Terrestrial radio accounted for 17% of listener engagement in 2022, compared to subscription audio streaming, which accounted for 24%, according to IFPI’s 2022 Engaging with Music Report. Plus, 73% of those surveyed stated that when they do listen to the radio, they listen to it mainly for the purpose of listening to music, MBW reports. Tom Rose, Managing Director at pan-European PR and radio plugging agency Propeller Communications, believes radio will maintain its position as the essential platform for new music discovery - "people want to be recommended music by people they trust, as well as algorithms. That’s why public radio stations are able to increase in listenership when they get it right. There are less and less media outlets out there with the demise of blogs and print media, but fans still want to be recommended music by tastemakers that they trust."

Mix Mag is worried about the disappearence of independent radio, following several closures: "Community radio broadcasters have the freedom to choose their own track listing and to punctuate their links with rewarding personal stories - without the confinement of a looming news bulletin. Fascinating guests without profiles are as welcome as guests that have them. With that, unplanned conversational twists have the space to be explored. The freedom of online radio’s programming is what makes it so culturally valuable. It’s a paramount tool in supporting the independent music economy and in sustaining the careers of alternative broadcasters".

Radio pioneer Art Laboe, who spent seven decades behind a microphone, brought rock 'n roll to the West Coast and coined the phrase "Oldies but Goodies", died at age 97 on Friday at his home in Palm Springs. The radio legend is credited with pioneering industry standards such as audience requests and song dedications, and he is believed to be the first DJ to play rock 'n roll tunes on Los Angeles radio. He was also among the first DJs to play music by both Black and white artists, and he built a major following among Latino communities across the region. Laboe’s last show was produced last week and broadcast on Sunday night, two days after he died. LA Times shares a lovely story about their co-citizen.

TikTok is launching TikTok Radio this summer, a full-time SiriusXM music channel, Music Business Worldwide reports. It will be available in vehicles and as a streaming channel on the SiriusXM App, desktop, and all connected devices. TikTok Radio is pitched as a radio version of TikTok’s For You page, a discovery tool for trending videos, and it will be presented by TikTok creators, tastemakers, and DJs.

Radio has become an increasingly vital source of community and comfort for its listeners - DJ Mag argues in an interesting article about the old medium. The audience has grown substantially - much-loved independent station NTS' listener numbers have grown from 1.5 million monthly listeners in 2019 to 2.5 million a year later. A similar trend is seen in other stations, which also proves that the radio is being listened to not only in the car.

Radio stations in the US are flipping to all-holiday formats a bit earlier this year than usual, Variety reports. WWIZ in Youngstown, Pa., moved to wall-to-wall seasonal tunes as early as late September, this week Los Angeles’ KOST, among others, also flipped the switch.

American National Public Radio had Korean boy-band BTS for their Tiny Desk concert on Monday, which set a record for online viewership. Later that day, Gabe Rosenberg, the digital news editor for Columbus, Ohio, NPR affiliate WOSU, encouraged the K-pop band’s fans to donate to public radio stations to say thanks. And, so they did, Washingtonian reports. Earlier this year, Korean band’s fans, who are known as ARMY, raised more than $1 million for Black Lives Matter.

No Signal is a DIY black radio station from the UK that broke through in the middle of lockdown. It was the controversial song clash format NS10v10 that catapulted them into the general consciousness - NS10v10 sees two representatives select 10 songs from opposing artists and battle it out in a round-for-round game of strategy and timing. The first one was 50 Cent vs. Drake. Gal Dem talked to women behind it.

Britain’s hospital radio stations are one of the less well-known features of its health system: tiny operations, staffed by volunteers, who mostly play patient requests. Patients can normally listen to the shows, which are heavy on chart music and old hits, using headphones connected to an entertainment unit beside their beds. There are still over 200 such stations, and some claim they have found themselves more useful than ever during the pandemic, providing a human connection to patients who would otherwise be alone, New York Times reports.

SiriusXM announced limited edition channels launching on Friday (May 1) that will bring some of the greatest hits and exclusive content from the likes of David Bowie, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, George Strait, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Prince and the Rolling Stones. The personally curated channels will roll out in coordination with SiriusXM’s Stream Free period, which has been extended through May 31, allowing anyone to get free access to the streaming network's full lineup of streaming content on the SiriusXM app.