Music News

Nielsen Music 360 Canada 2016 Report Shows Interesting Findings

The Nielsen Music 360 Canada 2016 Report was recently released. Already in its third year, it is a comprehensive, in-depth study of Canadian consumer interaction with music. It looks at how Canadians listen to music, how we discover music, what devices we prefer, and many other aspects of how Canadians interact with music.

For example, Canadians love listening to music as much as we always have, but it’s becoming more and more mobile. As the report points out:

“Music listening is as popular ever, 90% of Canadians listen to music (93% of Teens and Millennials) and do so for an average of 24 hours per week. The consumption of music continues to shift toward mobile devices, especially smartphones”.

Nielsen Music 360 also points out that this shift towards mobility will likely continue in the future.

Radio still dominates how Canadians discover new music, especially for Millennials. However, while listening to an AM or FM station over the air is still a major way for Canadians to discover new music, more Millennials and Teens are listening to the AM and FM stations online and discovering music that way. Discovering music through online streaming websites and apps, such as Spotify, is trending upwards, too, but still isn’t nearly as high as discovering via an AM or FM radio station.

When looking at how Canadians spend their money on music, Nielsen Music 360 found that over half of all the money we spend on music goes towards live events. The largest portion goes to buying tickets to concerts, followed by buying tickets to music festivals. Something else to note, is that even though Teens and Millennials spend more money on live events than anything else, what they spend on streaming apps and services has doubled in the past year.

Speaking of streaming, as our consumption of music becomes more mobile, there is an opportunity for streaming services to increase their influence over Teens and Millennials. Music streaming isn’t the easiest world to navigate, however. The report notes that:

“When selecting a music streaming service, between 75-81% of streamers mention that cost and ease of use are most important. Nine percent of those that currently do not pay for streaming indicate they are likely to subscribe in the next six months. The most common reason cited as a reason to not subscribe is the price. However, those that do pay for streaming spend more on music overall. A services’ song library is of particular importance to Millennials as they decide whether to pay for streaming. In this regard, exclusivity will likely become more and more important when services look to convert younger listeners to paid streamers”.

In other words, Millennials and Teens will pay for a streaming service if it isn’t too expensive, it’s easy to use, and it has a good music library. Additionally, the people who do pay for a streaming service are more likely to spend more money on music anyways.

You can read the highlights here.

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