Digital Music Streams Up 24% in 2013 Ahead of iTunes Radio Launch

MacRumors · Jul 19, 2013

Ahead of the launch of iTunes Radio this fall, Nielsen has published its findings on U.S. music sales for the first half of 2013. Amongst other things, the survey showed total streams of both audio and video music increased 24% to 51 billion streams versus the same time period last year.

With digital album sales rising only 6.3% and digital single-track sales actually down 2.3%, streaming music is clearly a major growth area for the music industry and with Apple launching iTunes Radio on millions of iOS devices this fall, it could give a further boost to the music streaming.

iTunes Radio will include Pandora-style genre- and artist-based channels, extensive iTunes Store integration, and both ad-supported and ad-free subscription options. It is expected to launch to the public this fall alongside iOS 7.

TechCrunch has the full report, including lists of the most streamed songs and purchased albums.

Article Link: Digital Music Streams Up 24% in 2013 Ahead of iTunes Radio Launch

bchery21 · Jul 19, 2013

I personally don't stream my music but this has to be good news for Apple; come Fall, maybe I'll give iTunes Radio a shot with iOS 7...

JarJarThomas · Jul 19, 2013

bchery21 said:
I personally don't stream my music but this has to be good news for Apple; come Fall, maybe I'll give iTunes Radio it a shot with iOS 7...

i only stream using itunes match

lbjsong · Jul 19, 2013

I buy albums. Listening to Singles just sucks. No heart and souls of artists there.

bandalay · Jul 19, 2013

Pity the poor musicians

The whole thing smacks of a way to return more money to the infrastructure owners and less to the content creators.

I'm seeing new gains in streaming volume on the artists I manage, with ridiculously low dollar returns. With iTunes sales we could actually make a reasonable amount - not going to happen if the "norm" become streaming.

Should be the last step to completely commoditizing music.

sundog925 · Jul 19, 2013

Ever since iTunes match, my iPod classic has been gathering dust.
Best feature to come out EVERRRR.

YeahBuddy · Jul 19, 2013

This is good news for Apple. Since iOS 7 i've only used Pandora a couple of times, and that's because I was on my Mac.

32KFJ · Jul 19, 2013

bring it to europe.

bucs79 · Jul 19, 2013

iTunes Radio (or iRadio or whatever it is branded) is a non-starter for me. Spotify is a nearly perfect music consumption experience. I used to buy a CD a week. Out of 50+ CDs a year, there were maybe 10 that were worth the money. I'd listen to them via iTunes and stream them to my airplay speakers. It was awesome.

Now, with Spotify, it is much better. I sample all the CDs I want stream them to my Airplay speakers as well. Finding new music could still be a bit better, but that's really my only gripe. Apple needs to copy the spotify model. The streaming radio is crap. I want to listen to what I want to listen too.

jaymzuk · Jul 19, 2013

bucs79 said:
iTunes Radio (or iRadio or whatever it is branded) is a non-starter for me. Spotify is a nearly perfect music consumption experience. I used to buy a CD a week. Out of 50+ CDs a year, there were maybe 10 that were worth the money. I'd listen to them via iTunes and stream them to my airplay speakers. It was awesome.

Now, with Spotify, it is much better. I sample all the CDs I want stream them to my Airplay speakers as well. Finding new music could still be a bit better, but that's really my only gripe. Apple needs to copy the spotify model. The streaming radio is crap. I want to listen to what I want to listen too.

And Spotify is available across all mobile platforms, so if you're audacious enough to own a non-Apple device, you can still have all of your playlists sitting there, ready to go.

If Apple wants to go down the subscription model route for streaming content, it really needs to get apps on other mobile OSs. I see no selling points for Apple's music streaming solution over Spotify. Ecosystem or 'I prefer Apple because it is betterer' just doesn't cut it in this instance.

oneMadRssn · Jul 19, 2013

bandalay said:
The whole thing smacks of a way to return more money to the infrastructure owners and less to the content creators.

I'm seeing new gains in streaming volume on the artists I manage, with ridiculously low dollar returns. With iTunes sales we could actually make a reasonable amount - not going to happen if the "norm" become streaming.

Should be the last step to completely commoditizing music.

Would the poor musicians prefer we get our music through piracy instead?

The way I see it, this streaming model is the first thing to come along that actually has a good shot of competing with piracy while getting the artists paid, even if they aren't paid as much as they were in the $15 CD days.

