Nielsen: More Teens Now Listen To Music Through YouTube Than Any Other Source
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According to Nielsen’s latest “Music 360” report, 48% of consumers in the U.S. still see radio as the dominant way to discover new music. For almost two-thirds of U.S. teenagers, however, Google’s YouTube is now a more important source of music than radio (54%), iTunes (53%) and CDs (50%).
Despite the growing popularity of Internet music services among teens, about a third of them still bought a CD in the last year and among all respondents, 55% said physical CDs are still a very or fairly good value.
““While younger listeners opt for technologically advanced methods , traditional methods of discovery like radio and word-of-mouth continue to be strong drivers,” said Nielsen SVP David Bakula in a canned statement today. “With so many ways to purchase, consume and discover great new music, it’s no wonder that the consumer continues to access and enjoy music in greater numbers.”
The survey also found that 54% of U.S. consumers now have music player apps on their smartphones, Given that virtually every smartphone now has a built-in music player, we can only assume that this number reflects third-party apps. Just under half of them have radio apps installed on their phones and 26% have music store apps.
Newer music services like Spotify and Pandora didn’t really register in Nielsen’s survey. Indeed, as the WSJ reports, cassette tapes (remember those?) are still more popular among adult than most online music services. Almost a tenth of U.S. adults apparently still listens to cassettes and 7% listen to Spotify.
Here are a few more data points from the survey:
More teens listen to music through YouTube than through any other source
- · 64% of teens listen to music through YouTube
- · 56% of teens listen to music on the radio
- · 53% of teens listen to music through iTunes
- · 50% of teens listen to music on CD
Positive recommendations from a friend are most likely to influence purchase decisions
- 54% are more likely to make a purchase based off a positive recommendation from a friend
- 25% are more likely to make a purchase based off a music blog/chat rooms
- 12% are more likely to make a purchase based off an endorsement from a brand
- 8% of all respondents share music on social networking sites, while 6% upload music.
Digital music is seen as a slightly better value than a physical CD
- 63% of purchasers identified digital albums as a very or fairly good value
- 61% identified digital tracks as a very or fairly good value
- 55% identified physical CDs as a very or fairly good value
Younger consumers who do buy digital tracks, are more likely to purchase new music immediately after its release
- 33% of teens purchased a digital track within one week of release
- 21% of persons 18+ purchased a digital track within one week of release
And just for the sake of it, here is the most popular music video on YouTube right now:
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="116" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="135" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="105" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="125" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
