Study: What Country Radio Programmers Need To Know About Streaming

Nielsen Music/ P1 Media Group

A study by NIELSEN MUSIC and P1 MEDIA GROUP showed that streaming Country music grew 36% in the U.S. from 2018 to 2019, and that 54% of U.S. Country radio P1 listeners report using streaming every day from a service like SPOTIFY, PANDORA or APPLE MUSIC. 

P1 MEDIA GROUP Co-founder KEN BENSON noted, “If you are programming a Country radio station today, the streaming audience is impossible to ignore with more than half of Country radio listeners between the ages of 18 to 44 reporting streaming music via an on-demand music service every day. With so many Country radio listeners using on-demand streaming services, we examined the differences between what radio is playing versus listener choices using on-demand audio streaming services."

MRC DATA/NIELSEN MUSIC's HALEY JONES added, "As a proponent of using streaming data to help make programming decisions, I’m excited to see real research showing the correlation between radio listeners and on-demand streaming users."

Among the findings:

• Radio is playing more contemporary music than on-demand streaming services play. Seventy percent of radio’s Top 100 most-played songs are from 2018 and 2019, versus only 55% of songs from on-demand streaming services.

• Radio relies more on core artists, playing more songs from fewer artists, while on-demand streaming services play more unique artists.

• Radio plays less variety than the on-demand streaming services. Of the Top 500 songs on Country radio, 62% of the total spins come from the Top 100 songs versus only 46% for on-demand streaming.

• The responses from Country radio P1 listeners indicates that Country stations either missed or underplayed the biggest hit of 2019 LIL NAS X's “Old Town Road.”

Download the full study here. 

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