ABSTRACT
The importance of the American popular music industry should not be underestimated. As noted earlier, it is by far the largest single market in terms of sales in the world. The fact remains that the output of the popular music industry in North America constitutes the majority input of those radio and television formats around the world that rely on popular music for programme content. The levels of industry concentration and musical innovation and diversity affect not only the range of choice offered to the consumer in the retail stores but also determines to a large extent what audiences hear on the radio and see on the television. With deregulation sweeping across Europe this is not unimportant. Also important is the fact that due to the extreme commercial nature of the American music industry there exists a whole sub-industry that conducts media performance and audience research. Hence there exists an overwhelming abundance of data available for secondary analysis.
