Edison Research and Triton Digital have released their annual The Infinite Dial report, exploring the US digital music and social media landscapes based on a survey of 2,002 Americans.
Among its key stats: a rise in the percentage of Americans listening to online radio to 53% – around 143m people – although it’s 77% for 12-24 year-olds. Of people who listen online, 73% are doing it on smartphones, 61% on computers, 32% on tablets and 18% on connected TVs, although Sonos-style connected hi-fis remain a niche with 3%.
The survey also sees Pandora come out well ahead of streaming music rivals in usage: 45% of all respondents use it, ahead of iHeartRadio (17%), iTunes Radio (16%) and Spotify (13%). Here, too, there’s some interesting demographic segmentation: more 12-24 year-olds have listened to Spotify in the last month (23%) than iTunes Radio (20%) or iHeartRadio (14%) even though Pandora still comes out top with 54%.
How about YouTube music consumption though – currently a sensitive topic within the music industry? 52% of all respondents have used YouTube for music in the last month, and 41% in the last week. But for 12-24 year-olds, that rises to 83% and 75% respectively.
Of monthly YouTube music listeners, 21% say they listen to music on the service without watching the videos most of the time, 13% all of the time and 39% some of the time. YouTube as music consumption platform rather than just music promotion platform – a big worry or a big opportunity depending on who you ask in the music industry.
Note too the answers given by 12-24 year-olds to a question about how they keep up to date with music: 83% said YouTube is a key source, ahead even of friends and family (77%) and Pandora (70%), with AM/FM radio on 57%, Facebook on 49%, music TV channels on 43%, iTunes on 41% and Spotify on 37%.
There’s plenty more in the survey too, including the finding that 57% of 12-24 year-olds are now using Snapchat, behind only Instagram (59%) and Facebook (74%) in social media tools.
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