Are there more music-listeners among the middle-aged in Korea?

According to a data analyzed by Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, streaming platform users in their fifties have listened to a total of 1.98 billion minutes on average every month from 2012 to 2022. This number is about twice as high as the minutes for those in their teens (Korean age 13 to 18), who have listened to a total of 1.05 billion minutes on average per month.

The data also reveals that teens were the primary users of streaming platforms and music-listening until 2017. But since then, the numbers started waning for teens while figures went up for those in their fifties, steadily increasing until the present day. People in their fifties have also increased their use of music apps by 172% compared to 2021, and those in their sixties have also increased their uses by 205.2%.

Experts conjecture that the reason behind these figures owes highly to the popularity of trot audition programs and artists like Lim Young Woong, Song Ga In, Kim Ho Joong, and Lee Chan Won. Such artists have also taken to other genres like ballad and classic, which has widened the demographic of listeners. 

Women fans who are parenting in their fifties are also shown to be avid attendees at music concerts. The percentage of tickets purchased by the middle-aged clients have risen from 5.5% to 9.7% since 2019, and experts speculate that they must also consider the younger ticket-holders making purchases for their elderly 'mothers.'

Meanwhile, the highest number of music listeners were those in their twenties and thirties, respectively ranking #1 and #2 with 5.59 billion and 4.35 billion minutes.

In the comments section, netizens shared real-life experiences of knowing many domestic fans in their fifties, such as their mothers, in big support of Lim Young Woong and the trot genre. What are your thoughts?