Ad-supported streaming has always occupied a unique and slightly contentious place in the music industry ecosystem. On the one hand, ad-supported still represents an effective way to reach consumers at scale, creating a wider subscriber acquisition funnel. However, it is also a destination in its own right, particularly for casual listeners or those in emerging markets. It competes against paid streaming while delivering markedly lower ARPU to DSPs and rightsholders.

Ad-supported users often engage in multi-use and switching behaviours, leading to a fractious market. Services, and their users, rise and fall rapidly with the consumer winds. While the services used may change, however, the underlying behaviour remains popular and growing, which has helped lead ad-supported to the pinnacle at which it finds itself. 

This report presents the lay of the land for ad-supported streaming, including MIDiA’s ad-supported music market shares dataset, which contains detailed breakouts of ad-users by DSP and by market.