“Music subscription economics continue to hit the wrong note […] the main culprit for all the red ink is licensing fees.” That is the leading executive summary point of SNL Kagan’s new edition of its annual Economics of Mobile Music, which documents fast growth of music subscriptions, but worries about financial sustainability. Continue Reading
Webcast listening in May maintained flat performance month-over-month, shaving about one percent of Average Active Sessions (AAS) from April’s total across Triton Digital’s measured Webcast Metrics clients. The story was more vigorous in the year-over-year comparison. Continue Reading
Nielsen has released its comparable metrics report for the first quarter of 2016. The data revealed growth for most forms of both radio and streaming, although the rates of increase varied by platform and age. Weekly reach for radio remains unchanged from the previous quarter, with 93% of adults listening each week. Smartphone audio and video posted notable spikes in audience size and time listening. Continue Reading
New MusicWatch data explores the surging interest in vinyl among modern music buyers. “Although vinyl is not growing as rapidly as on-demand streaming the format continues to grow, thanks to continued interest from younger consumers who keep it hip,” the analysis finds. Continue Reading
Spotify For Brands, the company’s outreach division which promotes the free-listening service to advertisers, has released a new trove of data focused on brand awareness and listener profiling in the U.K. It is part of an ongoing The New Audio series, with survey work commissioned from TNS. Continue Reading
Teens and young adults are a desirable demographic for most businesses, and a new report from the Music Business Association and data partner LOOP examined their music listening and buying habits. On-demand streaming accounted for 51% of total listening time on a typical day for the 15-19 age group, compared to the 24% average across ages. Continue Reading
Canadian listeners are continuing to shift to streaming, with total music consumption up 7.4% on year in the first half of 2016. Nielsen’s mid-year report for Canada found that total on-demand streams from audio and video platforms reached 18.6 billion songs. Continue Reading
New research from Cowen explores the current state of the streaming music industry and gave forecasts for its future. Spotify and Amazon emerged as two of the top brands to watch. The data predicted a compound annual growth rate of 4% for the 2016-2021 period, with on-demand music services expected to double revenue and secure a 40% share of the industry by 2021. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released its monthly ranking of the podcast publishers using its measurement tools, with some notable changes appearing in the June list. Podtrac has added 500 publishers to its measurement platform since it started releasing rankings in April. Continue Reading
Nielsen’s mid-year music report revealed a continuing upward trajectory for digital sources, including audio streams nearly doubling since the first six months of 2015. Audio surpassed video as the top format for streaming, with a share growing from 44% in H1 2015 to 54% in H1 2016. Continue Reading
Data measurement and analysis company BuzzAngle is making waves with the release of its United States 2016 Mid-Year Music Report (PDF here), released on Tuesday. On-demand audio streaming more than doubled year-over-year. Continue Reading
Audio quality has been a hotly contested subject for the music industry. Some swear that high compression and low bitrate make for a mediocre listening experience. Others say the distinctions between file type are indistinguishable, at least for the average listener. A new study found data that, impressively enough, supports both sides. Continue Reading