Streaming Is Officially the Most Popular Method of Music Consumption in America
There were more streams on an average day in 2016 than song downloads for the entire year.
In 2016, music streaming beat digital sales for the first time in history, according to a new report by Nielsen Music. The study revealed that on-demand streaming took up 38 percent of total music consumption in the U.S. last year. It also showed that consumers are shifting away from digital download platforms, such as Apple’s iTunes, to subscription services at a rate much faster than the shift from CD sales to digital downloads. “2016 showed us that the landscape is evolving even more quickly than we have seen with other format shifts,” commented Nielsen’s senior vice president for music industry research, David Bakula.
The Nielsen report finds that a part of streaming’s increased success is due to hip-hop and R&B fans, contributing 22 percent of all audio consumption and 28 percent of on-demand streams. Heavily streamed artists include Drake, Kanye West, Rihanna, The Weeknd and more. On the other hand, rock remains the dominant genre for album sales in both digital and physical forms.
According to another report on U.S. music consumption by data tracker BuzzAngle, there were more streams on an average day in 2016 than song downloads for the entire year, with an average of 1.2 billion streams per day versus 734 million downloads for all of 2016.
