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Recent Nielsen ratings show both AM and FM radio listenership down in Miami, reflecting a nationwide trend. Listeners are turning instead to streaming apps Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and iHeart radio as well as podcasts.
Car manufacturers almost universally support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Some have announced they will be deleting radio tuners from their entertainment offering as soon as 2025, instead offering touchscreen selection of popular streaming apps.
As the world moves to streams and file-based audio entertainment, hit FM stations will not disappear. They will simply become streaming stations, reminiscent of how broadcasters migrated content from AM signals to the FM dial in the early 1970s.
One standout streaming-only station is Miami’s maverick Yummy Hits Radio. Yummy Hits achieves both a sleek, major-market sound and a disrupter appeal. The upstart is making traditional Miami stations nervous as they watch Yummy’s exponential audience growth vs their own attrition.
“I’ve had this idea in my head for years,” said Yummy Hits founder Dennis “DJ” Porter. “A bright, fast-moving pop station that’s on every phone and car around. And we’ve reached the tipping point where more people — younger people — are getting their audio entertainment from apps, podcasts and streaming than traditional radio.”
Porter used his own funds to create Yummy Hits in 2020. He hired major-market consultants to give the station a slickness and pace similar to Top 40 stations in Los Angeles and New York.
“DJ knows where to go lean and where to spend,” said veteran Los Angeles broadcaster Ben Patrick Johnson (KABC Radio, Extra!, Entertainment Tonight) who Porter brought in to give Yummy Hits street credibility.
Yummy Hits’ deejays are varied in age and background, from teenage TikTok influencers, to standup comics, to established entertainment journalists like Johnson.
The station’s playlist is bilingual, reflecting Miami’s rich LatinX heritage. Yummy Hits’ jingles include messaging about a borderless world.
“We’re an all-inclusive station where everybody can have fun.” Porter said. “We’re local in Miami and bringing the vibe to the world.”
The number of listeners Yummy Hits draws has exploded since the station signed on. Last month, Yummy Hits served over 100,000 unique streams. What makes this growth most impressive is that it has been 100 percent organic.
“We’re just now starting to promote the station,” Porter explainsed. “I can’t wait to see how quickly we grow once we are in magazines and nightclubs around town. This is going to be one wild ride.”
Yummy Hits Radio is available on the free YummyHits app in the iPhone App Store and Google Play for Android. It’s a featured station on iHeart Radio and TuneIn radio. Listen on the web at www.yummyhitsradio.com, or ask Alexa or Siri to play you Yummy Hits on iHeart.
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