Digital News South Africa

AccuWeather partners with Spotify to provide playlists based on the weather

AccuWeather, the American digital media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide, has announced its partnership with music streaming service Spotify to launch Climatune.

Climatune was created by AccuWeather and Spotify to provide insights into how the weather around you affects the music you listen to everyday, providing the relative musical score for any weather, come rain or shine.

AccuWeather partners with Spotify to provide playlists based on the weather

Through a yearlong study comparing 85bn anonymised streams on Spotify in over 900 cities nationwide, AccuWeather and Spotify analysed the impact weather has on the music people listen to. Conclusions included:

  • Sunny days typically encourage listening to happier and higher-energy music.
  • Rainy days bring lower-energy, sadder-sounding music with more acoustic vs. electronic sounds.
  • Snowy days encourage more instrumental music.

However, there are variations in weather/listening behavior based on location. For example, in the US:

  • New York City and Philadelphia listeners are the most affected by bad weather; with residents of these cities substantially changing their listening when it rains.
  • Chicagoans get excited by the rain and stream happier music.
  • Miami and Seattle listeners buck the trend and listen to more energetic music on cloudy days.
  • San Franciscans, on the other hand, seem saddest on cloudy days.
  • Houston responds the most strongly to rain, with acoustic listening increasing by 121 percent when it rains.

"There is a clear connection between what's in the skies and what's on users' play queues," said Spotify data researcher, Ian Anderson. "For almost all of the major cities around the world that we studied, sunny days translate to higher streams of happier-sounding music," said Anderson. "Sunny weather has an even bigger impact in Europe."

"AccuWeather is pleased to partner with Spotify, combining the power of AccuWeather's comprehensive global weather data and music," said Steven Smith, President of Digital Media at AccuWeather. "Climatune is another innovative, engaging way that AccuWeather personalizes the weather so people can improve their lives."

Climatune provides Spotify users with music playlists based on the weather in that user's area, and the moods which fellow local music listeners experience during weather conditions, such as sun, clouds, rain, wind and snow.

Go to AccuWeather.com/EnterpriseSolutions for more info.

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