Sunday, June 28, 2009

Nielsen: Teen Media Habits Still Include Radio And Country Ranks #3

Nic Covey, director of insights for The Nielsen Company at the annual What Teens Want Conference:
Not totally lost to digital, radio is still the primary source of music consumption for 16% of teens and a secondary source for 21% of teens, globally.

Considering that teens may find themselves in older cars not yet equipped to play from their MP3 player and that radio still serves as an information source for local social happenings of extra relevance to teens, some degree of radio listenership should be expected. And while not the most popular source of audio consumption, radio preferences can still give us a broader perspective into the musical tastes of today’s teens.

In the U.S., a 2008 study by Scarborough Research showed that “Pop Contemporary Hit Radio” was the most popular format among older teens 18–20 (listened to by 40% of this segment), followed by Rhythmic Contemporary and Country.

While radio, records, 8-tracks, cassettes and CD players had their generations, this is the generation of the MP3 player. Already today, the MP3 player is the top method of music consumption for teens around the world. Thirty-nine percent of teens globally say it is their primary method of listening to music, followed not by CDs or radio, but the home computer, which is the primary source of music for 33% of teens globally. Forty-five percent of teens globally say they listen to five or more hours of music per week on their computer; 12% say they listen to 20 hours or more.

Click to read the report (pdf).

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