While some are still debating how to define country music, others like Urban One’s 93Q in Houston embraced the cultural moment sparked by Beyoncé’s latest release—and across the audio landscape, so did listeners.
On the day of Cowboy Carter’s release, music video network Vevo reported a 38% increase in views of country music videos globally.
From Rhiannon Giddenn’s banjo to Linda Martell’s pioneering EP, every country artist featured on the album has seen an increase in first-time or catalog listeners according to Spotify.
That digital audio engagement with country music has also translated to broadcast radio, with 尼尔森 measurement showing a +40% increase in audience share for the Country format among Black 18-34 year olds. 1 The spike occurred across key markets in March 2024 compared to March of last year and continued into April with a +12% increase compared to 2023.
收听乡村音乐的 18-34 岁黑人听众增加了 40
资料来源2023 年 3 月与 2024 年 3 月；尼尔森音频 PPM 黑色 DST 市场（周四至周六 6A-12A
Looking at the first quarter of 2024, country radio made up 9% of all streaming listening to AM/FM stations among Black people in the 18-34 age group—2.6x greater than adults spent streaming country stations overall. Black 18-34 year olds’ streaming of country stations was second only to the R&B and Hip-hop formats.2 This engagement reiterates additional research from Nielsen about the connection between audio content and African American communities.
Broadly, Black audiences average more than nine hours a week with radio, with an average monthly reach among Black 18-34 year olds specifically of 86%. Nielsen’s recent report, 全球黑人受众：塑造媒体的未来, found that Black 18-34-year-olds in the U.S. are nearly 20% more likely than the general population to discover new music by listening to traditional radio. With the attention and engagement focused on today’s Black artists within Country Music, the uptick in this demographic’s engagement with these radio stations makes sense.
随着乡村音乐的非裔根源和当下音乐人的才华不断受到关注，有一些重要的启示值得牢记。
- 衡量对于用数据而不是先入为主的观念来指导我们的战略至关重要。
- 仍有许多非裔美国人的潮流和传统没有被提及，比如他们对乡村音乐等形式的贡献。代表性很重要，当这些故事成为中心时，观众就会出现。
- 重新思考如何以及在何处与多样化的美国黑人建立联系。美国黑人平均每周使用媒体的时间超过 81 小时，因此品牌有大量机会以创新和真实的方式与黑人消费者建立联系。
说明
1Nielsen Audio PPM Black DST Markets Mo-Su 6A-12A
2Nielsen Audio PPM Cross-Market AQH Share. Mon-Sun 6a-Mid
