Music Artist Discovery: The Digital Road to the Top of the Radio

Radio is a powerful and influential medium with a vast and encompassing audience reaching about 244.5 million consumers a year (Nielsen, 2014). Consequently, a music artist’s position on the top charts of radio is a primary measure of success in the music industry. It is of particular interest to record labels to promote and position their artists in a way to ensure they hit the top charts of radio. When identifying potential artists to join their label, record labels may also be interested in assessing how likely an artist is to hit the top charts of radio. This paper is a statistical analysis examining the relationship between an artist’s online presence and their appearance on the top charts of radio. It is hypothesized that artists with higher activity online are more likely to reach radio’s merit of success. First, radio data and artist online activity data were collected from two sources. The data were then linked using statistical data matching techniques to create one relational database. The online channels examined include Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Youtube, Vevo and SoundCloud. The linked data were then used to fit a logistic regression model with the explanatory variables as summarized time series variables for each online medium. However, this approach was not found to adequately capture the relationships. Instead, a Cox Proportional Hazards model predicting an artist’s presence on the top chart of radio was fit. The final findings show evidence urging artists and record labels to place increased attention on their use of Twitter, Vevo and SoundCloud. After establishing an online presence, the expected time period of success is between 1 and 3 years.