IFPI reveal more people listen to music than ever before
Image credit: IFPI
As music streaming services continue to dominate how we listen to music, it’s revealed that we listen more than we ever have before.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released their ‘Engaging With Music‘ report. Surveying over 43,000 people across 18 countries, they examined how people are listening to music.
The breaking news is that we are listening to music more than ever before. The average person listens to music for 20.7 hours a week. This is largely thanks to the domination of streaming services, which have taken over how we consume music in just over a decade.
Music streaming services accounted for 32% of all music listening in 2023, up from 29% in 2022. Video streaming services like YouTube and TikTok accounted for another 31% of music listening.
Radio still hangs on as a way to listen to and discover music, even in 2023. 17% of people reported using radio to listen to music. Purchased music makes up only 9% of music listening in 2023, including CDs, Vinyl, and digital downloads.
Music Streaming vs Piracy
Music streaming services were seen as an answer to the music piracy crisis of the early noughties. The internet had made music readily available on demand, and free. Music streaming services stepped in as a legitimate and legal way to listen to unlimited, on-demand music that still remunerated artists.
Services like Spotify even offered a free tier that could tempt over the pirate music lovers with an easy-to-use platform of licensed music. However, whilst music streaming has helped to rebuild the music industry back to its highest place in 20 years there is still a piracy issue.
The IFPI report reveals that 29% of respondents still accessed music from unlicensed services. Stream-ripping platforms were found to be the most common form of online music copyright infringement.
Despite the ease of access to music streaming services, 55% of those stream ripping say that they downloaded music so they wouldn’t have to pay for a streaming subscription.
View the full Engaging With Music 2023 report from IFPI here.