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Airplay is a technical term used in the radio industry to state how frequently a song is being played on a radio station. For example, a song which is being played several times every day would be classed as receiving a large amount of airplay. The term is also used in the same way regarding music video channels, to state how often a music video is being played.

Most countries have at least one radio airplay chart in existence, although larger countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Japan have several, to cover different genres and areas of the country.

A song which was run very successful in the Airplay charts but which was not so strong at the sellings was commonly known as turntable hit to the time when radio stations only played vinyl singles.

Many songs have been turned into hits due to airplay and wouldn't have been otherwise, for instance Rihanna and Mariah Carey. Hits which were made hits due to this used to be hated as biased DJ's were playing songs many times a day (high airplay) and was considered cheating.

However, today it is widely accepted as airplay is a way to listen and discover new music which would otherwise be forgotten and many biased DJ's were fired due to complaining listeners, as soon the same song with a high airplay soon gets boring for listeners and a good song with a low airplay can be forgotten. Playing a low airplay song can cause relief and enjoyment when it's played again, which is what a radio station aims to achieve through music. But often when this happens the low airplay song turns high airplay and so on.

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