Digital Trends nails it on the head concerning radio. I love radio, listening to it the old-fashioned way. But while a lot of us still get our music that way….there are countless other platforms, hard to keep track of all of them. I do love Pandora (I use the free Pandora, don’t mind the commercials at all, because they are local and I learn things about what is going on in Connecticut). At home my music plays thru a Bose speaker and it sounds pretty darn good. Yes, it was an impulse buy because it was turquoise I love that color).
Digital Trends says despite the fact that three quarters of Americans listen to music online in a given week, radio is still the king of new music discovery, according to Nielson. Streaming is very much “today.” DT reports Nielsen says online users streamed 135 billion tracks in the first half of 2015, compared to 164 billion in all of 2014. Most of those plays were from free services, according to the data, and 78 percent of people say they are unlikely to use a paid streaming service in the next six months.
Record labels might be unhappy with this fact, considering that ad-based streaming services like Spotify and Pandora’s free tiers bring in less revenue, but venues and promoters are sitting pretty. In a music world that is becoming increasingly digital, the report notes that attendance of live events is actually up, and that listeners now spend over half of their annual musical expenditures attending live shows.
DT goes on to report that American listeners are starting to listen to Spotify, and other services on their smartphones more often. They are willing to deal with ads, (just like me) in exchange for free listening, but they still find their favorite new bands listening to the radio in their cars before making their way to more live shows.
