NPD reports changes in teen music habits: Less buying, less downloading

Would you find it more surprising to hear that even teens are spending less during the economic downturn, or to hear that even teens are kind of nonplussed by the current music scene?

A report out this week from The NPD Group says that the 13-to-17 crowd acquired 19% less music in 2008 than they did the previous year. That's acquisition by any means -- CD purchases (down 26%), digital downloads (down 13%), peer-to-peer sharing (down 6%), even borrowing (down 28%).

What's up? Satellites and streams, that's what. 31% of the 4,000 teens surveyed say they're listening to satellite radio, 46% are getting their tunes from social networks such as MySpace, and 52% are tuning into online radio.

NPD analyst Russ Crupnick even suggests that teens are starting to walk away from file sharing in favor of list sharing: "It's possible teens could start spending more time creating playlists and posting them online than they would spend sharing actual song files."

Can this mean... could it be... has the RIAA finally convinced the kids that downloading is wrong?!

Doubtful. NPD's survey shows that 24% of teens say that money's an issue right now. More interestingly, 23% of those surveyed said they already had a decent collection of digital music, and nearly one-third (32%) said they just didn't hear much music they wanted to buy.

In all the fuss over getting the young ones to get their music from approved channels, the music industry may have forgotten that first you've got to have music someone wants to get at all.