On-Air and Online Radio Drive Song Sales
New research presented by Russ Crupnick of NPD Group at RAIN Summit West underscores the promotional value of AM/FM radio relative to song sales. More than half of the folks surveyed named “announcements on AM/FM radio” as the primary thing that would make them shop more for new music.
Given the drastic drop in song sales revenue in recent years, that’s an important fact. In 2005, 73% of the US Internet population bought at least one cd, and in 2012 that number was 35%. Some of those purchases were replaced with song downloads, which jumped from 9 to 23% in that same period.
Meanwhile, the same population said that they stopped illegally downloading music because they could listen to it on the radio – online (45%) or on the air (33%).
So what does all this mean? One way to look at it is that radio – both on-air and online is one of the most important weapons the music industry has for driving revenue…
Rain Summit Europe is Thursday May 23rd in Brussels. Join us for a great day of panels and presentations, plus excellent networking at the largest gathering of online audio professionals in Europe. Hope to see you there!
