Study: Music Consumers Make-Up 5 Streaming Groups

Bridge Ratings has completed it's twice-yearly study on music consumers now clearly categorized into five cohorts based on attitude, awareness and consumption of music. And, according to Dave Van Dyke at Bridge Ratings,  as on-demand streaming has become a mainstream behavior all demographics and generations are partaking and consuming. 

In the earliest days of streaming platforms such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon, 15-30 year olds dominated the usage profile. Since 2020 however, older demographics are joining in with regular multi-day consumption. And as of 2021, MRC reports that catalogue music (music released more than 18 months ago) was 69% of all music consumed online. Pre-2010 music is in greatest demand with songs released prior to 1990 right behind. 

With Bridge Ratings music analysis tool, StreamStats, they have seen this number at a higher level in 2022.

In fact, for contemporary music stations such as Top 40, Rhythmic and Country - even R&B/Hip-Hop, songs ranked lower than #50 on radio station playlists are showing much shorter lifecycles, i.e., once released, if they don’t collect increasing consumption within the first three weeks of release, the song collapses and fades. Less than 25% of the current or new songs released this year, have sustained any consumption momentum.

Radio stations would be better off adding one legitimate “hit” a month, rather than adding multiple songs weekly, most of which their audiences have little or no interest in.

Driving consumption of music these days are five distinct groups of consumers:

1. Aggressive discoverers (8.5% of total) are the heaviest consumers of music and spend over six hours per week listening to music. Streaming affinity: 9. Download affinity: 7. Affinity to purchase songs or concert tickets: 8. Music discovery: 9

2. Active Aficionados (18%) spend the second-most amount of weekly time (6+ hours) listening to music. Streaming affinity: 8. Download affinity: 6. Purchase affinity: 6. Music discovery: 8.

3. Early Mass Listeners (38%) are the largest group in this study and listen to at least four hours of music a week in a variety of ways. This group, in general, is aware of their favorite artist's new music and concert tours and are likely candidates for purchasing concert tickets more than downloading music files. Streaming affinity: 7. Download affinity: 4. Purchase affinity: 7. Music discovery: 6.

4. Average Music Consumers (28%) spend at least three hours actively listening to music through streaming, downloaded files or from their own libraries but are somewhat likely to purchase concert tickets. Streaming affinity: 5. Download affinity: 4. Purchase affinity: 5. Music discovery: 4.

5. Drive-by Consumers (8%) activity listen to music at least two hours total per week but get their music 'fix' primarily through broadcast radio. They are aware of streaming and do so primarily at their work location, rarely download or purchase music. Streaming affinity: 3. Download affinity: 2. Purchase affinity: 4. Music discovery: 2

🎵Take a closer look (Including what radio programmers shoukld be asking):  HERE

For more information contact Dave Van Dyke at Bridge Ratings. 323.696.0967 or at dvd@bridgeratings.com.