Pandora and other subscription-based and free Internet radio services are winning the war over your ears, according to a new study by The NPD Group. The analyst firm asserts that Pandora-like services account for 23 percent of the average young person's weekly music listening time, meaning consumers between the ages of 13 and 25 spend 17 percent more time this year than last.
AM/FM radio listening has taken the hit, declining with this age group by 2 percent. Listening to CDs and digital music files also declined within the last year.
Free Pandora leads the pack of Internet music options with 39 percent of the market, while iHeart Radio and free Spotify fight it out for second and third place -- 11 and 9 percent respectively. Pandora's paid service does get a significant 2 percent of listener's hearts and minds. Grooveshark takes 3 percent of the market share pie while Slacker, TuneIn, Last.fm and Xbox Music hang in there with 2 percent.
Interestingly, more than half of young ears are accessing the increasing amount of Internet radio through their phones and 51 percent listen to these services while in the car. This news comes even as Pandora has put up a time wall on its free mobile service. Even on its free app, now when listeners hit the 40-hour mark, you’ll be asked to fork over 99 cents for the rest of the month.
For those 36 and older, however, Web radio accounts for just 13 percent of music listening time. The older crowd spends 41 percent of there time listening to AM/FM radio instead.
“Driven by mobility and connectivity, music-streaming services are rapidly growing their share of the music listening experience for teens and young adults, at the expense of traditional music listening methods,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD.
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