Thursday 8 September 2016

Spotify now more popular than radio listening

Global expansion parallels Netflix success
The Swedish music streaming service Spotify is still far ahead of Apple and other competitors. It is has now become a crucial market factor also for the radio industry. Spotify’s free version has the largest reach of any digital music service in the UK, even outstripping many commercial radio stations, new research claims. A study by global market research firm TNS says that the free version of the music streaming service now reaches 16.8% of the UK listening audience. 

The majority of the audience is under the age of 35. But the study also suggested an increase in the number of older users who appear to have become more “tech-savvy”. According to the research, only 5% fewer 45 to 54-year-olds use Spotify’s free service than listen to the radio.

If Spotify’s free service were a commercial radio station it would be the third largest in the UK based on weekly reach – behind only Heart and Capital. In June, Spotify announced that it had surpassed 100 million users for the first time – making it the largest streaming service. 

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