“The consumption of music continues to be greater than ever,” says Eric Weinberg, President, Entertainment for Nielsen. “The sales figures for the first half of 2011 show the increased purchasing behavior is being driven by digital album sales, which are up nearly 20 percent over 2010, and the increased purchasing of catalog [older] titles.” Weinberg said, also noting that “While digital music sales continue to see strong growth, the CD still accounts for two out of every three album purchases.”

Sales figures of note in 2011 include:

• Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” became the first digital song to sell more than 7 million tracks on March 20.
• On July 3, Eminem’s Recovery became the first digital album to sell more than one million units; Adele’s 21 is on track to surpass a million units next week. Through the first six months of the year, Adele has the biggest selling; album of the year, digital album of the year, physical album of the year and digital track of the year.
• 21 by Adele, has sold 2.5 million album sales, 1.5 million physical albums and 992,000 digital album sales while “Rolling in the Deep” has been downloaded more than four million times.
• Adele’s 19 is the biggest selling catalog album of the year through the first six months of 2011.
• Lady Gaga’s Born This Way experienced the biggest 1st week album sales of 2011 with 1,108,000 units – the biggest 1st week album sales since 50 Cent’s Massacre in 2005. The album sold a record 662,000 digital albums in the first week of release.
• “E.T.” by Katy Perry tops the chart for best selling digital song for the first six months of 2011 with 4.1 million downloads.

More detail on the report is available at Billboard.biz.

You can download all of the reports at Nielsen.com

Putting a price on music’s value
With more music available than ever from an unprecedented number of sources, we have seen that customers do use (and therefore value) music and the different channels. For content providers, understanding consumers’ willingness to pay for content and via what channel(s) will be essential to the industry’s future.

The most popular form of digital music consumption was the “watch” habit with 57 percent of respondents having watched music videos on computers in the last three months. Other popular forms of consumption were streaming music on a computer (26%), streaming music on a mobile phone (21%), watching music video on mobile phones (23%) and downloading or using music apps (20%).

The sources for consuming music are as diverse as consumers’ willingness to pay. The industry is continuing to investigate alternate revenue streams and the broad approach makes sense as consumers diversify their digital music sources.

Music goes mobile
Mobile phone technology and increasing popularity of smartphones are providing a new and potentially lucrative revenue opportunity for the music industry. Especially among digital music’s early adopter 20-24yr segment, the mobile phone is fast becoming the mainstay of how they stay connected to the world (via internet) and how they listen to and increasingly buy music. More promisingly, nearly one in four (24%) of the 20-24yr old segment globally indicated they would be prepared to pay to download music videos on their mobile phone. According to the Nielsen survey, males aged between 20-24yr are the global early adopters for digital music consumption and industry marketers need to understand and anticipate the changing habits of this segment to develop viable revenue models. Generating the most interest to those looking for mobile music apps were music discovery tools and streaming apps.

On a regional level, consumers in Asia Pac by far showed the highest activity for music downloads on mobile devices.

For more regional and demographic insights on consumers’ willingness to pay for music and more, download The Hyper-Fragmented World of Music, a series of reports released in conjunction with MIDEM at Nielsen.com.

Bruce Springsteen’s 2009 halftime performance coincided with the release of his newest album “Working on a Dream.” The show helped the album debut with 224,000 copies sold in its first week. The performance also boosted The Boss’s overall catalog, with all other album sales soaring 218% in the following week.

If digital downloads were any indication, Springsteen’s halftime set list was also a hit. In the week after the Super Bowl, digital sales surged for each of his four performed songs: “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (+1320%), “Glory Days” (+602), “Born To Run” (+360) and “Working on a Dream” (+221%).

“The Super Bowl halftime show is an incredible driver of music sales time and time again,” says Dave Bakula, SVP of Analytics for Nielsen Entertainment. “Big televised events like the SuperBowl and the Grammy Awards help expose artists to millions of Americans of different ages that they may not normally be exposed to. When a classic rock artist, like Springsteen or Tom Petty, performs in the SuperBowl, it also reminds fans why they fell in love with the artist in the first place and drives those people to purchase.”

Post Game TV Bump
Only a handful of TV shows have ever had the benefit of a Super Bowl lead-in. For network programmers, the post-game timeslot offers a rare opportunity to introduce a program to a wide range of viewers that they may not otherwise reach. Since 1990, the most watched post game broadcast was a special episode of Friends that aired after Dallas beat Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX on NBC.

