Steep Drop in Music Ownership as On-Demand Audio Streaming Jumps, Says Report

Weekly on-demand audio streams set a record the week including Sept. 28, surpassing 8.3 billion, said a Tuesday Nielsen report. For the first nine months of 2017, on-demand audio streams exceeded 287 billion, a 59 percent jump over the comparable 2016 period. But music ownership declined for the period, with album sales falling 18.3 percent, digital album sales dropping 19.5 percent and digital track sales plummeting 23.1 percent. Physical album sales were off 17.3 percent, demonstrating consumer preference for streaming. Vinyl albums, though, bucked the trend, with sales rising 3.1 percent for the year, now making up 14 percent of all physical album purchases.