15,800,000: The average number of weekly commercial radio listens that each (and every) song in the Itunes Top 100 got in one week.

21,880,000: The average number of weekly commercial radio listens that each song in the Itunes Top 100 got in one week, when that artist had 2 or more songs in the Itunes Top 100.

51,300,000: The average number of weekly commercial radio listens that each song in the Itunes Top 100 got in one week, when that artist had 3 or more songs in the Itunes Top 100.

71,922,000: The number of weekly commercial radio listens that the #1 song in the Itunes Top 100 got in one week.

100 percent: The number of songs in the Itunes Top 100 where the artist received major commercial radio airplay in major U.S. markets for this or other songs of theirs.

0 percent: The number of songs in the Itunes Top 100 where the artist NEVER received major commercial radio airplay in major U.S. markets for this or other songs of theirs.

Now, Itunes has about 10 million songs available for purchase (at least this is the average number that I came up with after searching the web.) And probably 99.9% of these songs are NOT from major labels. This would mean that 9,990,000 of the Itunes songs come from indies like you. And every artist reading this would agree that the best music comes from indies, right?

So how can it be that the Itunes Top 100 songs (which are only .00001 of all the Itunes songs) are ALL pushed heavily on commercial radio? 100 percent of them. Especially when everyone knows that major labels only put out "crap". How could all these commercial radio listeners make the mistake of buying only major-label (bad) music on Itunes, when the overwhelming vast vast vast majority of the Itunes songs are good quality indies?

And how can it be, that of the 9,990,000 high-quality indie songs that are not promoted on commercial radio, not ONE of them made the Itunes Top 100? Kinda strange, don't you think? Looks to me like the one single common thread linking all the high sales together is commercial radio airplay.

I'm sure the following is already being thought by many of you: "Don't you know that radio just plays what already got big on Youtube/MySpace? So of course the radio "listens" are going to match up to high Itunes sales, because the songs got viral first, started selling on Itunes, and then radio started playing them". This is great, except for one small detail: The radio starts BEFORE the YouTube/MySpace starts. Every time. All you have to do is follow the radio add dates, the radio spin increase dates, and the YouTube/MySpace view count dates. You ARE doing this, aren't you?. But this is information for another article. In the mean time, you can look at the www.TopListens.com chart for real, weekly numbers.

Below is the complete Itunes Top 100 of 6/12/11, cross referenced with the Top Listens chart of 6/10/11. It's not exactly 100 , because some of the listings are duplicates of song and album:

