US Morgan Stanley research compares radio and music streaming audiences

A research note from wealth management firm Morgan Stanley compares American radio listening with music streaming service consumption.

The research shows that 36% of Americans listen to AM/FM broadcast radio, followed by 11% who listen to satellite radio company SiriusXM. iHeartRadio recorded only fractional listening of about 2% in the Morgan Stanley research.

The come music streaming services Pandora (6%), Spotify (10%) and Apple Music (4%).

Video service Youtube, which has many hours of music available on it, scored 12% of listening time.

SiriusXM’s share of listening increased after an advertising blitz in the past few months, while the main music services fell slightly.

The most significant results of the research, which is aimed to encourage investment, is the discrepancy between age groups.

Older adults aged over 65 listen mostly (57%) to music on radio, while younger listeners aged 18-29 spend only 14% of theri time listening to broadcast radio.

TSL is decreasing for broadcast radio and increasing for Youtube and Spotify, according to the American financial firm’s research.

Despite Apple Music’s bundling in all iPhones, it has not yet achieved critical mass.

The situation in Australia is very different from America. There is no satellite radio in Australia, but there is digital terrestrial radio (DAB+), which has allowed broadcast radio to grow share in the free to air digital segment and expand format offerings more widely than American free to air radio has done. Australian figures are available here and check our regular survey coverage here.

The investment note containing the figures was reported by tech finance journalist Philip Elmer-DeWitt in his blog last month which was skeptical of some of the Morgan Stanley charts.

In another report about US music consumption, MRC Data, a music research company associated with Billboard magazine reports that overall music consumption grew 11.3% during 2021, due to continued growth in audio streaming. 2021 was also “a milestone year for vinyl and a changing of the guard for Catalog vs. Current music consumption.” Read our related report here.

 

 

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Dan
10 Jan 2022 - 4:50 pm

Could Radio Today perhaps adjust these figures as Australia is a very different market to the US, where the large networks have destroyed radio and not invested in talent. Here we have triple J who have strong under 30 appeal and shows like Smallsy, stations like The Edge and Fresh that all deliver strong younger numbers.
So, please some caution before everyone assumes Australian numbers would be similar, they’re not. You also need to add the Sirius numbers to Radio to get a more accurate prediction of local numbers.
Australia will and always has lead the way in creative, compelling talent based shows unlike in the UK and unlike the US the past 10-20 years.

    Editor
    11 Jan 2022 - 8:08 am

    Thanks Dan, good point. We have added a couple of Aussie links to our report.

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