The news: Entertainment app session lengths in Q1 2026 reached a high between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, while music and audio engagement declined, according to our industry KPI data provided by Airship.

• Entertainment apps—which include video streaming, sports, and content-driven experiences—rebounded to a period-high of 3.80 minutes in Q1 2026, up from 3.78 minutes in Q1 2025 and 2.97 minutes in Q3 2025.
• Music and audio had an opposite trajectory. Session lengths reached 3.21 minutes in Q1 2025 and 3.46 minutes in Q3 2025, but fell sharply to 2.35 minutes in Q4 2025 and 2.23 minutes in Q1 2026. Time spent showed a similar pattern: Music and audio’s share peaked between 2024 and mid-2025, but has since declined to levels last seen in 2023.
• Other app categories were more stable; news and magazine apps remained between 3.16 to 3.36 minutes in the periods measured, while food and drink hovered around 1.2 to 1.3 minutes.

Why it matters: The widening gap between other entertainment apps and music and audio app sessions reflects a broader shift in consumer media engagement in a period of massive attention fragmentation.

• Nielsen reported that streaming reached a record share of TV viewing time in 2025, highlighting consumers’ growing preference for video-first experiences as music streaming enters a more mature phase defined by passive listening behaviors.
• Audio consumption remains strong, but is often relegated to background media. Nielsen’s audio research found Americans still spend nearly four hours daily consuming audio across radio, podcasts, streaming, and satellite, but streaming music represents only a fraction of total audio consumption as other formats compete for listening time.

Takeaways for marketers: The findings underscore how content format influences engagement quality, not just audience size. Consumers are concentrating time around video, streaming, and interactive experiences, while audio apps are increasingly becoming more relegated to background listening.

Longer sessions on entertainment apps create more opportunities for content consumption, ad exposure, and subscription value. The data suggests that consumers are spending more active and engaged time in other entertainment apps.

Music streaming growth, meanwhile, is increasingly coming from optimization and retention rather than large increases in user engagement as the format becomes a more passive, utility-like behavior. Audio apps also face growing competition from podcasts and short-form content.

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