Tracking radio plays using Apple Music for Artists
Apple Music adds free radio monitoring to its analytics tool for artists.
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Tracking radio plays using Apple Music for Artists
Apple Music adds free radio monitoring to its analytics tool for artists.
Why it matters
Artists can access various analytics platforms, from free tools like Spotify for Artists to paid options for established artists and their labels.
Understanding where their music is gaining popularity is crucial for artists, including monitoring radio plays. It's important for artists to utilise free resources to keep costs down.
How it works
Tracking radio plays has always been challenging. While many paid tools offer this service, as far as I know, there wasn't a free tool available to track global radio plays—until now.
Last week, Apple Music for Artists introduced radio monitoring data:
Using Shazam's music-recognition technology, Apple Music for Artists tracks over 40.000 radio stations for airplay.
The stats are updated daily.
The number of spins is prominently placed on the dashboard. Artists can click on a song to view the radio stations playing it.
Artists can opt-in to receive weekly emails summarising the tool's data for automated monitoring.
Artists who have distributed their music to Apple Music have free access to Apple Music for Artists.
Following the Shazam monitoring feature, this new addition to Apple Music for Artists enhances the ability to track music plays outside their DSP.
Yes, but..
Radio is a gatekept medium. Generating radio plays depends on third-party decisions. So why should modern artists track their radio plays anyway?
It's more about tracking the radio plays metric than influencing and improving the number of plays.
Artists should invest their time, energy, and money into tactics that allow them to control the outcome, like content creation for social media. Still, understanding where their music is being played remains valuable.
Take action now
Artists can log in to their Apple Music for Artists dashboard to check their global radio plays.
Your thoughts
We're eager to hear your experiences and insights on today's topic. Join the conversation and engage with hundreds of artists, creators, and industry professionals in the comments.
Further reading
Understand your analytics (Apple Music for Artists)
Apple Music adds radio monitoring to its dashboard for artists (Music Ally)
Apple Music expands artist analytics tools with global radio monitoring (Music Business Worldwide)
Apple Music has added Radio Monitoring: Track Your Radio Plays (Hypebot)
How to get insights from Shazam (The Fanbase Builder)
How artists can find the one metric that matters (The Fanbase Builder)