New Nielsen report says Canadians are only willing to pay $6 to $8 a month for unlimited music streaming

Just in time for the long rumoured unveiling of Apple Music, Nielsen has released an extensive report on the state of Canada’s music industry.

Titled the Nielsen Music 360 Canada report, the study looks at, among other things, how much Canadians are willing to pay to gain access to a music streaming service. After surveying some 3500 people, Nielsen concludes that the average person is willing to pay between $6.20 and $7.80 a month to listen to as many songs as they want.

Both figures are below what the majority of streaming services currently charge users to access their platforms. Besides Spotify’s free ad-supported tier, the least expensive option is Rdio’s Select subscription plan, which grants consumers 25 songs per day for $3.99 per month. With the exception of those two options, most services, including Apple Music, start at $9.99 per month and go from there. Moreover, if a report from Recode is to believed, Spotify is under constant pressure from music labels to scale back how much music it gives away for free.

Speaking about its low cost subscription tier, Rdio CEO Anthony Bay said in an interview with the Vancouver Sun, “the challenge with the $9.99 price point is it’s more than most people have historically spent on music.”

According to the same report, since Nielsen started tracking streaming usage in July of last year, streaming volume has gone up by 94 per cent.

It should be noted that Nielsen’s sample is a bit skewed. The company says it limited its efforts to people from the ages of 13 to 27.

[source]Nielsen[/source][via]Vancouver Sun[/via]