- Kenneth Hein

NEW YORK Whether checking on rapper Fabolous' health scare or Alicia Keys love life, women are far more likely to be heading to music news or listening sites than men, according to Nielsen NetView data.

In August, women made up 56.1 percent of the Web traffic to music sites. Overall, music sites pulled in 42.5 million unique female visitors last month.
 
While it might seem like young girls would be scouring sites for the latest news on the Jonas Brothers, it is actually women 35-60 who make up about a third of visitors to music sites.
 
Females age 35-49 make up the largest group. More than 14.5 million women within that demographic visited online music sites in August. This made up 19.2 percent of all visitors to music sites during the month.
 
Less than a fifth (15.6 percent) of U.S. females 18 or older said they purchased music online within the past six months. Sixteen percent said they bought a music offline during the same span, per Nielsen@Plan Fall 2009 Survey. Slightly more than 8 percent of women watched or listened to music online.
 
The top two sites visited by women for the month of August were: AOL Music (11.8 million unique visitors) and Yahoo Music (9.9 million). MSN Music was a distant third with a unique audience of 3.9 million.

Adweek is a unit of the Nielsen Co.


See also:

"Has Music Become Devalued as a Branding Tool?"

"The Not-so-Big Generation Gap in Music Taste"

"Web Music Players Strike a New Chord"