UK Tribes

UK Tribes

Usually to identify a target audience and what tribe they belong to in the UK we use UK Tribes. However, after some intensive research, we figured that UK Tribes do not have a section or tribe for country-listeners as country music hasnt been identified as appealing to young listeners yet however, this figure is growing. Therefore, I had to use other sources of information to do my research such as demographics of country listeners in the UK and current artists who still carry a country background. The country genre is still classed as very niche genre across the UK, this is because it’s not as popular as other mainstream genres such as pop or Hip-Hop/Indie like it used to be years ago. BBC Radio 2 has been a massive influencer in distributing country music to mass audiences, as they usually promote upcoming bands and artists within the genre. The current listeners of this channel will have a strong country background or at least have some interest in it. They pay Nashville tracks regularly to 15 million weekly listeners across the UK.

39% of the UK population listen to country music on a regular basis. This results in 4.9 million resistance listening to the genre. Areas in the UK which are frequent listeners of this type of music are Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, Wales and Manchester. Very surprising in my opinion. This broken down into more demographics shows that 47% of people aged 18-24 listen to country music, with the highest demographic being 57% of people aged over 65 are listening to country music. There shouldn’t be any surprises there as usually older people are known to like the country lifestyle, however, this could be another stereotype after all. Across the UK, Millennials are 2x more likely to listen to country music daily. 30% of people listen monthly, 13% listen daily, 29% listen every other day and 28% listen weekly. These figures break down the country audience even more in the UK which gives us an insight on how people with an interest in the genre use their time in a contrasting way towards the type of music they like. Most people in the UK access their country music through traditional radio stations (44%), this links back to the BBC Radio 2 point above. The second biggest platform for listing is physical CD’s or album at 38% followed by YouTube which is what most young country listeners use at 34% overall.

An example of an artist who is known to have a strong country background is Taylor Swift. She became very successful in the US which leads to her being brought over to the UK three times in 2009. Her album “Fearless” became the biggest seller in the US, just 5 months later she was playing at Wembley Stadium in front of thousands of people. In 2014 she had 15 sells out arenas in the UK, this shows that there is a market for country music as usually, all music has some touch of country but people just don’t recognise it.  Although the genre is still classed as niche this may not be a problem as a lot of people are now wanting to be different and try new things, so now might be the perfect time for us to release a music video for a country song which might appeal to a variety of different people and bring them over from genres such as Pop, and Rock which sometimes can be very similar, hence why some Hip-hop artists are now collaborating with country artists e.g. Nelly and Florida Georgia Line and the ever so evolving music which Taylor Swift produces proves just that.

Across the UK, there are many events/concerts which people with a country interest can come to listen to their favourite artists and discover new people who also like the same type of music. There is a guarantee that people at these events will have a strong interest in our song choice and the final turnout of the video. These events are also partnered with BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 2 Country which is what gives the event/concert more publicity. Most of these people will fall into our target audience of 24-39 as is the most general and popular age range for country people to be actively engaged with the genre and latest trends.