A method comprising: receiving a media content item by a first processing device, wherein the media content item comprises audio; determining, by the first processing device, a set of features of the media content item, wherein said features comprise a plurality of features extracted from the audio of the media content item over a time interval of a tenth of a second into the frequency domain, wherein the plurality of features in the frequency domain are determined by performing a fast Fourier transform to transform the audio at the time interval into the frequency domain; analyzing, by the first processing device, the set of features extracted from the audio media content over the time interval using a first media classification profile comprising a first Gaussian mixture model and a second Gaussian mixture model, wherein the first and second Gaussian mixture models use fifty-two features extracted from the audio media content every tenth of a second to determine a first probability of the media content item belonging to a first class of media content items representative of music and a second probability of the media content item belonging to for a second class of media content items representative of a lack of music content and thereby generate an estimate of how likely the received media content item matches said first class or said second class, wherein if the probability that a media content item belongs to a particular class exceeds or meets a probability threshold of the first media classification profile, then it is determined that the media content item is a member of that particular class; determining whether the media content item belongs to the first class of media content items or the second class of the media content items based on a result of the analyzing; determining whether to perform identification of the media content item based on whether the media content item belongs to the first class of media content items or the second class of media content items; responsive to determining that the media content item belongs to the first class, sending at least one of a) a portion of the media content item or b) a digital fingerprint of the media content item to a second processing device for further processing by an identification service; and responsive to determining that the media content item belongs to the second class, bypassing further processing of the media content item without sending the media content item to the second processing device to reduce bandwidth and processor utilization of the identification service. receiving a media content item by a first processing device, wherein the media content item comprises audio; determining, by the first processing device, a set of features of the media content item, wherein said features comprise a plurality of features extracted from the audio of the media content item over a time interval of a tenth of a second into the frequency domain, wherein the plurality of features in the frequency domain are determined by performing a fast Fourier transform to transform the audio at the time interval into the frequency domain; analyzing, by the first processing device, the set of features extracted from the audio media content over the time interval using a first media classification profile comprising a first Gaussian mixture model and a second Gaussian mixture model, wherein the first and second Gaussian mixture models use fifty-two features extracted from the audio media content every tenth of a second to determine a first probability of the media content item belonging to a first class of media content items representative of music and a second probability of the media content item belonging to for a second class of media content items representative of a lack of music content and thereby generate an estimate of how likely the received media content item matches said first class or said second class, wherein if the probability that a media content item belongs to a particular class exceeds or meets a probability threshold of the first media classification profile, then it is determined that the media content item is a member of that particular class; determining whether the media content item belongs to the first class of media content items or the second class of the media content items based on a result of the analyzing; determining whether to perform identification of the media content item based on whether the media content item belongs to the first class of media content items or the second class of media content items; responsive to determining that the media content item belongs to the first class, sending at least one of a) a portion of the media content item or b) a digital fingerprint of the media content item to a second processing device for further processing by an identification service; and responsive to determining that the media content item belongs to the second class, bypassing further processing of the media content item without sending the media content item to the second processing device to reduce bandwidth and processor utilization of the identification service.