Insite | How Music Is Listened To In The U.S.

What do listeners in the U.S. spend 74% of their average daily audio time listening to? MUSIC!  For as much attention as is given to podcasts and other spoken-word audio sources in the press, we want to remind you that three-quarters of daily audio time is spent listening to music.

If podcast catalogs go back decades, music libraries go back hundreds of years (we’re looking at you Bach, Gershwin, and more) and those substantive libraries are available on a variety of audio platforms.

The graphic below shows the portion of time spent in the average audio day with various platforms when listeners consume music content.

For listeners age 13+ in the U.S., 32% of their music-listening time is spent with AM/FM radio and radio streams, making radio the source used the most to deliver music content.

Streaming services such as Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Pandora, and YouTube Music follow very closely behind at 28%. YouTube for music and music videos accounts for 18% of daily music listening.
Another 9% is spent with SiriusXM, 9% with Owned Music such as vinyl, CDs, or downloaded digital files, and 3% with Music Channels on TV such as Music Choice or Stingray.

Keep in mind that this data is for listeners age 13+. If we only look at listeners ages 13-64, streaming passes AM/FM by one percentage point, with streaming accounting for 31% of music listening by this demo, and AM/FM accounting for 30%.