NuVoodoo Media Services has released the latest (12th) installment of its NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study, with a focus on music discovery. This research is fielded to radio listeners, and the 12th edition surveyed 3,000 of them. Nuvoodoo characterizes the survey population this way: “Once again, the focus is on those radio listeners most likely to accept a meter or diary.”
With that context, the chief result being promoted by Nuvoodoo is that AM/FM radio remained the top music discovery choice for 25% of survey respondents. YouTube took a 23% share, trailed by Spotify at 12% and Pandora at 7%.
The lead for AM/FM radio mostly stemmed from the 35-54 age bracket, where it took a lead of 35% over 19% for YouTube. With the 14-24 age group, YouTube was the top discovery outlet with 30%; radio only took 11%. The 18-34 bracket also favored YouTube over radio, but at a smaller margin of 27% to 19%. These demographic shifts are broadly representative of what we observe in radio reach research from Nielsen and music discovery research from Edison Research. The general leaning seems to be that younger listeners skew toward YouTube music discovery more than older cohorts.
Nuvoodoo has scheduled a series of five webinars to discuss results.
“New technology has changed the new music playing field forever,” observed NuVoodoo Media Services President Carolyn Gilbert. “But radio doesn’t have to go quietly into the night. Radio is an amazing curation service (we spend mightily in dollars and person-hours in picking songs and building playlists) – and there’s huge value in that service. Stations can build that part of their branding with greater transparency and well-organized efforts to get feedback from listeners.”
“While free, instant access to new music on YouTube has become addictive for younger people, the good news is that their eyes and ears are available on YouTube,” said Leigh Jacobs, the company’s executive vice president of research analysis. “That means there are powerful ways to employ YouTube to get your messaging to these young consumers – especially if you can package your message with content they’d be interested in viewing hearing. It’s the perfect place to showcase your in-studio live recordings and other original content.”