Survey of British Youth
British Music Rights survey on music consumption of people aged 14-24. The average age of respondents was 22. This is the largest UK academic survey of its kind.
* 14-24 year olds love music – arguably more than any previous generation.
Well I am not quite sure about this one, but lets move on.
* But their consumption of music is changing significantly – the perceived value of sharing, recommendation and copying have all increased.
The world has changed for the digital kids.
* The upshot? Emotional importance does not correlate with spending – especially compared to other entertainment sectors.
* Around 90% of respondents now own an MP3 player. They contain an average of 1770 tracks – half of which have not been paid for.
IMPORTANT TO NOTE – the MP3 player is only about 8 years old.
* 58% have copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own, and 95% copy music in some way.
* 63% download music using P2P file-sharing networks.
* 42% have allowed P2P users to upload music from their computer. Much of this behaviour is viewed as altruistic.
* 80% of current P2P users would be interested in a legal file-sharing
service – and they would pay for it too.
* The CD is not dead. Even if a legal file-sharing service existed, over 60% say they would continue to buy CDs.
* Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music
This is all very good news for the music industry.
Great post Dave,
I wanted to ask if there were any results regarding the increase in Vinyl sales. It’s not going to solve the problems in the record industry, but it is an interesting development.
I’m finding myself wanting to buy Vinyl (for albums and artists I really value). I just ordered the new Coldplay on Vinyl and am actually excited to hold it and experience the artwork. The thought of the CD doesn’t hold any value to me anymore. I’m 25 by the way and grew up with the CD.
Thanks again,
Hoover
(I’m the person who interviewed you in April about a New Music Business Book. We’re still working on it and thanks again for participating)
I have heard anecdotally that vinyl sales are way up. The overall sales numbers a still quite small, but the rate of change is enormous. There has also been a surge in sales of USB turntables, most likely to rip old vinyl collections, but nonetheless – vinyl is back.
Hi Dave!
Thanks for this interesting post! I was wondering if you could provide a link or citation for the study so that I can read the whole study?
Many thanks,
Matthias
better late than never!
I think they meant this to be negative (all this sharing and stealing and so on) but I’m pleased that you see it differently. I can’t help agreeing that the more people sharing music has got to be good right? Thought so.
“Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music.”
Unfortunately, the Internet has created the digital musician, artist, singer or band who is not familiar and worse yet has no intentions of performing live. For all the good the Internet brings a touring band or artist probably has a better chance at a long-healthy career by performing live on a regular basis. Additionally, by performing live a band is able to record their shows an offer an additional product to sell.
It is tempting to think that the only way to work now is to give the music away and charge premium for the live shows. Or maybe, as I have seen written here and there, the key is to diversify your income streams, charge for CDs, some mp3s, branded USB sticks, merchandise. I have been out of the biz for a while (at least in any professional sense) but the old itch never went away so I am back and looking forward to experiencing first hand the difference between the way things worked in the early/mid 90s and now.
Personally, I believer “sharing” is ultimately awesome for Music. Also,
“Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music.”
encourages musicians to play more live performances, which I think would weed out anyone who has no business playing music for a living through the help of studio gadgets. Not hating, just my two cents 🙂