DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 25, 2026--
MAX (Music Audience Exchange) launches Wavelength, a multi-category consumer trends platform that connects traditional demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data with a layer most studies ignore: music taste.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260225355974/en/
MAX has spent years building infrastructure around this connection. The company’s proprietary Artist Matching Engine™ segments audiences using 300+ demographic, psychographic, sociographic, and consumer behavior attributes and has powered brand partnerships with brands like Ford, McDonald’s, AARP, and more by matching them with artists whose fan bases align with their target consumers.
Wavelength extends that intelligence beyond brand-artist matching and into a broader research offering, putting the patterns MAX sees across its platform directly into the hands of marketers and brands.
The platform is built on responses from more than 14,000 US consumers aged 13–64, with deliberate oversampling of young Black and Latino respondents. The study spans age, gender, ethnicity, and income and was designed with multiple layers of data validation and statistical testing, producing data that holds up even at narrow audience segments.
With attributes spanning categories from automotive and finance to beauty, travel, food, and entertainment, Wavelength gives marketers a detailed behavioral picture of their audiences: not just who they are, but how they spend, what they watch, and what they care about.
What distinguishes Wavelength from other consumer research is its music layer. A Gen Z country fan's purchase patterns look different from a Gen Z pop fan's, which, in turn, look different from a Gen Z indie pop fan’s.
Wavelength makes those distinctions visible.
“Music is a powerful proxy for consumer behavior. The communities we form around music inform our habits and attitudes in ways that traditional segmentation fails to capture. Music taste can reflect subcultures that cross demographic lines, but it also works in the reverse direction. Even within a segment like Gen Z Latinas, music fandom can surface distinct subcommunities with meaningfully different consumer behavior." –Jeff Rosenfeld, Chief Product Officer at MAX.
First Report: Consumer Attitudes Toward AI
Wavelength’s inaugural report examines consumer attitudes toward artificial intelligence, including the use of AI and social media as search alternatives, generational differences in AI adoption and sentiment, audience perceptions of generative AI, and attitudes toward AI in music creation.
The data reveals significant fractures in AI sentiment along generational, economic, and cultural lines. Among the findings: Gen Z consumers who use AI most frequently also express the most skepticism about its broader impact, and acceptance of AI-generated content varies substantially by music genre.
The full AI report is available for free at Wavelength.MAX.Live in an interactive, web-based format and a downloadable version, with presentation-ready graphics.
Upcoming Reports
Additional reports are scheduled for release over the coming months, with “State of the Music Industry” and “Gen Z: Generational Report” coming soon. Wavelength will also release industry specific reports across a range of fields, including Alcoholic Beverages, Clothing & Retail, Finance & Banking, Food & Beverage, Personal Care & Beauty, and Vehicles.
MAX and Wavelength will continue to announce additional report releases throughout the year and anyone interested can sign up on the Wavelength website to get notified when a new report is released: https://wavelength.max.live/reports.
AboutMAX (Music Audience Exchange):
MAX gives brands direct access to artists’ story, stage, and social presence. Grounded in the company’s proprietary Artist Matching Engine, MAX is backed by tech VCs and built by a team of data scientists, engineers, music pros, and media experts. MAX powers partnerships for top brands (like Ford, Rocket Mortgage, McDonald’s, AARP, US Marine Corps, and more) and supports a growing portfolio of 6,000+ artists (including Alicia Keys, Kane Brown, Jon Batiste, Eslabon Armado, Leela James, Lalah Hathaway, Justin Quiles, AJR, and Melissa Etheridge) with live engagement tools and promotional sponsorships.
Wavelength™ by MAX is a comprehensive, free consumer trends study revealing how Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers differ across brand loyalty, purchase decisions, values, and cultural identity — with music taste as the decoder.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A local NBC news helicopter crashed in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing at least three people while reporters were covering the nearby crash of an SUV and a city bus, officials and the station said.
Colleen Williams, an NBC4 Los Angeles anchor, confirmed during live broadcasts that the station's chopper went down just before 7 p.m. and two people on the helicopter were killed.
“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. Moments later their coverage abruptly cut off.
Fire officials, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other politicians spoke during a news conference Tuesday night but gave no details on who perished in the crash. After the news conference, the mayor and other officials embraced a crying NBC reporter who also was hugged by fellow journalists.
“Losing five Angelenos is very painful,” Bass said. “And I know this community of Chatsworth hit hard, will be grieving for some time.”
The helicopter crashed near a large storage facility in the neighborhood of Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, as news crews were covering the bus crash that left at least two people dead and six others injured, according the Los Angeles Fire Department.
At least one person killed in the helicopter crash was outside in the parking lot next to the commercial building, said Capt. Branden Silverman, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Two people were transported to a hospital, said Rico A. Gross, a fire department battalion chief. Their conditions were not immediately released.
“From the helicopter itself, it’s pretty well destroyed,” Silverman said. “So we are going to have to go through the rubble and see how many victims there were on board, as well as identify the helicopter; we couldn’t even see a tail.”
At least four cars and two storage containers on the ground burned after the helicopter caught fire, which was quickly put out, according to officials. More than 70 firefighters responded to the helicopter crash, according to the fire department. Dozens of police cars surrounded the scene at the storage facility as ambulances entered.
About two hours before the crash, an SUV slammed into the middle of a city bus, killing at least two people and injuring six others. Photos and videos online showed half the SUV lodged into the side of an MTA bus.
NBC has confirmed the helicopter was NewsChopper4, which is operated by Angel City Air, and was used by NBCLA and Telemundo 52. The outlet said several TV news helicopters were reporting on the bush crash before the news chopper went down about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the bus collision.
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 Los Angeles said in a statement they “are deeply saddened” to learn of the helicopter crash and extended “heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom thanked the emergency crews responding to both crashes and said in a post on X that “our hearts are with the victims and families.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said it will be investigating the cause of the helicopter crash and would be sending one of its investigators on Wednesday.
There have been at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the U.S. since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts.
They include a 2023 crash in a New Jersey forest that killed the pilot and a photographer aboard a helicopter used by Philadelphia station WPVI and a 2022 crash beside a Charlotte, North Carolina, interstate that killed a pilot and meteorologist during a training flight for WBTV.
Golden reported from Seattle.
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows first responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows firefighters respond to a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows a helicopter that crashed near a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
