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Poll: Radio Still Rules ... For Now
April 7, 2014 at 11:11 AM (PT)
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A poll conducted by 60 MINUTES and VANITY FAIR found that most Americans like previous generations' music better than music coming from the current generation, and that radio is still the most popular vehicle for listening to music, nonetheless there were troubling signs fro radio from a generational standpoint. The poll, conducted by telephone from FEBRUARY 5th-9th, 2014 among 1,017 adults nationwide, did not indicate age demo breakouts, but the data suggested that no one under 18 was polled.
That may partially explain why the respondents preferred to wax nostalgic about music, as 42% said “this decade” has the worst music, far ahead of (or behind) the 2000s (15%), the 1990s (13%), the 1980s (14%), or the 1970s (12%). With a sampling error of plus or minus 3%, basically every other decade was viewed the same. Although those under 30 also believed this decade had the worst music since 1970, those numbers could be skewed if they didn't poll 12-18-year-olds.
The poll also found that radio remains the music vehicle of choice, as 49% percent of Americans say they listen to music most often on the radio, more than every other method combined. A distant second choice are digital music services like SPOTIFY, PANDORA, or LAST.FM (17%), which was ahead of iPHONES, iPODS, or other mp3 players (15%). CDs are now picked by just 95; mp3s were chosen by 6% most often listen to mp3s on their computer, with only 1% choosing vinyl records.
The red flag here is generational. Among Americans 18-34, Radio finished third at 24%, behind digital music services (35%) followed by iPHONES, iPODS, and mp3 players (29%).

