Report: 71 Percent Of All Music Listening Is Free

gray/black = primarily free format; green = primarily paid format

According to a survey recently conducted by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Entertainment Retail Association (ERA) in the UK, roughly 71 percent of all music listening is unpaid.

Digital Music News reports even formats commonly regarded as paid are predominantly free. In the case of downloads, the BPI earlier estimated that 95% of all song downloads are unpaid and illegally acquired, an estimate that doesn’t even consider songs ripped from CDs.

Radio, across all broadcast and online formats, is nearly 100% free, with extremely small subscription percentages from online players like Pandora.  ‘Other’ formats like podcasting also unpaid.

That leaves CDs, vinyl, and subscription streaming as the remaining paid formats, which account for less than 28 percent of the total.  The remaining 1 percent comes from paid downloads, leaving a paid tally of roughly 29%.