Another measure of success for these shows is the percent of viewers retained from the game. Friends, for example, held 56% of the 94 million Super Bowl XXX viewers. More recently, post-Super Bowl programming has seen mixed results:

UK Digital Download Sales
According to the recorded music industry trade body, the BPI, digital downloads account for 98 percent of UK single sales. Unsurprisingly, download sales for the song each guest star performed on the X Factor results show increased as, mostly, it coincided with the digital release of that single or album. However, tracks already available before to buy before the show also had large hikes in sales.

Four of the five guest stars who sold the most UK downloads of their song during the week following their appearance are TV talent show discoveries. Leading the way was Cheryl Cole, from Popstars: The Rivals winners Girls Aloud, who sold over 221,000 copies of her single “Fight For This Love” in the week after her performance. Cole was followed by 2008 X Factor finalists, Alexandra Burke (145,320) and JLS (86,725). After the Black Eyed Peas (79,706), 2006 X Factor winner Leona Lewis was fifth with 67,404 sales of “Happy” – her first of two 2009 finals performances.

An X Factor performance had a huge effect on tracks already available to buy. Shakira benefited most from appearing on the show, selling 358% more copies of “Did It Again” the week after the show compared to the week before – even though the track was available for purchase 5 weeks earlier. Michael Bublé’s “Cry Me a River” had already been available for a week before his appearance, via the album, but he benefited from a 323% increase in sales the week after the show. Leona Lewis’ performance of “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” – her second performance during the 2009 finals – contributed to a 215% increase in sales even though the track had already been available, via the album, for a month.

Online Buzz
For almost all the 18 guest stars promoting a track on the X Factor, online buzz in the UK increased after their performance. Only George Michael, Rihanna and Bon Jovi saw a decrease in online mentions or “talkability.” The eight most buzzed about stars during the fortnight around their appearance were all female, lead by previous X Factor winners Leona Lewis, around her “Happy” performance, and Alexandra Burke.

Just as the stars discovered by TV talent shows sold most digital download sales, they tended to benefit most in terms of increases in online buzz levels (87 percent average increase) around their X Factor performance than their counterparts who rose to fame through traditional avenues (45 percent). Susan Boyle (139 percent) and JLS (138 percent) benefited most in terms of increased buzz levels during the week commencing the Sunday of their performance, compared to the week before. Alicia Keys (130 percent) and Whitney Houston (114 percent) were the “traditional” artists with the greatest increase in levels of online buzz.
Radio Airplay
Westlife were the only guests for which the show was the debut airing of the song – all the others had their song broadcast on the radio for varying periods of time before their X Factor performance.

The most radio plays the week of a performance correlated almost identically with the most download sales – being dominated by the “TV talent show” guest stars. Cheryl Cole led the way (3,082 plays) followed by Alexandra Burke (2,748) and JLS (2,554). Leona Lewis’ “Happy” was fifth (2,069) but behind Whitney Houston (2,284) not the Black Eyed Peas.

In terms of increased radio airplay, Mariah Carey was, by far, the biggest beneficiary of an X Factor performance with a 297 percent increase in plays of “I Want To Know What Love Is” – despite the song having its first UK radio play 12 weeks earlier. Alicia Keys followed, with a 72 percent increase in plays of “Doesn’t Mean Anything,” its debut airing being seven weeks earlier. Third was Susan Boyle, with “Wild Horses” benefitting from a 71 percent airplay increase, six weeks after debut.

Jean Littolff, Managing Director, Nielsen Music Control, says: “The X Factor results program is a major marketing vehicle for established stars – particularly for those discovered through the TV talent show medium itself. This type tends to have most activity in terms of download sales, online buzz and radio airplays post performance. However, the greatest impact in terms of changing levels of activity pre vs. post performance is for artists who have travelled a more traditional route to fame.”

• For more information, download the full UK press release on the X-Factor.

For most people, Chris Anderson’s 2006 book The Long Tail marked a new way of thinking about selling goods on the Internet. Being free of the physical limits of shelf space, he predicted, would alter what people bought. For music, this would mean the most popular music titles would become less popular as consumers were able to tap into vast online catalogs. In most corners of the business world, and especially in the music industry, The Long Tail was controversial. Would consumers actually start to ignore the hits?

