Although iPods are the main new media culprit siphoning off radio Time Spent Listening (TSL), Personalized/Mix CDs also result in less radio TSL.  Listeners are actually producing their own content as they download music to burn CDs and share their vision of good music with their friends.  This listener as producer model is something new in the way people listen to recorded music.

iPods and Personalized/Mix CDs are the only two new media devises/activities that have had a net negative effect on radio Time Spent Listening (TSL) in both 2007 and 2008. 

Downloading music to make CDs and listening to personalized/Mix CDs remained nearly the same between 2007 and 2008.  Interestingly in 2008, Women 19-24 are significantly more likely to listen to Personalized/Mix CDs

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Whether it’s personal listening, turning a friend on to an MP3 file of an individual song, or swapping an entire CD of someone’s personalized mix, we have two significant new media challengers to radio as a source for recorded music.  And this time the consumer is “producing” his or her own recorded music rather than relying on centralized radio or record companies.  Radio still is a source for new music discovery and personalities.  Whether consumers as producers makes radio even more narrow or allows programmers to fan out to cover psychographic tastes that parallel peoples iPod playlists and/or Personalized/Mix CDs is a question worth pondering as radio tries to hold is own amid the New Media onslaught.

Detailed results of the complete Second Annual Youth Radio and New Media Study on our website www.paragonmediastrategies.com