Music Industry Facts & Figures

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Apr. 2008 - NY Times - Great article with recent stats.

NPD’s annual survey of Internet users, which is some 80 percent of the population these days, found that 10 percent of the music they acquired last year came from paid downloads. That is a big increase from 7 percent in 2006. But since the number of physical CDs they bought plummeted, the overall share of music they paid for fell to 42 percent from 48 percent.

 
Apr. 2008 - Reported by Colfer via Radio Ink

Seventy-two percent of American adults are listening to the radio about the same amount or more than they did five years ago.  (Note from Bruce - caution using this stat.  Talk radio has grown tremendously over the last five years.  And, the total time spent listening to the radio  per person has gone down.  Headlines don't always tell the whole story.)

 
Mar. 2008 - According to All Things Digital

"While 1 million consumers dropped out of the CD-buyer market in 2007, 29 million acquired digital music legally. That’s an increase of 5 million over the previous year. Growth here was largely driven by the 36-to-50 age group."

 

Jan. 2008 - According to Billboard Magazine

While not one track sold more than 500,000 digital units in 2004, 114 did in 2007, almost double the 61 tracks that crossed that threshold in 2006.  Meanwhile, 36 tracks passed the 1 million sales mark, more than double the 17 in 2006. 

 
 
Jan. 2008 -  According to Fast Company

Dave Matthews has more than 80,000 fans paying $35 a year for fan-club membership (= $2.8 Million).

 

Dec. 2007 - From a must-read article on The International Herald Tribune

According to 2006 survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 39 percent of Internet users, or about 57 million American adults, said they read blogs, up from 27 percent in 2004, or 32 million.

 

Dec. 2007 - From Pew Internet via TechCrunch

39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos

33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments

28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.

27% maintain their own personal webpage

26% remix content they find online into their own creations

 

Dec. 2007 -  According to eMarketer: 

37% of the US adult Internet population used online social networking at least once a month - this year. 

70% of all US teens visit social network sites on a monthly basis - this year.

49% of all online adults and 84% of online teens in the US will use social networking each month - by 2011.

 

Dec. 2007 - Digital Music New reports:

More than one-third of all PCs worldwide now have LimeWire installed, according to data jointly released by Digital Music News and media tracking specialist BigChampagne.  The discovery is part of a steady ascent for LimeWire, easily the front-running P2P application and the target of a multi-year RIAA lawsuit.  For the third quarter of this year, LimeWire was found on 36.4% of all PCs, a figure gleaned from a global canvass of roughly 1.66 million desktops.

 

Nov. 2007 - From The Long Tail (click to read full article)

  • Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
  • Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
  • Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
  • Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
  • Even vinyl singles (think DJs): UP (more than doubled in the UK)
  • And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I'd argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)
  • Only CDs are down (-18%). They're around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.

 

  • Nov. 2007 - According to Inside Radio: (Nov 2007) Radio numbers declined to their lowest level since Arbitron began keeping statistics in Fall 1998. Radio usage dropped in every cell except 50-54s. Steepest declines continue to be among teenagers and young adults, as their attention is increasingly diverted to other media. That’s especially true among males, with Men 18-24 and 18-34 cells posting the biggest year-over-year declines. But the crowded media world is also taking a toll on the 25-54 money demo, which fell 15.1-14.9. There’s also a disturbing trend among female demos. In the Summer book not a single female cell saw an increase in listening. All but two (50-54 and 65+) declined. Compare that to male demos. While older women mirror the trend of listening less, the Summer book shows Men 45-64 were listening to the radio more.

  • According to eMarketer: While the total number of US music consumers has more than doubled to 96 million in 2006 from 45 million in 1980, annual per capita music expenditures have dropped drastically to $120 in 2006, from $198 in 1980.
  • April 2007 - Solutions Research Group reported that approximately 24,000,000 American men and 18,500,000 American women have an iPod.

  • April 2007 - Apple announced that is sold its 100 millionth iPod. Apple has also sold 2.5 billion songs, 50 million television shows and 1.3 million movies.

  • March 2007 - Combined sales of CDs, digital tracks, and ringtones are down 10% so far this year

  • 2006 - MySpace is home to 2.2 million bands, 8,000 comedians, thousands of filmmakers

  • 2006 - MySpace has more than 100,000,000 unique profiles

  • 2006 - The iTunes store features 3.5 million songs

  • 2006 - iTunes is selling 5 million songs per day, or 58 songs per second

  • 2006 - 55% of the music bought through iTunes is sold as individual tracks

  • 2006 - Americans spent 500 million on ringtones last year

  • 2006 - 9.3 million people share music files each month

  • 2006 - One billion tracks a month are traded worldwide on illegal file share networks

  • 2006 - 800 music stores closed in 2006

  • 2006 - 1 billion people speak English