The RIAA simply put out the music industry’s midyear revenue report, and it’s a stark illustration of the haves / have-not divide that’s been accelerating within the streaming period. Really, scratch that: it’s a terrific illustration of how good it’s for the haves: retail income is up 9.3 % to an all-time first half excessive of $8.4 billion, whereas wholesale income is up 8.3 % to five.3 billion. (You possibly can learn a very good explanation of retail versus wholesale here; the business focuses on retail since that’s the place client streaming companies get counted.)
Streaming income was up 10.3 % from final 12 months — at $7 billion, it accounts for 84 % of music income in the US. Importantly, the RIAA explicitly notes that income from paid subscriptions grew 11 % to $5.5 billion, however the whole variety of paid subscriptions solely grew 6 % — that delta is nearly actually all the way down to services like Spotify hiking prices.
All of that is in stark distinction to the complaints of artists, most of whom don’t make any worthwhile cash from streaming in any respect and have escalated numerous copyright fights for publishing credits to receives a commission for radio play to absurd ranges. However hey, not less than the tech execs and label bosses are pleased.
There are extra charts and graphs within the industry’s full report — vinyl followers shall be pleased to see the format continues to develop, with bodily media hitting the very best income since 2013, though it’s comparatively small at $882 million. Vinyl accounted for $632 million of that, and the format makes up 72 % of bodily media gross sales, with 23 million albums offered in comparison with 15 million CDs. Lastly, it’s vital to notice that ringtones are nonetheless a $6 million enterprise, which… can we get some native music venues funded with that cash, please?