Eric Weinberg, President, Entertainment, Nielsen
New York City is the number one market for country album sales, according to Nielsen. The Big Apple bested even Nashville when looking at the sheer number of albums sold. Nashville came in at number six, while the top three was rounded out by Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth. This year to date, 31.8 million physical and digital country albums have been sold nationwide.
New York owes its top spot more to population than popularity. When looking at music sales by genre, the South and Midwest stayed true to their country roots. Music lovers in Charleston-Huntington, W.V., were the most likely to buy country albums, and Nashville holds the number five spot in this list. Nashville residents were nearly twice as likely to buy country albums as the general U.S. population.
Incidentally, New York is the only top media market not to have its own country radio station. Year to date, country album sales account for 13 percent of all album sales in the U.S. Country music ranks fourth among the top music genres, behind Rock, R&B and Alternative. Digital country music album purchasing is up 31 percent year-to-date, greater than the overall digital music album growth of 20 percent.
| Country Album Sales By Market* | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| DMA | Country Albums Sold | Total Albums Sold | |
| 1 | New York, NY | 826,000 | 16,977,000 |
| 2 | Los Angeles, CA | 823,000 | 13,385,000 |
| 3 | Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX | 788,000 | 5,708,000 |
| 4 | Chicago, IL | 595,000 | 7,868,000 |
| 5 | Houston, TX | 592,000 | 4,528,000 |
| 6 | Nashville, TN | 587,000 | 2,357,000 |
| 7 | Washington, DC | 585,000 | 6,607,000 |
| 8 | Atlanta, GA | 583,000 | 4,819,000 |
| 9 | Boston, MA | 523,000 | 5,958,000 |
| 10 | Philadelphia, PA | 509,000 | 6,747,000 |
| *YTD Country Albums Sold Through the Week Ending October 30, 2011 | 31,795,000 | 249,287,000 |
