Coronavirus: Radio Listening Booms While Music Streaming Stalls (bbc.com) 65
People staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic appear to be listening to more radio rather than music apps, figures suggest. The BBC reports: Global, which owns Capital FM and talk station LBC, said online radio listening had risen by 15%. The BBC said streaming of its radio stations had risen 18% since last week. Meanwhile, data from two US analytics companies suggested use of music-streaming apps such as Spotify had dipped by about 8%.
According to trusted music industry monitor BuzzAngle, US music streaming between 13-19 March fell by 8.8% compared with the previous week. Rolling Stone magazine, which uses a different data provider, Alpha Data, said streams were down 7.8%. But not all services are equally affected. Classical music site Primephonic said streaming had gone up by about 20% since isolation measures had been introduced in Europe. "There are likely to be multiple causes," said BBC News music reporter Mark Savage. "Fewer people are commuting to work or going to the gym and shops that use Spotify for their in-store music are closing their doors. People who stream music in the office also seem to be turning off and watching Netflix instead and there's a big rise in radio listening - suggesting we're seeking companionship alongside our music."
According to trusted music industry monitor BuzzAngle, US music streaming between 13-19 March fell by 8.8% compared with the previous week. Rolling Stone magazine, which uses a different data provider, Alpha Data, said streams were down 7.8%. But not all services are equally affected. Classical music site Primephonic said streaming had gone up by about 20% since isolation measures had been introduced in Europe. "There are likely to be multiple causes," said BBC News music reporter Mark Savage. "Fewer people are commuting to work or going to the gym and shops that use Spotify for their in-store music are closing their doors. People who stream music in the office also seem to be turning off and watching Netflix instead and there's a big rise in radio listening - suggesting we're seeking companionship alongside our music."
Color me surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Online music does not bring you the latest news about Covid-19. Online radio does.
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Actually, he's pretty good: look at all the responses he provoked.
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Band with 19 members? Must be K-Pop.
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I can't wait for something new to come up and be called Divoc 91.
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Spotify now has a playlist that mixes NPR News with music, but it still doesn't really offer you any local news options.
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Covid-19 didn't kill the Radio Star
If you are old enough you will know what I'm going on about.
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It would help if you could link to a video about this.
Re:Color me surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
We've let one of the greatest mass communications mediums go to shit. FM and AM radio are fantastic ways to spread information far and wide at minimal cost. Nothing even comes close to the price/performance of radio. The last time radio got a big boost was during Katrina. Millions of people were without power, but a cheap FM radio and a couple of AA batteries would keep people up-to-date for next to nothing.
I'd really like to see radio renaissance. Break up the conglomerates and lower the licensing costs to the point where local radio makes business sense again. If you never grew up with a great local DJ you wouldn't understand, but it's awesome.
Re:Color me surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a Chinese no-name "vintage" radio with USB port for MP3s, casette player and AM/FM/SW radio tuner. It was $25 and can be powered by 4xAA batteries or regular power grid. I have been using it on batteries to listen to radio or MP3s while working outdoors in my courtyard or annex. Average listening time is less than 1h per day but I put batteries in it 6 months ago and is still going strong. The tuner is analogic, rotate a knob to change frequencies, rotate another knob to increase/decrease volume. No fancy touchscreen shit or anything that no longer works if a certain chip fails.
Nothing can successfully replace a simple portable radio in terms of power consumption, mobility and ease of use.
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I haven't listed to broadcast radio in over 15 years. Its nothing but commercials and playlists that are set in stone. Once in a while I get the urge to build a pirate transmitter and do some broadcasting of my own. The FCC doesn't show up until you broadcast 24x7 for a month or so. If you have an SDR device tune to the CB channels. There's still a few active oddball characters around here.
Re:Color me surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
There used to be great radio. College radio stations launched the careers of some great local bands. Public radio stations still have some great local programming. It's all ads and boring playlists because they're owned and managed by beancounters in some office 1200 miles away.
Break up the media companies. A diverse media landscape is a healthy media landscape.
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That's why I still pay for a Sirius subscription. No commercials but they do have live DJs.
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Yeah, live DJs are so much better than dead DJs!
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More likely (Score:1)
More likely it is because radio has news included in it. And also contains a lot of local news coverage and commentary - two things you don't get from just listening to spotify and other music streaming sites. Youtube is good for news but is hard to find the most recent local news. Spotify won't interupt your music if some very late breaking important annoucement pops up.
