With nearly 3.5B On-Demand Audio (ODA) streams in the US alone on any given day, streaming data allows analysts to investigate a wide variety of questions relevant to the music industry. Whether it’s artist streaming velocity, the genres that are growing the fastest, or which song is driving the most activity, both macro and micro trends are visible. Heading into this Labor Day Weekend where many Americans will have a holiday, we wanted to look at trends in weekday streaming, most notably what is the average weekday streaming pattern and how a holiday can divert from these trends.
Looking at daily US ODA streaming data 6/16-8/15/23, Friday is the heaviest day for streaming. This is also the standard new release day and the beginning of the US chart reporting week. Sunday features the least amount of streaming, and is typically at 85% of the volume of Friday. On Mondays when the work week begins, so too begins the streaming climb day-over-day back up to Thursday to round out the charting week.
While Sunday is the least-streamed day across the industry, there are some differences between genres. A more niche genre like Jazz shows less variability throughout the week where Sunday streams are 92.6% of the weekly peak on Friday. This is in contrast to Latin, where Sunday streaming is only 81.7% of the weekly Friday peak.
So, how is streaming behavior different on a holiday weekend? In the graph below you’ll see the weekday averages referenced above (dashed line) against the week including July 4th (solid line) from this same period. Though it starts a little higher on Friday, 6/30, than the average, the overall trajectory is very similar to the average until the 4th of July holiday itself, which is 5.4% lower than the average (or just over 1 less stream in every 20). This year, 4th of July was on a Tuesday and the Wednesday also shows 3.8% lower streaming than the average Wednesday in this time period.
With a consistent dip in music streaming over the weekend, our Luminate Insights consumer research allows for a look at what music listeners are doing instead. One clear standout is that the weekend is the most popular time for US music listeners to watch, follow or attend sports with 31% doing so. Likewise, weekends are also the most popular time for music listeners to follow or participate in eSports, and further illustrates how using sports as a way to reach music listeners on the weekend could be a worthwhile strategy.
Want to know more about how to reach music listeners outside of their standard daily consumption activities? Reach out to Luminate Insights here to learn more about how, why and when you can reach your target audience.
