What Do People Listen To On Their Smartphones?

Edison Research recently completed a study on smartphone usage and discovered that the listening habits of users isn't quite what we believed it to be. in fact, the results were pretty surprising.

• 54% listened to a radio channel
• 16% listened to music they own
• 15% listened to Pandora or other radio-like streaming services
• 7% listen to Sirius XM
• 5% to TV music channels
• 2% listen to podcasting

Heavy listeners (those defined by listening to 2 hours or more per day) have a slightly different consumption pattern.

• 43% listen to music they've downloaded and own
• 37% listen to streaming audio
• 9% listen to AM/FM radio
• 7% listen to podcasts

Finally, 87% of adults from 18 to 34 never let their smartphones leave their sides.

All that said, we're under the impression that the listening world belongs to exclusively to streaming, but that's far from the case, according to the study. While radio listening and downloads may be dropping, they're still a vital portion of our listening day.

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A Look At The American Listening Audience

Edison Research and Triton Digital recently released their annual Infinite Dial survey on American media consumption.

As usual uncovered some very interesting data about the audience that hopefully listens to your music. Here are 7 takeaways.

1. 71% of all Americans now have a cell phone, up 10 points from last year. More and more, people consume their media on this platform. 

2. Embattled Pandora is still the leader in music streaming with 54% of online radio listeners. The runners-up are pretty distant, with iHeartRadio at 11%, Spotify at 10% and iTunes Radio at 8%. 

3. Facebook is the most used social network at 65% of those who regularly use social media. 

4. Facebook is even big in the age group that's seeing the most attrition - ages 12 to 24. 43% in that group still use Facebook, handily beating Instagram at 18%, Snapchat at 15%, and Twitter at 8%. 

5. 63% of Americans use YouTube to watch music videos and listen to music. 

6. That number increases to a whopping 90% ages 12 to 24 years old. 

7. 44% of all Americans listen to music online in some form every week.

Media consumption has changed drastically in the last 5 years and continues to change right before our very eyes. One of the keys to your online promotion strategy is knowing your audience, and the above data helps to understand just who the audience for your music is and how they like to consume it.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

The Generation Gap In Music Streaming

It's been said that statistics can be presented to reach any conclusion that you want and that's true to some degree. While a chart or graph might show one thing, it may overlook or ignore the real reason the result is happening.

Take for instance this infographic from Statista that shows the generation gap of the users of streaming music. The information comes from Edison Research's annual survey called The Infinite Dial and shows that Baby Boomers are way behind the curve when it comes to streaming adoption, as opposed to 12 to 24 year olds.

What the chart doesn't take into account is that 12 to 24 is the prime age for music consumption. 25 to 54 is when people are starting families and working and therefore have less time for music in general, while people ages 55+ typically consume far less music in general because of other interests.

The point is if you look at any area of music consumption, you'll find the same general breakdown.

A couple of things about this chart that are interesting though:

1. All age groups use Pandora much more than than the on-demand Spotify service.

2. More people use iTunes Radio than generally believed.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

The Most Popular Social Networks For Young Americans

While we continue to hear about Americans ages 12 to 24 fleeing Facebook for other apps like Snapchat, Vine or WhatsApp, the evidence just doesn't square up with the facts.

While it's true that Facebook usage in that age group is lower than before, the social network still has a commanding lead over any of its competitors.

Here's a chart by Statista based on data published by Edison Research and Triton Digital that shows just how much 12 to 24 year olds actually use each of the most popular social platforms now available.

This is vitally important if your audience is in this age group because your promotion has to go where your fans are.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

How Teens And Young Adults Stay Up To Date With Music

Here's an interesting infographic from Edison Research that looks at how 12 to 24 year olds keep up to date with music. The dynamics have shift from a year ago, but not all that much.

As you can see, YouTube is the primary way that kids learn about new music, followed by Pandora and word-of-mouth from friends and family. Radio is still a big source of music, and to a lessor degree, so is Facebook and iTunes.

What's surprising is how low both Spotify and Music Blogs are in the process. We've all been led to believe that they both have much more influence than they apparently have.

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What Do We Listen To Every Day?

A new survey by Edison Research has determined that people in the US listen to over 4 hours of audio every day. It's pretty interesting how this is broken out.

• Broadcast radio gets the bulk of our attention, at 52.1%, or just over 2 hours a day. About 92% of Americans over the age of 12 listen to broadcast radio every day, according to Arbitron.

• The music that we already own, like digital music files and CDs, gets 20.3% of our listening time.

• Streaming music comes next with 11.6%. This doesn't seem that significant a number until you realize that 47 million Americans over the age of 12 listen to Internet radio every month, a figure that skews much higher to 75% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 24.

• SiriusXM gets 7.7%.

• Television music channels, podcasts and misc program make up the 8.4%.

This study just goes to show that radio, broadcast or online, is much more a part of our lives than we sometimes think.

