Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Subscriptions Help Increase Music Industry Earnings

On September 20th 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America announced in its mid year report that more than 30.4 million Americans now get their music through a streaming subscription service. That number is up 20.2 million since the first half of  2016. An estimate of overall retail recorded music sales was up 17% in the first half of 2017, to the tune of $4 billion dollars. While this reflects a growth trend that started in 2016, the report makes it clear that it is still below the levels seen in 1999.

Digital revenue accounted for $3.2 billion which was 84% of the industry's total value, and represented an increase of 21% over the first half of 2016. 62% of this years $4 billion revenue increase came as the result of streaming which amounted to $2.5 billion. Digital downloads sales represented 19% of total revenue but continued to decline, selling $757 million which was down 24% from 2016.

Sales from physical media, which include CDs, represented 16% of the total revenue pie. This was down but only by 1% no doubt due to the increase in the interest in vinyl. Paid subscription services on their own managed to pull in  $1.7 billion and provided the music industry with 43% of it total revenues. Ad based on demand streaming was up 34% with sales of $273 million. 

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