Highly Anticipated Report Provides Comprehensive Coverage of the Year in Music
New York Jan. 5, 2017 - Nielsen, the industrys leading source for music data and insights, today released its 2016 U.S. Year-End Report for the 12-month period ending Dec. 29, 2016. This highly anticipated report provides comprehensive coverage of the year in music from the coveted Nielsen Music Year-End charts, presented by Billboard, to insights on the most important industry trends from sales and streaming to social media and overall consumer engagement across today's most popular platforms.
The Nielsen Music U.S. Year-End Report confirms that the music industry experienced steady and consistent growth in 2016, with overall volume up 3% over 2015, fueled by a 76% increase in on-demand audio streams compared to last year. On-demand audio streams surpassed 250B streams in 2016, and overall on-demand streams (including video) have reached 431B. The industry did experience sales decreases in nearly all formats, particularly digital sales. However, the growth in streaming was more than enough to off-set the declines, which resulted in a positive year for the music business.
The music industry continues to grow at a healthy rate, and 2016 showed us that the landscape is evolving even more quickly than we have seen with other format shifts, said David Bakula, SVP of Music Industry Insights. Thanks to the rapid emergence of new technologies and channels for discovery and engagement, consumers are finding and listening to more music in new ways.
Drake's Views release was the leader in total volume (albums track equivalent albums audio on- demand streaming equivalent albums) this year, followed by Adele's 25 and Beyonc 's Lemonade. For the second year in a row, Adele's 25 led the year's album sales in the U.S., marking only the second time in history that the same album has been the top seller in two consecutive calendar years (the first being Adele's 21 album in 2011 & 2012). Vinyl LP sales, which have reached an all-time Nielsen Music-era high volume of 13M units, increased for the 11th consecutive year in 2016. The top vinyl LP of the year was Twenty One Pilots' Blurryface, with David Bowie's Blackstar and Adele's 25 finishing close behind.
The biggest song of the year in terms of total activity (sales audio streaming equivalents) was Drake's One Dance, followed by Closer by Chainsmokers (feat. Halsey) and Work by Rihanna (feat. Drake). Topping the Digital Songs Sales charts this year were Can't Stop the Feeling! by Justin Timberlake, Closer by The Chainsmokers (feat. Halsey) and My House by Flo Rida.
Other notable insights and trends from the 2016 Nielsen Music U.S. Year-End Report, include:
On-demand audio streaming has now grown to 38% of total audio consumption (albums track equivalents on-demand audio streaming equivalents) to become the largest share of consumption.
The on-demand audio streaming share has now surpassed total digital sales (digital albums digital track equivalents) for the first time in history.
Rock continues to be the dominant genre in terms of album sales (both physical and digital), but the streaming landscape is led by R&B/Hip-Hop, which garners the highest share of on-demand audio streams with heavily streamed artists like Drake, The Weeknd, Kanye West, Rihanna and J. Cole.
Digital continues to be the dominant sales platform, but digital sales are declining much more rapidly than physical sales as tech-savvy consumers move onto streaming platforms.
For the first time in over a decade, physical albums actually became a larger share of total album sales than they were in the prior year.
Vinyl LP sales grew to over 11% of total physical album sales in 2016. This marks 11 years of year-over-year increases for vinyl LPs, reaching a record sales level in the Nielsen Music era (since 1991) with over 13 million sales this year.
For the first time in history, the internet/mail-order/venue store group, led by Internet retailers and concert ticket bundles, has become the largest share of physical sales, ending a nine-year period where mass merchant outlets were the leading driver of physical album sales.
This was an extremely successful year for Drake, who had the most overall volume; the most digital song sales; the most streams (by a huge margin); and the most heavily consumed album of the year with Views. In its debut week, Views became the only album to surpass 1M in weekly total volume (albums track equivalents on-demand streaming equivalents), and set an all- time record for most streams from an album with over 245M.
In 2016, there were 12 occurrences where an album's songs had over 100M audio streams in a week. This was led by Drake's Views, which accomplished that feat an amazing 8x, but also included J. Cole's 4 Your Eyez Only (with the second highest debut week stream volume in history) , The Weeknd's Starboy (2x) and Beyonc 's Lemonade.
Only six albums debuted with over 200K in album sales in their first week in 2016 (there were 13 such cases in 2015), led by Drake with 852K first week sales for Views. Other albums to surpass the 200K mark in their first week include Beyonc 's Lemonade (485K), J. Cole's 4 Your Eyez Only (363K), Metallica's Hardwired To Self Destruct (282K), Frank Ocean's Blonde (232K) and The Weeknd's Starboy (209K).
Chance the Rapper's album Coloring Book became the first to surpass 500K with only streaming album equivalents. Since its debut in May, the album has stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for 33 consecutive weeks, peaking at #8. The album is the 58th highest volume album of the year without the benefit of a single sale, which is truly an historic accomplishment.
While song sales showed steep declines (-25%) vs. last year, s
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
21/10/2025
As Amazon's Prime Video prepares to launch its coverage of NBA basketball under a major new deal, Grup Mediapro has announced that it is working with the st...
21/10/2025
ATLANTA Good news for consumers using an Atlanta DTH receiver to watch ATSC 3.0: with a new software update, they will be able to blanket their homes with Wi-Fi...
21/10/2025
While recent news has been heavily focused on Hispanic migration into the U.S., The 2025 Hispanic Market Report from Claritas highlights the fact that this gr...
21/10/2025
MAIDENHEAD, UK RWS has hired Michael Wayne as its head of media and entertainment in Los Angeles where he will lead the company's media localization busines...
21/10/2025
Imagine Communications and Rohde & Schwarz today announced a definitive agreement under which Imagine will acquire Pixel Power Limited, a wholly owned subsidiar...
21/10/2025
Atlanta DTH (ADTH) today announced a major update that will expand the functionality of its NEXTGEN TV receiver by enabling gateway capabilities allowing viewer...
21/10/2025
Heartland Video Systems, Inc. (HVS), a premier video systems integration, consulting, and expert ATSC 3.0 implementation firm announces that it has partnered wi...
21/10/2025
QuickLink, the leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest integration solutions, today announced the appointment of Austin Hinton as it...
21/10/2025
nternet connectivity startup Miri Technologies Inc. will use this week's NAB Show New York as the launch pad for its latest ground-breaking innovation, the ...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
Highly Anticipated Report Provides Comprehensive Coverage of the Year in Music
