nielsen and Billboard.

While radio isn't going away by any stretch of the imagination, you have to wonder how its playlists will be affected in the future as streaming increases. With so much of music radio programmed by consultants who are one step removed by the public, perhaps they'll be forced to watch the streaming charts more closely when it comes to choosing songs. Whether they do or not, radio will be changing in future thanks to streaming, you can bet on it.

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Just Who Is Winning The Streaming War?

There's no doubt that streaming is catching on slowly but surely, as more and more people discover that having immediate access to a large library is better than owning a small one. That being said, Spotify seems to get most of the publicity. You may be surprised to learn that the service is actually far behind the leader though.

According to a new study published by the NPD Group called "Music Acquisition Monitor," streaming music usage in 13 to 35 year olds looks like this:

Pandora (free) - 39%
iHeart Radio - 11%
Spotify (free) - 9%
Grooveshark - 3%
Slacker - 2%
Pandora One - 2%
TuneIn - 2%
LastFM - 2%
XBox Music - 2%

Streaming music accounted for 23% of the demographic group's total listening. Interestingly, for those older than 36, this figure decreases to 13%, as most of their listening still belongs to AM/FM radio.

It's interesting that Pandora gets so little press (unless it's about royalty payments) yet has such a large lead in marketshare. It also should be interesting to see if these numbers hold up after Apple's iRadio is introduced later in the year. Next year's study might prove to be something very different.

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Is Music Discovery An Impossible Dream?

With VCs and investment bankers willing to open their pockets at seemingly any online service that contains the words "music discovery" in their mission statement, it makes you wonder about the validity of the idea that it's still the holy grail for every company offering music online.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why music discovery is a hot topic. After all, if a listener can find new music that they like, they're more likely to buy or stream it, which means a potential additional income stream for all involved. At least, that's the theory.

What I'm beginning to disagree with is the idea that music discovery can be done electronically thanks to a smart algorithm that learns your tastes. Sound good on paper, but that's not actually the way that we've discovered music over the last 50+ years, or even today for that matter.

Think about how we found recent breakout artists like The Black Keys and Alabama Shakes. Did most people find them via a Pandora recommendation or Spotify? No, most people found them the same way that new artists have always been discovered for decades and decades. There was a groundswell buzz that you couldn't avoid, and it was both offline and online. When enough people begin to talk about an artist, it doesn't take long for the word to get around. Do you think that's ever happened thanks to an algorithm?

If you think about it, radio has always been the major means of music discovery - 50 years ago, and still today. YouTube ranks as #2 at the moment. In the 60s and 70s when FM was at its peak, the disc jockeys were the unquestioned arbiters of musical taste, and we listened to their show based specifically on those tastes. We knew that whatever they played was in line with what we liked, and we were open to new suggestions as a result. This has happened a bit on the web with sites like Pitchfork (who's influence seems to be waning a bit), but there's really been nothing like similar to the radio experience yet. We keep on waiting for the taste of a computer to take over, when it's really the human one that we crave.

Perhaps all the money chasing music discovery is just good money after bad purchasing fool's gold, because it still comes down to people talking about an act both on and offline to break it. Let's hear it for the humans, until the algorithms can prove us wrong.

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Will Low-Power FM Stations Help Local Music?

While radio is decidedly old school media, it's still utilized a lot more than you think. Traditional radio is listened to more than twice as much as its online counterpart, and it's still perfect for breaking news, sports, and general car-based entertainment. The problem is that the programming has regressed over the years, especially when it comes to music. Where radio was once vital with local sounds, now you have a certain sameness to the playlists across the country thanks to the homogenized bottom-line-first programming of the station groups that own most of the stations.

It's possible that might change a little, thanks to an unexpected ruling by the normally staid Federal Communications Commission. Yes, that same FCC that has been afraid to peek into the future lest they step on the toes of big broadcasting has given us at least the possibility of something to cheer about and it's called Low Power FM (LPFM).

Originally sanctioned in 2000, LPFM has a maximum of 100 watts and a broadcast radius of 3 miles, but thanks to the lobbying efforts by Big Broadcast, the application process wasn't particularly easy. In fact, only a single LPFM station has been commissioned since then, and the majority of applications were by entities speculating on the popularity of holding a license and cashing in, rather than building stations.

The new FCC ruling set out a streamlined process that limits the applicants to only those that will actually build a station, and eases some of the bandwidth restrictions that Big Radio insisted on to protect their turf. This will all take place next year when the new application process go into effect.

What are the implications of LPFM? Maybe none, maybe a lot. It's been proven that radio is only as good as it's programming and talent. An LPFM station probably won't have much of either, just like college radio (the poster child for low-power radio). That said, it's also not obligated to a corporate playlist, so it's possible to finally have a return to an open playlist like the glory days of early-FM in the 70s (how I long for those radio days). Back then, you never knew what you'd hear next, but if you liked the DJ, you knew you'd probably like what he or she played. With no big money involved, we can only hope that some experimentation will be in order with no reason to focus on the the lowest common denominator dictated by the marketing department.

