While it might seem obvious to us, not everyone realizes how popular streaming music is. Now we have the numbers to back up the dominance of streaming music over digital downloads from places like iTunes, courtesy of Nielsen Music’s year-end report. Their biggest finding? There were more audio streams on the average day in 2016 than total song downloads for the entire year; compare 1.2 billion streams per day to only 734 million downloads in the entire year for a better picture.
The total number of streams increased a whopping 76% from 2015, enough to offset an overall drop in music purchases to give the music industry as a whole 3% growth on the year. Good news for an industry that has been collapsing in the face of new technologies that make purchasing and owning music obsolete.
The biggest driver behind the streaming growth? None other than Drake. His album Views led the entire music industry in total volume of music listened, which combines albums sold, individual songs sold and songs streamed. Adele’s 25 and Beyonce’s Lemonade took #2 and #3 respectively (even though Adele had more raw sales), which Beyonce’s achievement even more impressive when you consider Lemonade is still only available on Jay Z’s Tidal service. Drake also took home the top spot for song, with his track “One Dance,” beating out Chainsmokers’ “Closer (feat. Halsey)” and “Work” by Rihanna. Drake also had the most total streams with 4.5 billion (!), the most digital song sales, and previously set the record for most streams on an album with over 245 million streams. He might just set the record for highest grossing rap tour ever to top it off. Damn Drizzy.
[via Digital Trends]