How do teens today get their music?
In this interconnected Internet age of digital downloads, ubiquitous iPods and music-playing smartphones, the conventional wisdom goes something like this: Teens don’t listen to the radio. That’s so 20th century. Nor do they actually buy music, because they’re too busy illegally file-sharing to be bothered with purchasing something they can easily get for free. And they don’t buy albums; it’s all about singles in the 21st century.
As is sometimes the case with such authoritative generalizations, however, it turns out the conventional wisdom is largely wrong. The reality regarding how teens today obtain and interact with their music is surprisingly old-fashioned, according to new research from Nielsen published in the music-industry magazine Billboard.
It’s true that teens are big music fans. They’re more likely to have purchased music in any format (digital or physical) during the last 12 months than any other age group, with 72% of them having done so. That’s in comparison to 67% of folks from every other age bracket who’ve bought music in the last year.
And teens do listen to music on their iPods—with 54% owning an MP3 player. But a bigger percentage, 65%, still listen to music on an AM-FM radio in their cars.
With regard to format, 36% have purchased a CD and 51% have downloaded something in the last year—compared to 41% of all other music listeners’ purchases. Recognizing that reality, Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, told Billboard, “Do we need radio today? One hundred percent yes. … If you want to see a song climb at iTunes, you have to get a radio audience of 15 million [listeners]. Then you’ve got a chance.”
As for where they’re buying those CDs, you might think teens would be haunting the aisles at hip independent music stores. Again, not so much. Most of them (39%) get their music at Walmart, while only 4% (the really cool kids, no doubt) get their music from indie outlets.
So what about all that illegal file sharing we’ve heard so much about? Billboard contributor Glenn Peoples writes, “Only 8% of teens share digital music files through peer-to-peer sites. That’s double the 4% average, but it’s neither a runaway epidemic nor a prime source of discovery or acquisition.”
Teens, then, have definitely been influenced by the information revolution when it comes to their music habits. But the traditional means of experiencing music, i.e. listening to it on the radio and buying CDs at big retail outlets, are still the ways many young music fans choose to interact with it … newfangled Internet apps and gizmos notwithstanding.
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