While we can't expect LPFM to change the broadcast world, it would be nice if we had some local alternatives, even if their reach is only 3 miles. Hyper-local radio is target at your community. The question is, will your community listen?

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Who Buys The Most Music? Top 40 Listeners

There's a new study conducted by The Media Audit that reveals what most of us already thought to be true; Top 40 radio listeners purchase the most music. The study looked at the habits of 41 million users across 81 markets and found the following:

• 42.8% of Top 40 listeners frequently purchase CDs or downloads
• 27.7% of all US consumers frequently purchase music (who would've thought it would be that high?)
• 39.2% - Urban listeners
• 38.3% - Hot AC (adult contemporary)
• 36.4% - Rock
• 34.1% - Urban AC
• 33.2% - Sports
• 32.7% - Public Radio
• 31.5% - Classic Rock
• 30.4% - AC

Frequent purchases are defined as having purchased a CD or download within the last four weeks.

To break it down even further:

• 49% are female
• 46.6% are between the ages of 25 to 44
• 67% are between the ages of 18 to 44

And finally, in a figure that should be no surprise at all, frequent music buyers are more likely to have a college degree and have a higher income, with the average household income being $76,739.

The bottom line, there's still a lot of music being purchased, it's just not making its way back to the artists and songwriters.

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Radio Still Tops In Music Discovery

Yesterday I looked at the portion of Nielsen's latest Music 360 survey that pertains to CDs. Today we'll look at some of the other sections.

The one that intrigued me almost as much as teens listening to CDs is how much people still use normal terrestrial radio. According to Nielsen:

• 48% discover music most often through radio
• 10% discover music most often through friends or relatives
• 7% discover music most often through YouTube

Radio is supposed to be dying, but you wouldn't know that looking at the info outlined here. If we go even further into the data and look at teens:

• 64% of teens listen to music through YouTube
• 56% of teens listen to music through radio
• 53% of teens listen to music through iTunes
• 50% of teens listen to music through CD

There's that radio thingy again. Conventional wisdom says it's not supposed to be that high, especially with teens, but apparently it's not dead yet. But there's more:

• 54% have music player apps on their smartphones
• 47% have radio apps on their smartphones
• 26% have music store apps on their smartphones

What I'm surprised about here is that the numbers are so low. I would've expected entertainment apps to be closer to 100%.

There's some other fascinating info that can be gleaned from the survey.

• 38% of males purchase rock most often (no surprise here)
• 15% of females (compared to 9% of males) purchase top 40 most often (much lower than I thought)

• 33% of teens purchased a digital track within a week of release (lower than it once was)
• 21% of persons 18+ purchased a digital track within a week of release

• 7% of 18 to 24 year olds attend a music event once a week (that's a lot lower than it used to be)
• 30% of 18 to 24 year olds attend a music event once a month

What's most interesting in all this data is that people's listening and purchasing habits have changed in some ways and not much in others. CDs and radio are still in widespread use, but the overall enthusiasm for consuming music seems to be down. What this shows is that uur Music 3.0 world continues to be full of surprises.

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Louis CK And The Off-Air Radio Game

As I posted a few times before comedian Louis CK does things his own way that many consider cutting edge in terms of marketing and distribution. Recently he embarked on a tour that bypasses ticketing giant Ticketmaster and charged fans a flat rate of $45 for any ticket. Here's a great interview with him posted on AVclub where he discusses the little-known game that radio plays with touring artists in a quid pro quo for promotion.

"I like to try to see if something can work. It’s really satisfying to figure out, “What if we try it this way? What if we made it way more pleasurable and cheaper to come see me? Or to watch my show online? And if we do this right, how much benefit were we getting from the giant companies?” The first time I ever toured in theaters—the first time I toured, really. You do comedy clubs, it’s just working clubs, but the first time I went on a tour in theaters—they were like 500-to-700-seat theaters, my agent asked me some blanket questions, like, “Here’s what’s going to come up,” and he said, “What is your radio tolerance?” That’s what he asked me. He said, “What presence are you willing to let radio people have at your shows?” and I said, “Give me an example.” And he goes, “Well, here’s all the things they will ask for in every city: Thing one is that the radio personality gets to come onstage and introduce the show. And the second thing they’re going to want is a van outside, broadcasting from the show. Then they’re going to want a banner onstage, with the name of the radio on it. Then they’re going to want a table out in the lobby with bumper stickers.”