Itunes Sales Position, ARTIST, Song, Weekly Listens

1: ADELE, Rolling In The Deep: 71,922,000
2: PITBULL, Give Me Everything: 50,112,000 (has other songs at 46 and 72)
3: LMFAO, Party Rock Anthem: 23,223,000
4: LADY GAGA, The Edge Of Glory: 28,734,000
5: KATY PERRY, Last Friday Night: 6,987,000
6: JASON ALDEAN, Dirt Road Anthem: 12,078,000
7: LIL WAYNE, How To Love: 7,833,000
8: BRUNO MARS, Lazy Song: 49,479,000
9: JENNIFER LOPEZ, On The Floor: 35,478,000
11: HOT CHELLE RAE, Tonight Tonight: 15,441,000
12: JASON DERULO, Don't Wanna Go Home: 20,964,000
13: COLDPLAY, Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall: 3,759,000
14: SELENA GOMEZ, Who Says: 13,341,000 (has another song at 90)
15: ONEREPUBLIC, Good Life: 22,650,000
16: BLACK EYED PEAS, Just Can't Get Enough: 52,506,000 (has other songs at 82 and 97)
17: BLAKE SHELTON, Honey Bee: 16,755,000
18: KATY PERRY, E.T.: 63,726,000
19: LUKE BRYAN, Country Girl Shake It For Me: 10,545,000
20: LADY ANTEBELLUM, Just A Kiss: 11,139,000 (has another song at 99)
22: BRAD PAISLEY, Remind Me: 4,314,000
23: ZAC BROWN BAND, Knee Deep: 10,812,000 (has another song at 77)
24: KE$HA, Blow: 19,467,000
25: JESSIE J, Price Tag: 17,100,000
26: BRITNEY SPEARS, Till The World Ends: 40,329,000
27: KELLY ROWLAND, Motivation: 25,494,000
29: THE BAND PERRY, If I Die Young: 6,405,000
31: T-PAIN, Best Love Song: 5,871,000
32: TAYLOR SWIFT, Mean: 15,759,000
33: MARTIN SOLVEIG & DRAGONETTE, Hello: 11,409,000
34: JEREMIH, Down On Me: 21,639,000
35: LADY GAGA, Born This Way: 9,480,000 (has another song at 75)
36: JAKE OWEN, Barefoot Blue Jean Night: 7,575,000
37: ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, Dirty Dancer: 11,877,000
38: RIHANNA, S&M: 23,139,000
39: NEW BOYZ, Back Seat: 15,837,000
40: RIHANNA, California King Bed: 6,846,000
41: KATY PERRY, Firework: 5,412,000
43: THE BAND PERRY, You Lie: 15,138,000
44: RASCAL FLATTS, I Won't Let Go: 8,739,000
45: BEYONCE, Run The World: 3,465,000
47: CHRIS YOUNG, Tomorrow: 13,983,000
48: KENNY CHESNEY, You And Tequila: 7,668,000
49: ERIC CHURCH, Homeboy: 8,142,000
51: FOSTER THE PEOPLE, Pumped Up Kicks: 5,670,000
52: ELI YOUNG BAND, Crazy Girl: 5,019,000
54: SCOTTY MCCREERY, I Love You This Big: 2,760,000
55: JASON ALDEAN, Don't You Wanna Stay: 5,895,000 (has another song at 79)
56: CHRIS BROWN, She Ain't You: 23,826,000
57: PINK, F**kin' Perfect: 16,170,000
58: CHRISTINA PERRI, Jar Of Hearts: 1,662,000
59: MIGUEL, Sure Thing: 22,506,000
61: CEE LO GREEN, F**k You: 10,503,000
63: BRUNO MARS, Grenade: 6,537,000
64: BRAD PAISLEY, Old Alabama: 14,451,000
65: TAYLOR SWIFT, The Story Of Us: 10,557,000
66: MUMFORD & SONS, The Cave: 4,599,000
67: BEYONCE, Best Thing I Never Had: 1,632,000
68: JUSTIN MOORE, If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away: 13,974,000
69: KEITH URBAN, Without You: 16,248,000
70: LUPE FIASCO, The Show Goes On: 36,621,000
74: BRUNO MARS, Just The Way You Are: 5,850,000
76: NICOLE SCHERZINGER, Right There: 5,130,000
78: RODNEY ATKINS, Take A Back Road: 4,533,000
80: DIERKS BENTLEY, Am I The Only One: 10,620,000
83: SEETHER, Country Song: 10,659,000
86: ONEREPUBLIC, Secrets: 3,225,000
87: LUPE FIASCO, Out Of My Head: 8,329,000
92: MAROON 5, Never Gonna Leave This Bed: 16,470,000
98: AWOLNATION, Sail: 3,309,000
100: ANDY GRAMMER, Keep Your Head Up: 9,066,000

The following songs from that week's Itunes Top 100 were not on that week's Top Listens:

10: SHANIA TWAIN, Today Is Your Day
28: JOE JONAS, See No More
30: PARAMORE, Monster
50: VICTORIOUS CAST, Best Friend's Brother
60: TAIO CRUZ, Dynamite
71: DIA FRAMPTON, Heartless
89: ICARLY, Leave It All
91: JUSTIN BIEBER, Never Say Never
93: VICTORIOUS CAST, Beggin' On Your Knees
94: GAVIN DEGRAW, Not Over You
95: CODY SIMPSON, All Day
96: JUSTIN BIEBER, Baby

Yet, notice that they all have had major commercial radio play of other songs; it's just that this particular week, the particular song of interest was already played on radio and has now been dropped. In other words, radio leads the Itunes sales. Again, this is why Apple partnered with radio... to cause more sales to happen.

Next topic: Radio Compared To YouTube and Facebook, part 3: Imagine If The Counter Went Away