Nielsen Reports 164 Billion Songs Were Streamed In 2014

Nielsen has released the 2014 U.S. Music year-end report for the 12-month period of December 30, 2013 through December 28, 2014.

“The continued expansion of digital music consumption is encouraging, as is the continued record setting growth that we are seeing in vinyl LP sales.”

Streaming continued to show significant growth in 2014, with over 164 billion songs streamed on-demand through audio and video platforms. Physical album sales declined, with weakness in CDs despite record-setting strength in Vinyl LPs. Digital Albums and Digital Tracks also showed declines versus 2013, although digital consumption overall (sales and streams) showed growth. Total consumption for the year, based on Albums plus Track Equivalent Albums and Streaming Equivalent Albums, was down slightly versus 2013.

David Bakula

"Music fans continue to consume music through on-demand streaming services at record levels, helping to offset some of the weakness that we see in sales,” says David Bakula, SVP Industry Insights, Nielsen. “The continued expansion of digital music consumption is encouraging, as is the continued record setting growth that we are seeing in vinyl LP sales.”

Nielsen provides music research and monitoring services for the entertainment industry. Nielsen’s airplay, sales and streaming data represents music consumers of all ethnicities and languages, and is featured weekly in Billboard’s charts, including the iconic Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, and is widely cited as the standard for music measurement.

Nielsen Music 2014 Highlights:

• On-Demand Streaming grew 54.5% over 2013, with Audio On-Demand (+60.5%) and Video On-Demand Streaming (+49.3%) both experiencing significant increases.
• The soundtrack to the movie Frozen ranked #1 for overall consumption this year (Album Sales + Track Equivalent Albums + Streaming Equivalent Albums) with over 4.47 million album equivalent units. Taylor Swift/1989 ranked second with 4.40 million units.
• Taylor Swift had the best-selling album of the year with 3.66 million sales for her album 1989. The album also had the best debut week of the year and the biggest opening week for an album since 2002 with nearly 1.3 million albums sold in the first week. 1989 also had the second biggest digital album sales week in history. In its debut week, 1989 comprised a full 22% of all album sales for the week.
• 2014 had two albums that sold over 3.5 million units during the calendar year (Taylor Swift’s 1989 and the Frozen Soundtrack) – this is the first time since 2005 that two albums have sold over 3.5 million albums in a calendar year.
• Vinyl LPs had another record-breaking year, with 9.2 million sales, surpassing last year’s record of 6.1 million units. This is the ninth consecutive year of growth for Vinyl sales. Vinyl now comprises over 6% of physical album sales.

Genres performed differently across the different types of consumption, showing how different music fans prefer to access their favorite music.

• Rock is the dominant genre for album sales (over 33% of albums) and of total consumption (29%). However, on a track sales basis, Pop (21.1%) is nearly as big as Rock (21.3%). R&B/Hip-Hop is the dominant genre for Streaming (28.5%) followed by Rock (24.7%) and Pop (21.1%).
• Country consumers still prefer Albums (11.8%) and Track Downloads (12.0%) over Streams (6.4%).
• Pop music consumers are buying individual hit songs much more than albums. While 21% of digital track sales are in the Pop genre, only 10.8% of album sales are Pop.
• Some genres, particularly R&B/Hip-Hop, EDM and Latin perform particularly well in Streaming. While R&B/Hip-Hop only comprises 13.9% of Album sales, it makes up 28.5% of Streaming.
• Electronic/Dance (EDM) only makes up 2% of album sales, but makes up nearly 7% of Streaming, making the genre a bigger share of Streaming than Country.
• Latin music also performs particularly well at Streaming, with 5% of Streaming coming from Latin music, while just 2.4% of album sales are Latin.

Americans still love music, and are listening all the time

• 93% of the U.S. population listens to music, spending more than 25 hours each week listening to their favorite songs.
• When surveyed about their activities in the past year, 75% of respondents said they actively chose to listen to music, even ahead of watching television at 73%.
• Nearly 25% of all music listening happens in the car; listening at work or while doing chores at home each account for around 15% of our weekly time spent with music.
• Listening to music on smartphones now exceeds listening to music on iPods, with 41% of listeners accessing music on their smartphones in a typical week, an increase of over 20% versus last year.
• Smartphone penetration grew from 69% at the start of 2014 to 76% of U.S. mobile subscribers by October 2014.

Radio Remains Top Source for Music Discovery, With Pop and Country Leading the Way

• Radio remains the top method of music discovery, and its local nature makes it an integral part of the daily lives of hundreds of millions of consumers in markets large and small. 51% of consumers use radio to discover new music.
• 59% of music listeners use a combination of over-the-air AM/FM radio and online radio streams to hear music
• 243 million U.S. consumers (aged 12 and over) tune in each week to radio. That’s 91.3% of the national population tuning in across more than 250 local markets.
• Across the 48 Nielsen portable people meter (PPM) markets, Pop Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) and Country were the leading music formats amongst all listeners in 2014, followed by Adult Contemporary (AC), Hot AC and Classic Hits.
• Country radio grew significantly with 18-to-34-year-old audiences through the first half of the year, peaking in June with its all-time best audience share, before ending the year on a downtrend. For the year, Country ranked second across the Nielsen PPM markets.
• Hot AC increased its share of audience, moving from fifth to third this year among audiences aged 18 to 34. 2014 marked the best year ever for the format.

Click here to see the breakdown of the national listening landscape for the top 10 most popular radio formats of 2014 for the 18-34 audience in Nielsen’s PPM markets.