He just made a list of, “Here’s the things that they will want.” Another one was meet-and-greets. They get to give away tickets, and the DJ introduces you to the contest winners who won the meet-and-greets. Ten minutes with you alone in a room where you take pictures and stuff. So they said, “What of these things are you willing to do?” And I said, “Let’s say no to all of this.” [Laughs.] One hundred percent of it. As a professional courtesy, if a radio DJ wants free tickets, he can come to the show. He can’t come backstage. He certainly can’t come onstage. They may not have their logo on any of the shit on the stage, anywhere near it. I want people to come to the theater and feel like they’re just coming to see this; they’re not being promoted to. I don’t think there’s anything more obnoxious than when someone has paid to be somewhere, to be promoting to them. That they’re paying to be advertised to is really annoying to me.  

I said to him, “Let’s do none of it.” And he said, “Well, here’s the thing: If you let them do these things, then they talk about your show all the time. They talk about your show on the air, and you get more free promotion from radio stations. If they get to say, ‘I’m going to be there,’ they’ll get more into it.” And I said, “Well, first of all, I don’t want people at my shows that are there to see the DJ. I just don’t want them to come.” And I said to my agent, “Let’s find out if this is a huge mistake. Let’s find out. I’m willing to sacrifice my first theater tour and have the places empty and identify that it’s because I wouldn’t let the radio people participate. But we also might find out that it didn’t make a difference and that I never have to do it.” [Laughs.] Because you can’t roll that shit back once you’ve started. Anyway, the obvious story is that it didn’t make a fucking difference. It didn’t matter."

Of course, most artists just trying to make it would gladly do anything radio asked, but does radio really have that much influence these days? The point is, just because something has also been done a certain way, that doesn't mean that it's the right thing in our new Music 3.0 world.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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College Radio On The Brink

For many years, college radio has been the beacon of hope shining brightly across the wasteland that is commercial radio. As radio has become more and more homogenized thanks to group ownership and consultant-led playlists (see my past posts entitled Why Traditional Radio Is No Longer A Factor and Online Radio's Takeover), the only place for indie acts to break has been the local college radio station.

But now college radio sadly faces extinction as more and more colleges either close them down or sell them off. This is due to a number of reasons:

1) Fewer on-campus listeners. Students just don't listen to radio anymore, opting to discover their music online. Ironically, most of a college radio's listenership is off-campus. That being said, the college broadcast courses will remain in place as university radio stations move to the Web.

2) Budgetary shortfalls. Thanks to the recession, college administrators everywhere are faced with the prospect of making cuts, and frequently the first item to get the axe is the radio station, especially if it can be sold off.

Realistically though, college radio had been infiltrated by big business more than a decade ago after record labels discovered that it was the last bastion of open playlists. That being said, at least the consultants (the reason for crappy radio, in my opinion) have been kept out of it, hence the continuing local flavor that each remaining station maintains.

Just like the music business, radio isn't what it once was and probably never will be again. In the end, it probably won't matter much if college radio ceases to exist. It's a new age, so the sooner we let the new wave of communications wash over us, the better.

Check out a great article on college radio from a recent New York Times.

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New Survey Predicts Radio's Future

A new study by Edison Research called "The American Youth Study 2010" examined the media and technology habits of 12 to 24 year olds in the US. The first part of the study looked at music discovery and consumption habits of this group and is titled "Radio's Future."

Here are a few of the significant findings:

1) 12-24 year-old Americans reported Internet usage of two hours and fifty-two minutes per day, roughly triple this age group's reported usage from 2000 (59 minutes).


2) Radio continues to be the medium most often used for music discovery, with 51% of 12-24 year-olds reporting that they "frequently" find out about new music by listening to the radio. Other significant sources include friends (46%), YouTube (31%) and social networking sites (16%).


3) 20% of 12-24s have listened to Pandora in the last month, with 13% indicating usage in the past week. By comparison, 6% of 12-24s indicated they have listened to online streams from terrestrial AM/FM stations in the past week.


4) More than four in five 12-24s own a mobile phone in 2010 (up from only 29% in 2000), and these young Americans are using these phones as media convergence devices. 50% of younger mobile phone users have played games on their phones, 45% have accessed social networking sites, and 40% have used their phones to listen to music stored on their phones.


6) Music tastes have shifted among 12-24s over the past decade: those radio listeners who indicated that Top 40/Pop stations were their favorite have more than doubled, while Alternative Rock stations were selected by half as many listeners in 2010 as in 2000.


7) Today's 22-34s have significantly changed their media consumption habits since the first study in this series 10 years ago. In 2000, 44% of 12-24s most often began their day by listening to the radio. Today, radio continues to lead, with 29% of that same cohort (today's 22-34 year-olds) reporting that radio is the medium they use most in the morning, while Television (25%) and the Internet (23%) have gained significantly.

Providing that none of this data is skewed (no guarantee there), radio is currently listened to more, and has a greater influence, than anyone thought. Not only that, the type of music being listening to by the group (Top 40) is a surprise. All that being said, I'd like to read the entire survey myself before drawing too many conclusions, but the points above sure are interesting.

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