News Articles
Today's 50 something spends £500 a year on music
POP’S not just for the kids! Britain’s 50 year olds are rocking their way into retirement, forking out over £500 every year on music.
And that’s not just on new CDs – the baby boomer generation are regularly still going to gigs, buying the latest mp3 players and downloading tunes from the internet, according to a poll by newly launched Smooth Radio.
Despite the fact that most Brits have spent approximately £24,000 on music, stereo equipment and live gigs by the time they reach 50, they show no signs of slowing up.
Nearly four out of ten people over 50 owns an iPod or MP3 player and has downloaded an average of 45 tracks from the internet. While one in 20 admits downloading more than 500 songs,
The average mature music fan has a music collection to rival any trendy teenager made up of 75 vinyl records, 52 cassettes and a staggering 114 CDs – worth over £2000.
Scots have a huge CD collection with an average of 140 discs, almost double the 73 owned by those in the north east.
And one in five of the 3,760 over-50s polled have 200 or more CDs in their collection.
The poll, by Smooth Radio, Britain’s first commercial radio network, which targets the mature adult listener with a mix of easy-listening music form the last five decades, also revealed that a music-loving four per cent have more than 500 vinyl records.
And that collection is constantly growing with baby boomers spending around £41 a month on music.
More than half - 55per cent - now listen to radio via the computer, while a third own a digital radio, and they go to an average of two live rock or pop concerts a year.
And they have would rather buy the latest Arctic Monkeys album than put something aside for the future: the survey found that only half of them are likely to leave their children an inheritance and a third are determined to spend it all, leaving nothing to the kids.
They intend to blow the money on either foreign travel or moving permanently abroad.
Smooth Radio - which this week launched new stations in London, the East and West Midlands, the North West of England and Glasgow - carried out the survey to uncover the truth about the nation’s 11 million listeners, aged between 45 and 60.
Smooth Radio London’s new mid-morning host Mark Goodier said: “We’re a generation born in the 50s and 60s when music was king and we clearly haven’t lost the passion for it. Its great to see that the mature adult is also giving the kids a run for their money when it comes to new technology and spending their money on having fun!”
REGIONS WHO OWN THE MOST DOWNLOADED MUSIC TRACKS
- Wales - 64
- Scotland - 55.5
- South East - 55
- Midlands - 52
- North West - 45
- North East - 42
- South West - 37
- London - 27
REGIONS WHO SPEND THE MOST ON MUSIC EACH MONTH
- South East - £12.40
- Scotland - £10.19
- Wales - £8.75
- North East / North West – £8.13
- South West - £7.86
- Midlands - £7.77
- London - £7.53
REGIONS WHO OWN THE MOST CDS
- Scotland - 140
- South West – 130
- North West - 123
- South East – 117
- Midlands – 109
- London - 107
- Wales – 102
- North East – 73
REGIONS WHO OWN THE MOST DOWNLOADED MUSIC TRACKS
- Wales
- Scotland
- South East
- Midlands
- North West
- North East
- South West
- London
Published on 11/04/2007
Related Links
Back to News