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Music industry revenue rose by a tenth last year due to booming streaming platforms and the renaissance of vinyl records, surpassing the cinema’s pre-pandemic sales peak.
According to a report based on data from trade associations, annual copyright music revenue was $45.5 billion last year, up a quarter from 2021 and doubling from 2014. According to media consultancy Omdia Box office spending was $33.2 billion last year and $41.9 billion in 2019.
“Make no mistake: it’s boom time,” said Will Page, the report’s author, former chief economist at music streaming platform Spotify and a fellow at the London School of Economics.
“Cinemas’ pain was streamers’ gain,” Page said, noting that streamers tended to pay more for music than filmmakers. “If you had suggested that music could overtake cinema during our first exercise in 2015, you would have been laughed at.”
Revenues from record labels and their artists totaled $28.5 billion, up 12 percent from the previous year. This shows how the industry has benefited from the growth in music consumption, supported by the popularity of streaming services.
Music publishers and songwriters accounted for the rest – about a third – with consumers as well as commercial businesses such as television shows and restaurants paying directly for music.
Physical sales of music such as CDs and vinyl rose faster than streaming sales, with vinyl in particular increasing by 15.4 percent. In the U.S. alone, vinyl will generate $1 billion a year for labels by the end of 2024 and will soon overtake CD sales, the report predicted.
Page’s report, an annual study, uses data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the artists’ organization CISAC and the International Confederation of Music Publishers.
The value of live performances to music publishers and songwriters now exceeds the value of general licenses, for example through shops and hotels, showing the extent to which bands and artists are traveling to make a living rather than relying on their old releases Played in retail hospitality establishments.
A number of older bands – such as Oasis – have reformed to capitalize on the increasing popularity of live music, while acts such as Coldplay are playing on more nights.
According to the report, the value of digital channels to music publishers and songwriters now exceeds that of broadcast and radio. A decade ago, digital accounted for about 5 percent of revenue, while broadcast accounted for half.
The report also shows the globalization of music: almost a third of all streams in America come from non-American artists, while the UK is the largest importer of music to the US.