A Billboard analysis of Nielsen SoundScan data going back to 2004 shows Anderson wasn’t correct on all points. Hit digital albums have lost market share to far less popular titles. But hit digital tracks have gained market share over the years. The top 200 tracks accounted for 14.5% of sales in 2004 and rose to 15.8% in 2005, 17.1% in 2006 and 2007 and 17.2% in 2008. Through October 25, 2009, the top 200 tracks’ share stood at 18.7%.

The top 200 digital albums have shown an opposite trend in market share, steadily dropping to 21.9% in 2008 from 28.7% in 2004. At 22.1%, digital albums’ market share through October, 2009 is slightly better than 2008’s figure.

These two trends imply album and track purchase decisions may be driven by different factors. The most popular tracks may be benefitting from a herd effect due to the viral nature of the Internet. The awareness generated by that small number of songs could drown out less popular songs. Album buyers show they have more diverse tastes and take advantage of the vast catalogs at online retailers. So consumers may prefer to sample the depths of long tail through albums, not by individual songs.

Any discussion of Anderson’s book and theories should include how the record label’s role has changed. A popular sentiment of The Long Tail is that artists have all the tools they need to self-release digital music. That is true. Barriers to entry have been lowered to the point where the costs of recording and commercially releasing music are negligible. As Anderson explained in The Long Tail, cheaper tools of production and distribution have greatly increased the supply of music found online.

But acquiring distribution and getting a sale are two different things. People tend to underestimate the amount of competition faced in digital music. Over 100,000 albums were released in 2008 alone – and about half of those were digital-only releases. Not only does a title have to compete against other new releases, it has to compete against the tens of thousands of well known catalog titles that are available online. It takes resources – both money and expertise – to rise above the competition and achieve sales commensurate to what career-oriented artists need. Such resources are the domain of record labels, who can still find success in the digital world.

While The Long Tail was less explicit about record labels’ role in a changing digital marketplace, in July Anderson told The Times that record labels “are now the least important part” of the music industry. That is true for those with very low sales goals. These days a more established artist, or a mere hobbyist, can circumvent a contract with a record label by using inexpensive digital tools and outsourcing some record label functions. For the more ambitious and the less established, a record label is still by far the best way out of obscurity.

Summary of Billboard’s analysis:

• As more digital albums are released, the more popular titles lose market share to the less popular titles. In other words, demand has shifted from the hits to the niches. The head (what Anderson would call the top 5,000 titles) has lost market share to the tail (all other albums). The head accounted for 77% of digital album sales in 2005. By 2008, the head’s market share had steadily dropped to 65%.
• Sales of digital albums have become less hit-oriented while digital tracks have become slightly more hit-oriented. The top 200 digital albums have accounted for a smaller share of total digital album sales since 2004. In contrast, the top 200 digital tracks’ share of total sales has nudged upward during that time period.
• Sales of individual tracks (those purchased independently, not as part of an album) account for the majority of digital music purchased in the U.S. Individual tracks accounted for 57% of all digital music sold in 2008 (assuming 12 tracks per album).
• In any given week, the top 200 digital tracks account for nearly one in four track purchases. To put that in context, Amazon.com’s MP3 store currently lists 9.99 million tracks. So, the top 200 tracks represent only 0.002% of what a large download store stocks.
• Even titles in the tail (below #5,000) have lost some market share recently. In 2008, the top 8,000 digital albums lost market share to lower-ranked albums. But it wasn’t the best-selling albums that suffered the most. Albums ranked from #200 to #800 suffered the biggest drop in digital album market share from 2004 to 2008 – between 25% and 34%
• While lower ranks have gained market share over the years, any one title has not gained much. For example, an album ranked at #9,000 in 2008 sold about 1,050 digital albums. Less than 100 of those units can be attributed to gains in market share over the previous four years.

An expanded version of this story first appeared at billboard.biz.

In August, women made up 56.1 percent of the Web traffic to music sites. Overall, music sites pulled in 42.5 million unique female visitors in August.

While it might seem like young girls would be scouring sites for the latest news on the Jonas Brothers, it is actually women 35-60 who make up about a third of visitors to music sites.

Females age 35-49 make up the largest group. More than 14.5 million women within that demographic visited online music sites in August. This made up 19.2 percent of all visitors to music sites during the month.

Less than a fifth (15.6 percent) of U.S. females 18 or older said they purchased music online within the past six months. Sixteen percent said they bought a music offline during the same span, per Nielsen@Plan Fall 2009 Survey. Slightly more than 8 percent of women watched or listened to music online.

