Olswang Convergence Survey 2009
5. Music and Radio
Internet killed the radio star?
"The tipping point might come if connected devices are ubiquitous and used in environments where people typically listen to broadcast radio"
Radio executive
Last year we hailed music as the first truly converged content category, based upon the way in which respondents acquired music through a variety of different device/network combinations (including downloads, as well as CDs ripped onto computer storage) and then also consumed that music using a variety of different devices. We discovered that the Tech Vanguard were listening more frequently to CD content that they had ripped than to the actual CD, and for Kids, the figures were approaching the same conclusion.
Last year's survey also suggested that radio was, to some extent, a victim of convergence – particularly among the young, who were abandoning traditional radio in favour of other ways in which to experience music in circumstances where they did not have their own personal copy – relying, in particular, on services such as YouTube (which received as many spontaneous mentions among the Kids focus group as radio did among the Laggards focus group).[1]
In addition, among our focus groups last year, it was clear that people chose to consume music in different ways in different places (in the car, at home, while out walking). It is this aspect of music consumption that we have sought to explore further this year, and from it that we seek to make observations about music in the digital world.
Industry data, such as the RAJAR survey results, make it clear that kids today do not consume radio to the same extent as previous generations. The consequence of this is that the audience listening to radio is of a gradually ageing demographic. However, as suggested by last year's survey, that does not necessarily mean that the younger demographics are consuming less music, simply that they are looking at other sources of it.
To explore this further, we took a series of daily life occasions and asked respondents to state which types of music/radio/background noise they liked to listen to on different occasions:
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Types of occasion
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Types of music/radio/background noise
|
|
Waking Up
Short Car Journey
Long Car Journey
Short journey on public transport
Out and about on foot
At the gym (Adults only)
Doing homework/study (Kids only)
Doing chores in the kitchen
Relaxing in the evening at home
As background noise while with friends at home
Getting dressed/ready in the morning
Getting ready to go out in the evening
|
Someone else's choice of music, with talking interspersed (i.e.. like traditional radio or podcasts containing speech and music)
Talk-only radio or podcasts (e.g. BBC Radio 4, speech podcasts)
A catalogue of music that you personally have chosen, but which is played back in no particular order (i.e. like random shuffle on iTunes or iPod)
Playlists (set up by you, your friends or a favourite DJ on Spotify, iTunes, your iPod or something similar)
Music that you select one track or one album at a time
The television
Silence
Don't know
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The full results, measured against both the Adults and the Kids survey bases are available in the Annex. In this Report, we focus on some of the particularly interesting findings.
The Kids are taking control
Kids have clearly moved away from an environment in which content is pushed to them, into wanting to take more control of what they listen to - across all of the different activities described above, they are more enthusiastic than the Adults as regards listening to categories of music that could be described as providing them with choice and/or control. What is particularly striking is that, as illustrated in the table below, in relation to all of these activities, the Kids report significantly higher use of playlists than do the Adults (although looking within Adults in the various age demographic splits, it is clear that, particularly among 18-24 and, to a lesser extent, 25-34 year olds, there is a similar enthusiasm for playlists):
Percentage of respondents within each base listening to playlists when undertaking each activity:
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Activity
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Kids
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Adults
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Getting ready to go out in the evening
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29%
|
15%
|
|
Getting dressed/ready in morning
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21%
|
6%
|
|
As background noise with friends at home
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30%
|
16%
|
|
Relaxing in the evening at home
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32%
|
14%
|
|
Doing chores in the kitchen
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23%
|
12%
|
|
Doing homework (Kids only)
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27%
|
|
|
At the gym (Adults only)
|
|
16%
|
|
While out and about on foot
|
30%
|
12%
|
|
On short journey - public transport
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30%
|
13%
|
|
On long car journey
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38%
|
18%
|
|
On short car journey
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25%
|
10%
|
|
Waking up
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16%
|
4%
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This suggests that radio stations and the recorded music industry need to find a new way to engage with Kids, something which executives in those sectors are keenly aware of; in previous generations, radio usage, once established during childhood and, in particular, among teenagers, often waxed and waned as people progressed through life stages, but people typically came back to radio - often when they had children of their own. Now, with the habit of radio simply not being engrained in the younger generation, companies need to look for new ways to engage those audiences.
One way to engage with the Kids and other younger demographics may be to deliver playlists that can be adopted by the "fans" of the person, band or brand providing the recommendation, a topic which we consider further in Chapter 8.
I like driving in my car
One other particularly interesting finding is the comparison between behaviour on short and long car journeys (see Figures 18.2(a) and 18.3(a)). Both Adults and Kids are much less likely to listen to music radio (or equivalent services) on long car journeys and much less likely to favour silence, with both groups expressing an increasing preference for self-selected music. Interestingly, the demand for talk-only services is static among Adults and slightly up among Kids for long journeys as compared with short journeys. When exploring these findings with executives, some put it down to the narrow nature of many radio playlists discouraging longer-term listening, while others were surprised, believing that people on long journeys often desired the need for the human voice interaction provided by radio, as against just listening to music.
What about converged radio?
Traditionally, most radio has been consumed on dedicated devices (known, of course, as radios), some of which also offer other functionality (CD player, clock, etc.) but which often - and especially in the kitchen and bathroom - are dedicated devices that do nothing else.
By contrast, there is now significant music consumption on "converging" devices, whether that is a computer, a mobile device or a TV set - one record company executive stated that they always forgot how much radio listening was done over TV sets (in digital TV homes). As noted in Chapter 2,and as confirmed by several executives with whom we spoke, streaming music services, such as Spotify, have been rapidly adopted especially by Kids, with some 61% of 13-17 year olds (compared to 38% of Adults) already accessing streaming music services on a computer in the home, at work or at their place of study and with evidence of future demand for such services on mobile devices and in out-of-home environments.[2]
However, the activities during which our respondents most often reach for the radio - in the car and while doing chores in the kitchen - are those which have yet to be significantly challenged by other devices and, in particular, connected devices, nor do those areas appear likely to be rapidly colonised by connected devices. For example, people are unlikely to invest in a high-value item for a kitchen or bathroom where the risks of water and other damage are perceived to be significant and the "value" of having a device there relatively small.
If and when that colonisation does occur and reaches a tipping point, it will be interesting to see, as one radio executive observed, whether people move away from the mix of music and speech traditionally associated with radio - i.e. whether they move to radio-like services accessible through connected devices (in which case, the traditional radio brands may be able to leverage some market power into that new world) or whether they would prefer to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the connected world in order to consume music using different types of service, such as Spotify.
Another challenge is that, while the behaviour of the Kids and the Tech Vanguard may have altered significantly, that of the Laggards has not changed and, moreover, they have no desire for it to change. Looking at the "tech segment" breakdown of the responses given to current and anticipated future use of streaming music services,[3] it is striking that 62% of Laggards are not using such services today on any device and 56% have no desire to do so in the future. It is important that, in the haste to adapt their businesses to the fast-moving Kids and Tech Vanguard, these people - who, as one record industry executive observes, are those who currently still buy CDs in supermarkets - do not get ignored. The industry will be following with interest the success of Sky Songs, a much less Tech Vanguard-orientated service than Spotify – to see whether it can begin to shift behaviour in this demographic group.
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