The long relationship between the music industry and the radio industry has been based on the knowledge that radio's ability to give exposure to artists was very beneficial to the music industry. The exposure to a larger fan base led to greater album and single sales as well as greater concert attendance and a host of other ancillary revenues. So much so, in fact, that the two industries have gotten into trouble with the law over labels and promoters paying to get more airplay. While the music industry benefits, so does radio by getting programming in the form of songs and using fans' relationships with artists to build relationships between stations and listeners.

What does this basic radio concept have to do with the internet? There are two things that are internet related here. First, the internet allows stations to let listeners get closer to artists and strengthen their brand in the process. Second, with the rise of affiliate programs, radio stations can now get a piece of the revenue generated by music sales - allowing radio to benefit from both sides of the equation.

Get a Little Closer

Before the popularity of the internet and the web, radio stations were often the only regular connection fans had with their favorite artists besides the albums they owned. For any one particular artist, concerts don't come around that frequently. If a listener wanted news about their favorite band, they relied on their favorite radio station to pass it along.

Of course, now that the internet is part of the daily fabric of our lives, listeners have a lot of options to follow their band. There are official sites, MySpace, newsletters, fan forums and more. Still, every day, a ton of people listen to music on the radio because its easily available almost everywhere and it offers them the opportunity to be exposed to music that they don't already own. Now, there are lots of reasons why people listen to music on the radio, but let's look at this exposure factor.

The music library of an iPod does not grow unless the owner downloads or rips the music to put it on there. When stations play a new song that a listener wants to own, it builds a positive connection with that listener. The listener will come back to the station if he or she knows that it will lead to finding new music (or course we all know that hearing favorites is very important as well - but we're looking at new music and music purchases here).