When was the last time you listened to the radio?
A look at Millennial’s favorite sources of new music discovery
Radio is still king — I’ve been combing through the results from my survey on new music discovery (read more on this project here) and this is my first key takeaway. As much as I didn’t want to believe it*, the results show that listening to the radio (excluding satellite!) is the top source of new music discovery for Millennials.
*My survey only includes people who listen to music at least 3 days per week AND are at least sometimes adding new music to their collection. I thought that maybe among this group of passionate music listeners the radio might be less popular. I was wrong.
What are the most popular sources of discovery?
I asked respondents to select all the sources of discovery they had used in the last month (blue graph) as well as to select what they consider to be their primary source of new music discovery (green graph). As you can see below, the most popular source of discovery is recommendations from friends followed closely by FM radio. However, when asked to select one primary source of discovery, FM radio falls out as the most popular, followed by recommendations from friends.
The top 5 sources are the same across these two questions, with the exception of “Browsing Top Charts and New Releases lists on music streaming services” which isn’t as commonly used, but for those who use it is disproportionally preferred as their primary method of discovery. This is a point for streaming services in the battle to displace the power of FM radio, however, it still isn’t good news for smaller artists who have a very slim chance of making those popularity lists.
How does this vary by age?
Millennials represent a wide age range (18–34), and preferences do vary across this age group. Taking a look at the primary source of new music discover for younger millennials (18–24) versus older millennials (25–34), there is definitely a bias away from FM radio and towards more digital sources, including music videos and browsing top charts. Potentially, this signals that as this age group gets older the power of radio may decline. Of course, the other explanation is that there are factors correlated with getting older (e.g. spending more time in your car, having less time to dedicate to finding music more actively, moving to the suburbs) that will push 18–24 year olds towards reliance on the radio.
What next?
There’s still heaps more data and questions to go through. I’ll be posting results piecemeal here on medium and also in a consolidated report form. Check back for answers to questions such as:
- How many millennials can we consider to be passionate music fans who love to discover new tunes?
- How much are these people spending on music?
- What are their preferred music services?
- How do fans relate to and engage with new artist discoveries?
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Libby Koerbel loves to analyze ambiguous questions, listen to live music, and meet new people. She is an expert strategist with experience at the Boston Consulting Group, Pandora, Universal Music Group, Muzooka, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. She is currently a MBA student at the Kellogg School of Management.
This post is a part of a series on how millennials discover content. Read some of the initial findings on millennial trends & new music discovery, as well as some musings on: serendipity, innovation in music production, your adventuresomeness quotient, framing uncertainty, curation wars, music tastes, sticky subscription models, and abundance.
