Canadians willing to pay about $6 for music: report

TORONTO • How much are Canadians willing to pay to stream music?

It’s a question that continues to flummox analysts, record labels and particularly online streaming services.

As one component of its extensive Canadian Nielsen Music 360 report, Nielsen Entertainment polled consumers on how much they’d be willing to spend monthly for unlimited streaming of songs and albums without advertising.

The respondents, on average, said they would be willing to devote $6.20 per month or up to $7.80 for high-quality audio. But, of course, they were speaking on a hypothetical basis.

Those numbers lie in the middle of the range of options offered by streaming services in Canada.

Currently, Spotify offers a limited free service in addition to a $9.99-per-month premium version, which offers ad-free, on-demand listening. Apple Music, unveiled Monday, will cost $9.99 in the U.S. when it launches June 30, with international pricing information yet to be announced. Newcomer Tidal provides subscriptions for either $9.99 or $19.99 per month.

Rdio, meanwhile, recently introduced a new $3.99 subscription tier called Rdio Select, joining its free ad-supported streaming radio service and its $9.99 ad-free ondemand service. The new plan allows subscribers to download 25 songs and replace them once per day, as well as offering unlimited song skips and high-quality sound.

“This is the coach class version, if we were an airline — and up till now, the only seats available on airlines were business class,” Rdio CEO Anthony Bay said in a recent telephone interview.

In Canada, streaming volume is up 94 per cent since Nielsen began tracking streaming in July 2014.

Nielsen’s study was derived from an online poll of 3,500 consumers aged 13 and up from April 12 to 27.