Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Nielsen Clarifies 'Audio Consumption' In 2017 Year End Report


Nielsen Music released its 2017 Year-End Report on January 4th which provided information about some of the trends shaping the music industry in the U.S. 

The report used the term “audio consumption” to describe the number of physical albums (CD or vinyl) that were bought and how many album equivalents were downloaded or streamed. This is a commonly understood metric in the music industry. However, the words “audio consumption” mean different things to different people — which may have led to inadvertent confusion and misleading claims from 3rd parties.

The report did not make any observations about listening to broadcast radio or digital radio broadcasts. In fact, AM/FM Radio continues to reach significantly more people than any other medium in the US. When looking at the audio landscape, broadcast radio reaches 228.5 million people each week compared with 67.6 million for streaming audio, 35.9 million for Satellite Radio and 20.7 million for Podcasts.



As the media landscape continues to expand, more and more options – radio, on-demand streaming, programmed streaming, podcasts, video streaming, digital radio services, satellite radio, etc. - continue to become available to listeners. Given the evolving audio landscape, we felt it was important to take a moment to remind you that Nielsen is here as a resource to help accurately outline all these metrics. Should you have any questions or need further information about the report, please don’t hesitate to reach out.



Interested parties are encouraged to download Nielsen’s second quarter 2017 Comparable Metrics Report for a full snapshot of the media landscape including audio.

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