Booting Up and Tuning In.

A new study by NPD Group examines the ways US consumers are listening to music, and finds that their habits are changing.

Radio is still the most popular format for listening to music, by far. Although it lost about 9 million listeners, a decline of 4%, between March 2004 and March 2005, its listener base is almost three times as high as any other format — 194 million. Comparatively, 77.2 million people ages 13 and over listened to music stored on their computer, while 53.5 million listened to online radio and 46.1 million listened to free streaming music online. However, these three categories were more popular in 2005 than in 2004, gaining 22%, 18% and 37% more listeners, respectively.

Why are online consumers listening to Internet radio? More variety and fewer commercials were some of the reasons cited in a survey by Arbitron and Edison Media Research. Some just listened because it was new.

Interestingly, the Internet radio audience is older than might be expected. The Arbitron/Edison study found that nearly half of all online radio listeners are between the ages of 25 and 44, and more 45 to 54 year-olds are Internet radio listeners than 18 to 24 year-olds.

Want to know more about the changes taking place in the radio and digital music industries? The eStat Database contains hundreds of charts about Internet audio, digital music satellite radio, streaming media and other related subjects.