Two New Surveys Show Vexing Shifts In Music Consumption

Two new surveys show just how drastically listening habits are shifting and presenting new challenges for the music industry.

A new IPSOS poll reveals that 20% of Americans over age 12 own an mp3 player jumping to 54% when looking at teens only. Recent Consumer Electronics Association figures showed music devices accounting for 85% of all portable audio sales in the US in 2005 with sales of $4.2 billion.

The survey showed that these younger users are also using their devices to watch videos and listen to the radio as well as for music storage.  "While this phenomenon may have initially centered on music, younger MP3 player owners are clearly interested in a wide variety of broader content options for their device," said Matt Kleinschmit of Ipsos.

Average player use is 12 hours weekly jumping to 16 hours for teens. There is are an average of 700 songs stored on a U.S. music downloader’s player. Existing CD collections are the primary source of content among downloaders. 44% of the content stored on MP3 players is ripped from the owner’s personal CD collection with another 6% ripped from others collections. Fee-based downloads (25%) and files obtained from file sharing services (19%) are also sources of content.

An FMQB analysis of a new Bridge Ratings survey found that some new media hurt broadcast radio more than others, but overall listenership is down. "Traditional radio listening benefits from some digital media alternatives," Bridge’s Dave Van Dyke states. "Peer-to-peer file trading, podcasting and MP3 player use can cause increased time spent listening to traditional radio de­pending on format, while satellite radio and Internet radio can cause reduced listening to conventional radio."

New media that leads to more radio listening includes podcasting (58 %), P2P file sharing (51 %) and MP3 players (42 %).  But radio louses out to Internet radio with 55% saying it caused them to listen to less traditional radio. (read the full survey here.)

Sources: BBC, IPSOS, FMQB, Bridge