Our readers write:
Think of radio. Radio is required for music to become popular. A&R reps buy out slots on major broadcast networks to get airplay for their new singles and artists.

Its true that this is how this industry used to work.  Send off your focus track with your payola to radio station programmers in key markets (Detroit Rock City!) and wait til you get it in rotation. The T. worked at a radio station and has stories of the stacks of focus tracks that landed on desks there.

But have you talked to a teenager lately?  What is their favorite radio station?  Seriously, I would like to know because I would listen to it.

I spend time listening to radio and from what I can tell (by advertising) in Toronto they are geared towards adults who drive or work in offices (dentist, doctor) that play radio.  Aside from the Flow, there are no radio stations that have more than half of their songs in rotation recorded in 2004 or 2005.

I think most teenagers these days get their music from these sources: TV shows, Advertisements (played on TV, at the beginning of movies) Movies, and their friends.   And don't forget that they are mining alot of music from the past (parents).  Led Zeppelin and AC/DC are new again!  Kurt Cobain has a whole new batch of fans every year someone turns 14.  From what I hear the A/R business is changing but I would guess (warning: theory without extensive research backing it up) that they talk to a lot more than the programmer at the Jack trying to get their song popular.

There is always a role for broadcast media.  But I think its a fragmenting industry and its changing.  It used it to be about infrastructure and now its becoming about content.  Personally, I'm excited by the changes and I'm interested in see what becomes of it.