The top two sites visited by women for the month of August were: AOL Music (11.8 million unique visitors) and Yahoo Music (9.9 million). MSN Music was a distant third with a unique audience of 3.9 million.

Virginia Harvey, Client Service, Nielsen Monitor-Plus

SUMMARY: The rise to stardom does not come arbitrarily, but rather is often the by-product of a carefully constructed plan that brings together a perfect blend of talent, timing and a great advertising promotion plan. Nielsen investigates how some of the more recent campaigns in the music world achieved success.

A sold out show or an album going gold, platinum or diamond is music to the ears of emerging artists and veteran musicians alike. But achieving that goal typically takes more than just great songs—exposure is a key contributor. In the February issue of Consumer Insight, Nielsen reported that music artists saw album sales climb as much as 700% one week after the Grammy’s aired on broadcast television. Now, Nielsen takes a closer look at the backstage-pass advertising that amplifies album sales, digital downloads, and concert sales.

Total concert advertising spend
In 2008, total advertising spend for concerts in combined print, TV, Internet, and outdoor tallied just over $207 million. April dominated sales with $23.2 million, which surpassed May—a close second—by 10%. Contributing $2.3 million to April’s total was spending for Neil Diamond’s Home Before Dark tour.

A review of the top three artists’ spending for 2008 reveals that Neil Diamond once again led total spending at $6.2 million, followed by Tina Tuner with $4.3 million and Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) $3.6 million. TSO, which tours on a yearly basis during the holiday season, increased advertising spend in 2008 by 37%. The increase paid off, as 2008 ticket sales grossed $47.3 million—a 28% increase over 2007 results of $36.9 million.

Overall, monthly spending was fairly consistent, with one exception—January started the year slow with a $9.4 million outlay.

Veteran acts re-emerge
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ 2008 tour proved to be one of the biggest of the year. With an estimated 32 U.S. shows and 25 sell outs, total ticket sales grossed $34.8 million. Helping to re-ignite the name—to about 97 million viewers—was a calculated move to play at the Super Bowl XLII half-time show.

Additional media vehicles that contributed to a successful tour included countless articles in magazines and online blogs about Petty’s recent greatest hits album and tour. From SPIN to Variety, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ had a wealth of media exposure. Roughly two-thirds (64%) of their promotional spending was placed in newspapers and one-third was split between local radio ($223,000) and television ($141,000) ads.

The pay-off in publicizing is further revealed by a review of Tom Petty’s tour promotion ad spending in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, ad spending increased 61%, from $430,000 to $694,000, grossing $25.2 million in ticket sales—$3.2 million higher than 2005 sales.

Hot commodities
A new era of Tween fans have emerged with the introduction Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. With the help of the Disney Channel, acts such as these have become a household name. The Hannah Montana show—with viewers that number upwards of an average 10.7 million over the past three years—has driven awareness levels so high that traditional advertising for the 2007/2008 tour totaled only $430,000. An additional $2.7 million was spent promoting various Hannah Montana paraphernalia, such as toy figures, playsets and perfume. Hannah Montana sold out all 70 shows from October 2007 through January 2008 and grossed $55.2 million in ticket sales.

While the Jo Bro’s have been associated with Disney (collaborating to create a Disney Channel original movie), the bands’ main source of promotion was TV, magazine, newspaper, and radio ($1.3 million). As impressive as their third album was—selling 525,000 copies in just the first week of its release alone—they sold out only 54 U.S. shows out of 82 and total ticket sales grossed $41.9 million. While both acts are hot commodities, girl power triumphs and solidifies the importance of exposure and familiarity.

Rise from obscurity
When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, their eye-catching roller-skating, freestyle silhouette advertisements paired with memorable songs transformed the digital download world—and brought success to many little-known artists. Most notable was the release of the third-generation iPod Nano, when Apple featured the single 1234 from Feist. Prior to the commercial airing in September 2007, the single generated 60,000 digital downloads. After the commercial hit the airwaves, downloads increased ten-fold—rising to 638,000 from September to December 2007, according to Nielsen.

With the success of that campaign, Apple continued to spotlight up-and-coming bands. When The Ting Ting’s hit single, Shut Up and Let Me Go, appeared in an iPod commercial in April 2008, it peaked at number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. And in September 2008, the newest fourth-generation iPod Nano (Chromatic) line introduced the band Chairlift with a 30-second commercial that featured the song Bruises, which was just enough to send the song to the top of the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.

