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18th August 2006

With the arrival of MTV pending Auckland youth research company 18 Ltd decided to investigate the current music buying, swapping, 'stealing' and listening habits of their target market. Not surprisingly the results of their 'Music & Youth Culture' nationwide survey of 374 respondents makes for some interesting reading.

Rock still rools! Given a three way genre selection of NZ artists, rock gained 52% approval as the 'pinnacle of cool', trailed by rap/hip hop with 25% and electronica on 18%. Rock also enjoyed the lowest 'uncool' ratings.

Asked 'is burning/downloading music a form of stealing', over half (53%) answered no, it isn't. Only a quarter felt that the NZ Top 20 is the most accurate measure for popular songs, a few more valued overseas Top 20s, while 35% said it is download charts that are the most accurate.
Girls proved to be slower starters in the download stakes, with half of the boys but only a quarter of the girls, having downloaded some music by the age of 14.

Thirty percent thought that the '00s is the best decade for music, but perhaps most alarmingly of all the statistics gathered by 18 Ltd, almost a quarter (24%) reckoned that it was the '80s! C4's Flashbacks may have a lot to answer for.

For MTV to win out the report concludes, the new channel will need to adopt an alternative from of "glocalization" or unique blend of global music culture with local programming to distinguish itself from its competitors.