Young Adults Twice As Likely To Prefer Streaming Music

Streaming is dominating the discussion around this television and film awards season, and it looks like it may do the same for the music industry ahead of the Grammys, with more than half of young consumers saying they prefer to stream their music and a slim majority saying they stream music every day.

A Jan. 9-11 Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey found that nearly one-third (31 percent) of the 2,199 U.S. adults surveyed said their favorite way to listen to music was via streaming services, such as Apple Music or Spotify. Among adults ages 18-29, that share climbed to 59 percent.

The poll’s overall margin of error is 2 percentage points, while the margin of error for the 18-29 subsample is 5 points.

Just over half (51 percent) of the 426 adults in the age 18-29 demo said they listened to music on streaming services every day — more than twice the share of adults overall who do the same (24 percent). Nearly one-third (32 percent) of those ages 30-44 also said they streamed music every day.

As younger consumers gravitate toward streaming, they are helping to determine what rises to the top of streaming platforms.

But just because consumers are streaming music doesn’t necessarily mean they are interested in buying it: Fifty-eight percent of adults said they never buy music albums and 63 percent said the same about singles.