I was shocked to click on the ‘poll of the day’ link from my Facebook profile to the question: ‘How do you hear most of your music?‘

A stagering 37% gave iPod as their preference, and 31% computer. Adding a further 3% specifying satellite (digital) radio, this is a total of 71% of those polled prefering digitally distributed formats, against 30% prefering physical formats (radio 20%, CDs 10%).

Of the oldest age category (35 – 49), only 43% prefered digital to physical formats.
Of the youngest category (13-17), 77% prefered digital formats, and equally 77% of 17 – 24 years olds. However, their digital format preferences were converse, with 13-17 years (‘digital natives’) prefering iPods (48%) over computers (28%). They have little time for CDs (5%), but radio (19%) is more enduring than you’d think. Whereas 18-24 year olds equally like iPods (34%) and computers (34%), CDs were still more enduring (12%) but radio less so (17%).

I must be old – vinyl was not an option of the poll

Of the 1000 respondants, 81% were under 25, with a male bias, fitting Facebook’s typical demographic, and are naturally techno-savvy users.

This clearly shows that the next generation of workers, employers and voracious media consumers will abandon physical products in favour of the volume and convenience of digital distribution. The music industry must create models to promote talent and incentivise sales, licensing, and experiences with music and artists which take into account high volume, low value distribution. This may potentially include advertising-funded digital downloads.

Check out Andrew Dubber’s excellent New Music Strategies Manifesto for tips to survive as a music business in the digitally-distributed music age. Andrew warns:

“At present many music businesses are attempting to dry their hair with a toaster, which kind of works — but it’s not ideal. What they really should be doing is collaborating with technologists to invent the hairdryer.”