Little growth in music streaming services: MTM

Media Technology Monitor (MTM), a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, said in report released Wednesday that the percentage of anglophones using "personalized" audio streaming services over the last year or so has been relatively flat. MTM said 19 per cent of those surveyed last fall said they use personalized audio services, which is defined as a streaming service "available on the Internet which allows users to select from a number of possible streams and to customize playlists." This included pay services and free services that are ad-supported. MTM said that usage of music streaming has remained steady for the past year, despite the “growing availability of both services and devices.” The latest figures compared to 18 per cent who reported using these types of services in the spring of 2014 and 20 per cent in the fall of 2013, MTM said. Independent broadcast consultant Andrew Forsyth told The Wire Report in January that Neilsen data showed streaming in Canada was ramping up, increasing by 18 per cent between July 2014 and September, when Spotify AB entered the Canadian market. Forsyth, who collected the data for Neilsen, said at the time that streaming increased another 25 per cent by the first week of December, though it fell eight per cent from that peak by the second week of January 2015. Forsyth said in a phone interview Wednesday that he was “surprised” by the MTM results. “It’s interesting to watch what’s happened with streaming over the last year now that it’s been available in Canada on an ongoing basis," he said. "We’re seeing the number of streams increase, so if the number of subscribers hasn’t gone up, it just means that people who are using it are using it more." “But I’m surprised there hasn’t been an increase, certainly over the last year, if only because we do now have Spotify in Canada,” he said, adding he expects to see a rise in usage reflected in data from more recent months than those covered in MTM’s report, which didn't go later than last December. Kit Wheeler, vice-president of distribution at the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), said in an email that “performance data that is collected by SOCAN from the streaming services has shown a steady increase in the past year." She said: “SOCAN has built systems and refined processes to ingest enormous volumes of streaming data in order to pay out royalties to our songwriters, composers and music publishers. We have experienced an increase in the volume of data that we are processing of approximately 18 per cent in the past year.” MTM said that among those who use personalized streaming services, 59 per cent tune in either “almost every day,” every day or multiple times a day. It said the top services among audio streamers are YouTube, used by 68 per cent of listeners, and Songza, used by 50 per cent, both of which are owned by Google Inc. While Spotify's services are "well established and heavily utilized elsewhere in the world," just 11 per cent of anglophone users of personalized audio services in Canada listen to Spotify, MTM said, noting that Pandora Media Inc.'s services are not available in Canada. Most listeners rely on multiple music streaming services, while 23 per cent use only one service, 39 per cent use two, 21 per cent use three and 14 per cent use four or more, MTM said in the report. It said streaming services are more popular among students, people aged 18-34, Canadians who have a child under 12 in the home, people with higher incomes and those with a higher level of education. Among users of personalized streaming services, those aged 26 to 34 spend “2.2 hours more listening to personalized audio services than the average service streamer,” at 10.9 hours a week, the report said, compared to 8.5 among those aged 18-25 and 8.4 among 35 to 49-year-olds. The overall average is 8.7 hours a week, MTM said. Personalized audio services are more popular than online streaming of over-the-air radio stations, MTM said. Among all anglophones, the average time spent listening to streaming services in a typical week was 3.3 hours, while they spent 1.5 hours streaming radio. The report said 45 per cent of those who use personalized streaming services also listen to radio stations online and 36 per cent listen to podcasts. MTM’s report was based on telephone surveys of 4,002 anglophones between Oct. 8 and Dec. 12, 2014, plus a followup online questionnaire completed by some of the those respondents. The results are accurate “within plus or minus 1.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20,” MTM said. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Little growth in music streaming services: MTM

Broadcast | April 22, 2015

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Little growth in music streaming services: MTM

Broadcast | April 22, 2015

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