Closing the background gap Focused versus background audio listening

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20,000 foot view: The rise of attention inflation means that consumers are maximising their limited time by multitasking between various formats, spurring a rise in background consumption. This creates a “new” space for platforms to compete for consumers’ time. Among entertainment formats, audio is best placed to conquer background listening, but music streaming is more easily relegated to the background than podcasts. For future growth, both audio and podcasts must balance serving the passive, background listeners, who constitute the majority of consumers, with encouraging active, foreground listening amongst fans.
Key insights
- All audio are most often consumed in background of other activities
- The background — the disparity between a proportion of foreground and background — measures the value of on the format and its to monetise engagement
- Music streaming occupying the same space as — a source for passive, listening — with a background compared to radio’s
- Radio’s background is smaller among younger generations, due to its inability to background listeners, leaving a higher of focused listeners
- High music are more likely to stream in the background than music who over-index for foreground music and interacting with friends about music while streaming
- Niche streaming such as SoundCloud and TIDAL, tend to have tools geared social and fandom, have lower gaps, illustrating the path for platforms to attract more active fans
- YouTube’s audio-visual, experience gives it a unique to capture focused attention, and music fans have more focused interactive music engagement there
- Podcasts have potential to become a more format, as of podcast listeners this content as a main activity
- Podcast genres when it comes to attention: and true crime podcast listeners more likely to consume podcasts whereas religion and sports podcasts more likely to be consumed main focus activity
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon Amp, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Audiomack, Beats Deezer, HBO, Josh Widdicombe, Mercedes, Rob Beckett, NetEase Cloud Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, TIDAL, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Shorts