This post is the second in a series exploring how changing technology impacts radio listening, music consumption, and radio’s role at introducing listeners to new music. Our previous post revealed that the majority of 15- to 39-year-old radio listeners* no longer own a radio outside of their cars. Furthermore, listeners that don’t own radios are … Continue reading Do People Really Ask Alexa to Play Local Radio? »

This post is the first in a series exploring how changing technology impacts radio listening, music consumption, and radio’s role in introducing listeners to new music. As clock radios, stereos, and Walkmans disappear, The Amazon Echo and Google Home have given new hope to programmers for bringing local radio back into listeners’ homes.  While screen-driven … Continue reading Alexa and the Vanishing AM/FM Radio »

For a few hours on August 21st, 2017 was 1983 all over again, much to the horror of Soft AC radio veterans everywhere. That day’s total eclipse of the sun sent millions of Americans searching for the perfect song to accompany the astrological wonder—and they found it in Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 #1 hit Total Eclipse … Continue reading Context is King »

In our last post, we spotlighted four things you can only learn from callout. However, there are things even the most sophisticated and statistically reliable new music research can’t tell you. 1) Callout can’t predict which songs will become huge hits in the future For most radio programmers, there’s something deeply satisfying about discovering a … Continue reading Three Things Callout Can’t Tell You »

In past months, we’ve explored the benefits and shortcomings of various measures radio programmers use to gauge the popularity of new music, including Shazam®, sales and streaming data. It’s only fair to apply the same scrutiny to custom new music research, the tool we provide the radio industry. (Colloquially, most folks still call it “callout,” … Continue reading Four Things Only Callout Can Tell You »

When the 2017 Infinite Dial study revealed that AM/FM radio is no longer the #1 source for keeping up to date on new music among Americans 12 and older, alarm bells sounded for radio professionals. Even more alarming, radio now trails YouTube, Spotify and Pandora among the sources that 12- to 24-year-olds use to keep … Continue reading Resolving Radio’s Music Discovery Crisis »

Our recent blog series explained why radio should still look at sales data alongside streaming data to help pick the right new music. We noted that buying music isn’t the same as listening to music, a difference we examined in detail in 2015 when Integr8 was a part of Coleman Insights. Here’s a recap of … Continue reading Why Music Listening Is Different From Music Sales »

We’ve recently been examining whether you should rely more heavily on streaming usage or sales data when picking new music for your station. Our first post suggested that both sales and streaming data remain relevant to radio, at least for now. Our second post showed how streaming users are typically younger than music purchasers. In … Continue reading Do Your Format’s Fans Stream or Buy Their Music? »