The isolation caused by the spread of coronavirus means people are sitting inside all day streaming music, right? Actually, maybe not. At least for the most popular songs, people in some highly affected countries are streaming far fewer songs during the pandemic than before.
In Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by coronavirus, the top 200 most streamed songs on Spotify within the country averaged 18.3 million total streams per day in February 2019. Since Italyโs prime minister announced a national quarantine on March 9th, the total streams for the 200 most popular songs have not topped 14.4 million. There was a 23% drop in top 200 streams on Tuesday March 17th compared to Tuesday, March 3rd.