It’s been an action-packed start to the year, with records broken, chart history made and several categories growing quickly,” Erin Crawford, SVP Nielsen Entertainment, General Manager Nielsen Music, reports. “Lady Gaga headlined the Super Bowl and saw a spike in sales, Drake shattered streaming records, and Future hit number one with two different albums in successive weeks.”
“A significant streaming milestone was also reached in March, when weekly on-demand audio streaming surpassed seven billion,” Crawford writes. “For the first six months of the year, there have been 184.3 billion on-demand audio streams – a 62% increase over the same period in 2016.”
Crawford writes. “The year to date has not been without sadness: we’ve bid farewell to some music greats including Chuck Berry, Chris Cornell and Gregg Allman.”
Weekly on-demand audio streams surpassed seven billion for the first time during the week ending March 9th. Halfway through the year, weekly on-demand audio streams have reached over 7.5 billion.
For the first time in Nielsen Music history, R&B/Hip-Hop has become the largest share of overall volume (Album + TEA + SEA), with 25.1% of the total volume coming from the R&B/Hip-Hop genre. Rock, which had always been the largest genre in the past, slips to second with 23% of the total volume.
R&B/Hip-Hop has become the largest genre by dominating share of streaming consumption. Over 30% of audio on-demand streaming comes from R&B/Hip-Hop, nearly as much as the next two genres combined (Rock 18% and Pop 13%).
While Rock still dominates album sales, with over 40% share of the industry’s albums, its share of streaming is only 16%. Country, also a strong 12% in albums and nearly 14% in physical albums, continues to lag in streaming share with just 5.6% of total streaming coming from the genre. The Latin genre continues to be very strong in streaming, particularly video streaming where it makes up 15% of the total. Pop continues to get a disproportionately high share of digital track sales, with the consumer clearly still having a desire to own the big pop hits.
Source: Nielsen Holdings plc
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Music is just so easy. It’s so nice to have everything at your fingertips at all times. It’s well worth the monthly subscription fee.
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Sprint buys stake in Tidal Music Service – January 23, 2017
Kanye West tries to goad Apple CEO Tim Cook to buy Tidal – August 1, 2016
Kanye West calls for Apple to buy Tidal, demands executive meeting – July 31, 2016
Apple buying Tidal would be a very savvy move – July 1, 2016
Why the heck would Apple want to buy Jay Z’s Tidal? – July 1, 2016
Why Apple buying Jay Z’s Tidal makes sense – and why it doesn’t – July 1, 2016
Desperate Spotify tries to manufacture an Apple App Store antitrust issue that does not exist – July 1, 2016
Spotify accuses Apple of ‘grave harm’ – July 1, 2016
Apple in talks to acquire Jay Z’s Tidal music service – June 30, 2016
Broke ass Hip Hop Fans too cheap to pay for music. Of course they listen to Rap – not Music.
Music worth listening to is worth paying for. You don’t work for free and neither should a creative artist. Streaming services do not adequately compensate artists for their work.
BTE-Feel free to stream all the Hip-Hop you choose as it is unworthy of purchase.
Well, considering that Drake is the #1 streaming album on AppleMusic, which is a service people pay to have, your comment that “Hip Hop fans (are) too cheap to pay for music” is false. While you may not appreciate the genre because of your personal limitations. Many others do. Hence you see people like Drake and The Weeknd at Apple Events. Apple sees the real numbers for their sales. Apple KNOWS what people are actually BUYING.
Paying $10 a month is not the same as buying a $15-20 album. Do not be disingenuous. Apple apparently does “KNOW want people are actually BUYING” (in your caps) because rental rap is not the same as album sales.
Spotify just announced they are lowering the price paid to artists for their music so one can expect Apple to ask for the same or a similar consideration.
Here are the stats from the RIAA
https://s.graphiq.com/rx/widgets.js
Try this way
https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/