Radio still turning Americans on to new music

Video hasn’t yet killed the radio star after all, although YouTube has taken over as the place where most teens listen to music, according to a report released last week.

Nielsen’s Music 360 report found that radio is still the place where most people (48 percent) discover new music, compared with just 7 percent for YouTube.

But once they have found it, 64 percent of teens listen to music through YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site owned by Google.

Even so, old-fashioned radio — whose demise was marked in the 1979 hit single “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles — is still a big player in the music industry.

The report found that 56 percent of teens listen to music on the radio while 53 percent use Apple’s iTunes music player and half of teens still listen to music on compact discs.

Despite the plethora of social networking, blogs and endorsements, 54 percent of the 3,000 Americans surveyed said they are more likely to buy music on the recommendation of a friend than the endorsement of a music chat room or blog.

The report also found that only 36 percent of teens bought a physical CD in the past year, compared with 51 percent who purchased some kind of digital download.

The findings reflect a 3 percent slump in U.S. album sales in the first six months of 2012 from 2011, and a 6 percent rise in digital song sales, Nielsen SoundScan reported last month.

— Reuters