Movie soundtracks can also have a profound affect on the popularity of a song. In February 2008, M.I.A released the single Paper Planes, which gained commercial attention when it was featured in the film and trailer for Pineapple Express. Digital copies soared from one week to the next selling 58,800 the week prior to the opening of the movie to 102,000 copies during the week of opening day—a 74% increase. From the time of the film’s opening week in early August, which included $6 million in TV ad spending to the end of September, digital copies spilled over to one million. Several months later, the song appeared in the film and soundtrack Slumdog Millionaire gaining awareness once again. The song eventually peaked at number four on Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for the Record of the Year during the 51st Grammy Awards.

Chart toppers
The right exposure has the power to elevate a band to a level of success not possible otherwise. Finding the best promotion mix is vital. From targeting the right audience and selecting impactful platforms to delivering creative messages that resonate—understanding the consumer is the fundamental building block from which all successful programs begin. Whether the goal is instant stardom, re-introduction or business-as-usual, the ability to top the charts is all about creating awareness.

When comparing unique visitors of the music.myspace.com subdomain to other sites within the music category in June, it ranked third behind AOL Music and Yahoo! Music and ahead of popular music sites like MTV Networks Music and Pandora.com.

People between the ages of 12 and 17 were 2.4 time more likely than the average active Internet user to visit music.myspace.com. Visitors between 18 and 24 were 2.2 more likely than the average Internet user to visit the site in June.

On the video streaming front, with 120.1 million total streams, Myspace.com was the No. 1 social media site when ranked by streams for June 2009. It was also the No. 1 social networking site when ranked by unique viewers of video content, with 12.9 million viewers for the month. Facebook was the fastest growing social media site by both total video streams and unique viewers of video. Total streams increased 434 percent year-over-year, from 10.1 million streams to 54 million streams. Unique viewers of video increased 397 percent, from 2.4 million in June 2008 to 12 million in June 2009.

Twitter’s Big Move

Among the top 10 social media sites, Twitter.com was again the fastest growing, increasing 1,928 percent year-over-year, from 1 million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21 million unique visitors in June 2009–making Twitter the fourth most visited member communities site in June. Facebook continued to lead as the No. 1 U.S. social networking site for the sixth month in a row, with 87.3 million unique visitors in June 2009.

Facebook No. 1 For Time Spent

Facebook was also the No. 1 social networking site among the top 10 when ranked by average time per person, with visitors spending an average of 4 hours and 33 minutes on the site in June. This is a 240 percent year-over-year increase. The average time per person on Twitter increased 522 percent year-over-year, from 5 minutes and 2 seconds in June 2008 to 31 minutes and 17 seconds in June 2009, making it the fastest growing by time per person among the top 10.

*Note: Effective with June 2009 data reporting, Nielsen has made several enhancements to the NetView and VideoCensus services, including a panel that is 8 times larger, more granular reporting and improved accuracy and representativeness. These enhancements provide the highest quality data to our clients and the marketplace. For some sites, trending of previously-reported data with current results may show percentage differences attributable to these product enhancements and should only be compared directionally.

Nielsen Buzzmetrics analysis shows that more than 16% of tweets over the past 24 hours reference Michael Jackson, and less than 2 percent of Tweets mention Farrah Fawcett and Iran.

A Topper of Charts and a Major TV Draw

That Jackson’s passing dominated the web is no surprise, as he has been a major media draw for decades. According to Billboard, over the course of his solo career, Jackson charted 47 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, 13 of which went to No. 1. As part of the Jackson 5, he earned an additional four No. 1 Hot 100 hits.In addition to his unparalleled dominance on the Billboard music charts with albums like Thriller, his past television appearances have attracted millions of curious viewers eager to see more of the reclusive, yet ubiquitous, star.

Nielsen has issued a year-end look at the most popular trends among Americans during 2008, covering everything from the top TV programs to the most popular consumer packaged goods.

William P. Young’s ”The Shack” was the top-selling fiction book through November 30.

Among non-fiction books, “A New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle was the top-seller.

The audio version of Tolle’s “A New Earth” was the top-selling audio book of the year.

Top 10 Book Sales: Adult Fiction

Top 10 Book Sales: Adult Non-Fiction

Top 10 Audio Book Sales: Adult and Juvenile

View the press release.

Relive the greatest hits of 2008 — stay tuned on Nielsen Wire for more Tops In 2008 coverage.

Look ahead to the new year with Nielsen Wire’s 2009 Industry Outlook series.