Streaming beats radio for music discovery, according to musicFIRST US fan survey

A new survey commissioned by musicFIRST rebuts the main arguments that U.S. radio broadcasters use to fight performance royalties while also offering some important insights into fan behavior.

For the first time in a major U.S. survey, music streaming has passed radio as the primary source for new music discovery.

For decades radio had argued that it provides artists with promotional value and thus should not have to pay performance royalties Streaming’s growing dominance undercuts that claim.

North Korea, Iran & China

Unbelievably, the U.S. is one of only 4 countries in the world that doesn’t pay artists for radio airplay. Even more unbelievably, the other 3 are North Korea, Iran, and China.

musicFIRST is leading the charge to change that and their new survey results prove that public sentiment is with them.

Two more key survey results:

#1 – Most Americans don’t know that artists aren’t paid for radio airplay, but believe that they should be.

#2 – Americans support strong actions by artists, advertisers and Congress to overturn the status quo

Learn more about musicFirst and read the full survey here.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.