Blog

The base of music buyers continues to grow in the US, according to MusicWatch’s 2025 Annual Music Study, the most comprehensive survey of music activities in the United States. A total of 148 million fans paid for recorded music in 2025, which MusicWatch counts as paid subscriptions and sales of CDs, Vinyl, and Downloads.This represents read more »

Is The Concept of Listening Becoming Obsolete? MusicWatch was the first company to measure how we listen to audio. In 2006 we realized  that media was moving from a transactional economy (share of wallet) to an attention economy (share of time). That shift came early for music when sales of CDs or downloads were making read more »

100 Million New Paid Subscribers Added In Ten Years The US market for paid music subscriptions continues to be robust, with an estimated 130 million on-demand and non-interactive subscribers in 2025. That represents a 10 percent gain over the 2024 subscriber base, demonstrating that the paid audio space even though mature, continues to be quite read more »

Engagement and Spending Breaks Modern Records It’s the “time of the season” when numbers run high- with apologies to the Zombies for the song reference. National lobbying organizations and various researchers are publishing year-end 2024 music industry numbers. We thought we’d add a few more, focused on the music fan. Yes, growth in subscriptions is read more »

TikTok Losing Share of Music In Q4 2024;  Younger Users Defecting  According to MusicWatch’s latest audiocensus study, completed in January, there are over 103 million music listeners on social video apps in the US, a rise of 80 percent since 2021. These listeners spend an average of 6.5 hours per week with music on social read more »

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that TikTok experienced slowing user growth in the US between 2022 and 2023. The decline was attributed in part to the younger demographic. At MusicWatch, we saw no evidence of this. To be fair, there are lots of ways to measure audience for a platform such read more »

MusicWatch Annual Music Study points to continued health of the US music market, a record number of paid subscribers, and increased spend on recorded music. Over 90% of internet users are streaming music in the US. MusicWatch today published its 22rd edition of the US Annual Music Study, the most comprehensive overview of audio and read more »

Demand isn’t there today, but there’s a payoff if it can be unlocked. Lucien Grange and Robert Kyncl, leaders of Universal Music and Warner Music respectively, received a lot of notice last week for suggesting that music fandom was sorely under monetized. Both see squeezing more dollars from music fans as a path to growth. read more »

As growth in the number of paid music streaming subscribers slows in the US, some have theorized that Baby Boomers are the key to unlocking more paying customers.  It has become popular to talk about Baby Boomers as the saviors for the next wave of growth in music streaming subscriptions. This notion started after analysts read more »

SIRI’s streaming app is a legitimate contender in music streaming and Pandora continues to be a leader serving the large market preferring ad-supported music services It was a challenging first quarter for Sirius, with staff reductions, and a notable dip in stock price. New vehicle sales, which typically fuel trials of Sirius’ in-car satellite service,  read more »