Streaming surge electrifies music industry
Streaming surge electrifies music industry
Christopher Williams, deputy business editor 3 JANUARY
2018 • 12:01AM
Streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music now
account for the majority of music consumption, according to industry figures
that also show a continuing vinyl revival.
BPI, which represents record labels, said that excluding
radio last year Britons did more than half their listening via the internet,
rising to more than 1.5 billion streams in a single week in December.
The claim that streaming accounted for more than half of
overall music consumption is based on estimates of listening habits. The trend
is nevertheless supported by separate financial data collected by the
Entertainment Retailers Association, a trade group comprising streaming
services and physical record sellers including Amazon and HMV.
It said that streaming revenues jumped by 42pc last year
to £577m, more than outweighing a steep fall in download sales and a more
gentle decline in sales of physical singles and albums.
Physical sales were down only 3pc, propped up by a
booming vinyl market. Some 4.1 million LPs were sold, 20 times as many as a
decade earlier, when interest in the analogue format was at its all-time low. Last
year’s sales were worth £88m and accounted for one in every 10 physical music
purchases.
Although Ed Sheeran’s latest album topped the both the
streaming and vinyl charts last year, the vinyl chart was otherwise dominated
by revived classics such as the 40th anniversary pressing of Rumours by
Fleetwood Mac and a reissue of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
The music industry’s new lease of life in recent years
has been granted by new technology, however. Smartphone uptake and better
mobile broadband have prompted consumers to subscribe in their millions to
streaming services, reviving a sector that was on its knees after a decade of
tumbling income and fears that download piracy would kill off investment in new
talent.
Although BPI said “the music industry still has a long
way to go to recover fully”, major labels are enjoying soaring valuations as
investor confidence strengthens.
Wrangling over dividing the spoils of the streaming boom
continue, particularly over the fees YouTube pays labels and the way artists
are paid for individual streams on Spotify and Apple Music.
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