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We Still Listen To Radio

According to what you'll read in most places online, you'd think that radio is dead, especially when it comes to discovering new music. That's far from the truth, according to a Statista infographic made up from stats from Edison Research. It turns out that radio is still the major way Americans 12 years old and up discover music, even after all these years and new technology.

You will find more statistics at Statista

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YouTube's Affect On The Music Business

If you don't think that YouTube is important to the music business, then you're not paying attention. In a new survey by Edison Research and Triton Digital, it was found that YouTube was the top source for 12 to 24 year olds to keep up to date with the latest music, even more so than radio (although that's at odds with other recent studies). Streaming service Pandora and word of mouth by family and friends are next in line.

The most surprising data item is the influence that music television channels and point-of-purchase displays in stores had, coming in at 35 and 33% (see the chart).

The rest of the population is much less influenced by YouTube than the 12-24 year olds, but still influenced all the same.

One has to wonder how much these numbers might change when YouTube introduces its streaming music channel sometime in the near future.

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What's The Most Downloaded Smartphone Audio App?

Every year Edison Research produces a research document entitled The Infinite Dial that looks at the state of radio, and more recently, the social media around it. This year's survey has a number of very interesting facts, but one that stuck out was the most downloaded audio app on a typical listener's smartphone. This is what it found.

Pandora - 50%
iHeart Radio - 16%
Spotify - 9%
Google Play All Access - 4%
SiriusXM - 4%
Slacker - 4%
Tunein Radio - 3%
Rhapsoday - 3%
Songza - 2%
Last.fm - 2%
Rdio - 1%
Stitcher - 1%

What's interesting is the inroads that Pandora has made, and how little market share other services like Spotify and Slacker have. Pandora is a lot more powerful than many give it credit for.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Which Streaming Service Is The Leader?

Spotify gets so much press and hype that we automatically think of it as the streaming service with the most listeners.

That's far from the truth though, as a new study from Edison Research shows that Pandora, at 31% of American listeners, is clearly the leader by a factor of 3 of the next competitor, as shown by this infographic from Statista.

What's probably more interesting is the fact that iHeartRadio is second with 9% and the relatively new iTunes Radio is right behind with 8%. Spotify follows in 4rth place at 6%.

What's not included is YouTube, which may in fact have a far larger audience than Pandora, if other studies and empirical evidence is true.

We're in the early days of streaming adoption, so expect this chart to be fluid. It very may be totally scrambled next year at this time.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

More People Are Listening To Internet Radio

If there's any doubt about the popularity of streaming music, a new study by Edison Research should put it rest. The survey of more than 3,000 people age 12 and up about their online music consumption definitively proves that streaming has truly arrived. Here's what the study found:

• More than 80% of smartphone owners said they listen to some kind of Internet radio on their mobile gadgets. 

• A majority of Web users -- 53%, to be precise -- listen to Internet radio outlets, including personalized streaming, live online audio and music on-demand.

• Slightly more than two-thirds of those surveyed said they listen to more online radio than they did a year ago as they access content on more Internet connected devices. 

Surprisingly, that doesn't mean that terrestrial radio is losing listeners though.

• 90% of the survey participants still listen to terrestrial stations. 

• Almost 9 of 10 people listen to radio in their cars, but only 17% use Internet radio.

Expect to see these rates rise shortly as more users turn to iTunes Radio and Beats Music and the new YouTube music streaming services are introduced.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Online Radio Listening Increases

A recent survey done by Arbitron and Edison Research produced some very interesting results that have a number of ramifications for artists and bands. First, some pertinent points:

• Monthly online radio now reaches 39% of the American population, or about 103 million people. This is up 5% from last year.

• Listeners spend about 10 hours per week listening to online radio.

• The vast majority of online radio listeners (87%) also listen to over the air terrestrial radio.

• 22% of online radio listeners listened to Pandora, up from 16% last year.

• 17% have listened to online radio from their cell phone.

• When it comes to work, 68% still listen on a regular radio

• 45% of the population has watched videos on YouTube (only 45%?). This is up from 41% last year.

• People spend about 4 and a half minutes watching video per week (half of what they spend listening to radio).

• 88% of Americans own a cell phone. Half of them own a smartphone.

• Nearly 2/3rds of 18-34's own a smartphone.

• 60% own a portable digital media device, meaning an iPod, iPhone, iPad, MP3 player, tablet or Android smartphone. Two-thirds of them own an Apple device.

What all this means is that the line is beginning to blur between media distribution and devices. Soon people will look at "radio" to mean all types of radio, not just online, especially as more and more people become smartphone users. This will happen with all forms of media as well. People will just expect everything to work on every device from every source and won't distinguish between online or terrestrial. It make take a little time, but that time is coming.

What that means for musicians is that you have to be extra vigilant with your mobile strategy, since if it's not critical to your marketing at the moment, that time is just around the corner.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.