One aspect of my life is that I teach radio at a college on Monday nights, and I didn’t need this study to tell me what you all now know: The kids like “free.”
From Edison Research’s Infinite Dial Study, this is making the rounds today
Somerville, New Jersey — April 1, 2014 — Over a third of Americans age 12-and-up used YouTube to watch music videos or listen to music in the last week. For listeners to most current-based formats, those numbers are significantly higher. 57% of CHR P1s have used YouTube for music in the last week, followed by 53% of Urban P1s and 48% of Rock P1s.
And legal or not, don’t put your head in the sand about the websites that allow folks to make mp3’s from the YouTube videos. That’s not just the kids. I recently told my friend he would like the new U2 song and he should drop the $1.29 on it. He told me he’d go to (website) and convert it.
Some of the other data is interesting and seems quite logical to me.
Yes the streaming services are being used for music. Nobody has gone in hard on talk yet, and nobody has gone in for real on comedy yet (oh hi, feel free to check out my resume/portfolio if you want to get serious about your comedy offerings.)
Yes people in the car like spoken word, they have satellite radio, they are older. Yep – all makes sense. My college students don’t have cars and they don’t have money. (Slide 37)
And don’t ignore slide 18. That’s the one that tells you that iTunes radio has general awareness. They have the reach. Once they go all-in on content watch out. Watch. Out.
The survey is here if you’d like to take a look.