- The habits of the French in matters of musical consumption changed during the confinement.
- The streaming service Qobuz unveils the results of its study conducted with hundreds of thousands of users at 20 Minutes .
- Increase in listening time during the day, growth in the number of downloads, Qobuz President Denis Thébaud takes stock.
If we do not yet really know if we can celebrate Music Festival with dignity this year, coronavirus forces, the music has obviously softened manners during confinement. If a drop in consumption was observed in the first days of this unprecedented period by music platforms, the figures returned to a normal trend, or even better than usual. The French streaming service Qobuz, which lists more than 50 million titles in its catalog and is positioned on a high-end market, made a commitment to artists from the start of the crisis by donating 100% of its revenues to assigns.
The platform also launched a study on the habits of its hundreds of thousands of subscribers during this period like no other. 20 Minutes met with Denis Thébaud, President and CEO of Qobuz, to interpret the figures and detail the consumption of the French for 55 days.
What are the significant figures from your study?
During the confinement period, there was a fairly marked increase in tapping during normal office hours, namely 24% in the morning and 20% in the afternoon. People who were idle listened to music more than usual because they were at home. They probably wanted to use their equipment at home, to have fun listening to different genres of music.
You also offer a download service. Has there been a major evolution?
We have noticed a very significant increase in downloading by the act. Since there was no possibility of going to the store, customers rediscovered the possibility of buying music on a fee-for-service basis. It was a musical rediscovery for a number of people. This increase has been noted in almost all countries. This download activity is important to us, for which we are perhaps less known, because we have almost 10% market share compared to other international companies.
How has listening to music changed over the weeks of confinement?
During the first week, people were watching their television, so we had less viewing. It's another screen that attracted customers, but it's an epiphenomenon, it was very short. Rather, we see an increase in music consumption at our level during this period. This is important because the artists can have a remuneration at that time while the places of culture are closed.
What did you think were the biggest surprises in containment?
We did a number of lives to talk about the different musical qualities. We have seen that there was an interest during this period for people to learn what good musical quality is, and why it is important not to listen to too many MP3s, because of which we tend to listen to music. stronger. It is the education aspect of music which seemed to me extremely important. There is a need on the musical editorial, on the culture around music, whatever genre we like. This is something that appeared quite clearly during this period.
What music genre did your subscribers prefer during containment?
The classical and jazz musical genres have developed very well, more than in previous periods. This shows that it is music to have fun. One of the particularities of Qobuz is that we have a library in very high resolution and it is appreciated by music lovers who listen to classical and jazz. It was one of our strengths during the confinement period.
How was the decision made to support the artists during this period?
Better paying artists, it has all its value, especially at this time when it is very difficult for the artistic community. The artists are under enormous pressure because they do not have concerts and cannot record. The solution is that there is more paid streaming. For this, 100% of the income from the first month of subscription was paid back to the beneficiaries, and we also have the fee-for-service system, thanks to which the artist has better remuneration. At the end of 2019, there were only 7.2 million paid streaming subscriptions so there is still a long way to go.
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- Coronavirus
- Covid 19
- Confinement
- Music
- Culture
- Interview
- Music streaming