ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the influence of audiences in the programming strategies of music radio stations, contributing to the evaluation and questioning of the deterministic and cyber fetishist discourse that endows digital social networks and the consumers with key power as music advisers and playlist co-creators. Public radio has historically treated popular music as a public good, justifying its existence and important role in the dissemination of music. In 1945, Adorno approached the relationship between both industries in A Social Critique of Radio Music criticising the standardisation of music radio programmes and their remarkable effect on consumption, given the commercial character that music had acquired. In Spain, the group PRISA confirms the remarkable rise of the average age of music radio listeners, linking these data to the lack of migration to conventional radio and the absence of new young listeners within some brands traditionally geared towards adolescents.