Sales of recorded music has been a loss leader for quite some time now, and I don't think this trend is going to reverse anytime soon. People seem to be willing to pay quite a lot of a live performance or for branded merchandise; but they will only pay that high price for artists they already listen to a lot.

jonnysods · Jul 19, 2013

I'm so pumped for iTunes radio. Glad they made it part of a match subscription. It's going to save me a ton of money because my wife won't need to buy albums!!

69650 · Jul 19, 2013

I'm still not convinced by iTunes Radio but knowing Apple they'll probably end up taking a huge chunk out of Pandora and make a lot of money in the process.

likemyorbs · Jul 19, 2013

Can someone explain to me why iTunes radio plays only clean and censored music? That's the only reason I don't use it right now.

69650 · Jul 19, 2013

jonnysods said:
I'm so pumped for iTunes radio. Glad they made it part of a match subscription. It's going to save me a ton of money because my wife won't need to buy albums!!

How do you work that out? As far as I know you can't select specific albums to stream on iTunes Radio. Like any radio station you take what they give, albeit based on your current music tastes.

If you want to save money you would be better of with Spotify or Rdio. Stream any album you want for around £10/month.

slu · Jul 19, 2013

With Google Play Music All Access, I have no interest in this service at all. Google Play Music is really a great product. It is iTunes Match, Spotify and Pandora all in one service. And the UI is much better than Spotify.

jdawgnoonan · Jul 19, 2013

iTunes Radio vs all you can eat plan.

I was disappointed in iTunes Radio because, compared to services like Spotify, Google Play Music, or Xbox Music, I find services like Pandora to be completely not interesting.

iChrist · Jul 19, 2013

Damn.

The new UI for iOS7 looks good and all, but it really accentuates that nasty black border around the screen where it meets the bezel.

SERIOUS hardware design flaw by I've. He could have easily hidden that.

:apple:

jmh600cbr · Jul 19, 2013

Why??? Why must i live in Canada? Apple PLEASE bring this to canada ASAP. We didn't even get Spotify

iAmUndefined · Jul 19, 2013

Haha

lbjsong said:
I buy albums. Listening to Singles just sucks. No heart and souls of artists there.

I bet if Apple released a spotify-like service you would say "Who would buy albums? This service is great!".

CapnJackGig · Jul 19, 2013

lbjsong said:
I buy albums. Listening to Singles just sucks. No heart and souls of artists there.

Which is why Spotify and Xbox Music are going to destroy Apple's weak offering.

macs4nw · Jul 19, 2013

bandalay said:
The whole thing smacks of a way to return more money to the infrastructure owners and less to the content creators. I'm seeing new gains in streaming volume on the artists I manage, with ridiculously low dollar returns. With iTunes sales we could actually make a reasonable amount - not going to happen if the "norm" become streaming. Should be the last step to completely commoditizing music.

Even though the artists are better off now, than they were in the pre-iTunes days of piracy, it is sadly, like so many other industries, a greed-driven model, with the artists at the bottom of the priority totem pole.

joelvega125 · Jul 19, 2013

Google Music

Nothing will ever beat Google's music service. 7.99 for unlimited streaming, no ads, skip to whatever song you want, or just play any song/album/artist you want to hear. It's amazing!

eroslws · Jul 19, 2013

joelvega125 said:
Nothing will ever beat Google's music service. 7.99 for unlimited streaming, no ads, skip to whatever song you want, or just play any song/album/artist you want to hear. It's amazing!

Sure, if you exclusively like rap. I can't find half of the music, not including foreign music, I listen to on Play Music.

Spotify blew the market out of the water, it's well worth the $10/month. Apple has the best chance of creating a better product, but iTunes Radio is far from that.

ArmCortexA8 · Jul 19, 2013

I'm not a fan of any streaming services, because the consumer loses a lot of control of what they listen to and purchase - too many restrictions and it relies too heavily on data access which costs the consumer more money on top of the service price. I don't support DRM, or any other draconian measures. I pay I play my Way. I also prefer physical music files in exchange for what I purchase, not DRM laced / cached files which I have no access too. CD's also have a lot better audio quality than MP3 ever will, so in effect we are being asked to pay for something of poor quality with "control measures" - no thank you.

Digital Music Streams Up 24% in 2013 Ahead of iTunes Radio Launch

macrumors bot

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors regular

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors regular

macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

macrumors 603

macrumors G3

Suspended

macrumors 68000

Suspended

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 65816

macrumors 65816

macrumors member

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 601

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502

macrumors 65816

Our Staff