Recommendations (Score:2)
Re:Recommendations (Score:4)
BBC World Service
Re:Recommendations (Score:5, Insightful)
CNN Radio. They seem to know what they are talking about and offer multiple perspectives on how bad Trump is. Plus it is free.
Yeah, that's just what I want to hear all the time.
I guess CNN's critics are right about it.
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I've started to feel sorry for Trump. This crisis has, more than anything else since he took office, shown that he is literally mentally ill. His compulsion to pretend that he knows everything about everything - even medicine - isn't just a character flaw, it's some sort of trauma wound or something. It doesn't take Sigmund Freud to guess that his parents are involved somehow.
Of course, that doesn't excuse him being in office (or the flawed system that allows a minority president to be put into the White Ho
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CNN Radio. They seem to know what they are talking about and offer multiple perspectives on how bad Trump is. Plus it is free.
Who needs CNN for that? Trump gives multiple daily demonstrations of how incompetent and stupid he is.
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Yeah. He is really dumb. Don't worry he will be gone in November.
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Yeah. You'll have Joe Biden, who is much more together mentally.
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CNN Radio is mostly audio streams of their TV networks... and all of them are streaming with video on Roku.
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I used to listen to Alpha Centauri 59.534GHz, but after hearing their racist point of view about "blue skins", I switched to Proxima Centauri 98.659GHz.
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I can't listen to intergalactic radio. Everything is old news. That shit about the blueskins? It's already over, man, you just haven't been told yet. You gotta let that shit go.
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Real radios, not streaming (Score:3, Informative)
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That's great, if you don't mind suffering through 15 minutes of commercials per hour!
The only time I would listen to radio (Score:3)
I haven't really streamed music. But I have been, as always was my habit. Of reading news off the web. which includes local news from a couple sources.
I just couldn't handle all the commercials, which is also why I never or very rarely watch the news. Description of the news would also be too short. I don't want sound bites. And I also don't want to hear bloody commercials.
What they didn't account for (Score:1)
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In these hard times, we would to apologize for Justin Bieber once again.
Signed,
Canadians.
Uganda Radio (Score:2)
It's simple (Score:1)
Radio? You mean shitty music with way too many commercials? No thanks.
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British Home Front Radio (Score:3)
People have better shit to horde than music (Score:1)
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Too bad... (Score:1)
in the US, at least, the AM broadcast band radio waves are full of right wing bullshit, and worldwide the SW broadcast bands are full of religious bullshit which translates to right wing bullshit.
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Wait, I'm confused here. Are you saying we should outlaw wings, bullshit, or both?
Less expense (Score:3)
Radio doesn't require a subscription, and radios are cheap. Some cell phones have them built in.
Live Radio Creates Sense of Togetherness (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a psychology behind this. When you're listening to over-the-air radio, you know that there are other people listening to it as well. In a weird way, you feel like you aren't necessarily alone. Radio stations are also doing a lot of call-in programs like they used to do in the 70s-90s. Back then, over the air radio WAS social media.
Streaming is definitely a more solitary activity with very little, if any, sense of connectedness associated with it.
Radio music is not compressed (Score:2)
For me it's Sirus, not terrestrial radio (Score:2)
What I listen to is rarely found in the terrestrial airwaves, and what is on the terrestrial airwaves, to me, is abject banal garbage. 30% music 70% ads.
The Sirius channel I keep my thing parked at is Symphony Hall, all the DJs are musicians themselves and quite knowledgable.
Y'all can have FM. I abandoned it 15 years ago, when my one local classical FM station closed.
And I abandoned NPR, too.
I would sell my Mr. Slim am/fm from 1978, but I keep that for when SHTF. IT's quite sensitive, it'll pull stations
Such a misleading title (Score:3)
Title suggests that the number of people listening to music on radio is increasing, i.e., radio listening is being compared to streaming MUSIC.
However, the content of the article makes it clear that the actual comparison being made is TALK RADIO vs streaming music. People are simply listening to more news. Talk radio is all news, commentary, and analysis. Music radio is still as dead as it was before zombie apocalypse.
Radio still has relevance (Score:1)
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I'm also confused about this. You can't have statistics on the number of AM/FM listeners unless you do some polls and averages or something.
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What is Norway Going to Do? (Score:1)
Such shortsightedness, putting all eggs in one basket.
I'll guess other countries have similar plans.